This isn’t “Mad Men” that cool TV show depicting ad agency life in the 1960s. So you don’t need to be Don Draper to write effective Google text ads. Instead, you just need to…

Start with the basics:

Every text ad has four elements, and each element has its very own goal (and character limit):

1. Headline: make it interesting and relevant to your prospects (up to 25 characters);
2. Benefit statement: why should prospects use your services? (up to 35 characters);
3. Call to action or key feature: convince them to act now! (up to 35 characters);
4. URL: where do you want to send prospects? Hint: don’t send them to your homepage.

For example, let’s take a look at how Google advertises its own services using text ads… since they should know what they’re doing right?

1. Google Search Advertising
2. Get Qualified Visitors to Your Site
3. Place Your Ad on Google Today!
4. www.Google.com/AdWords

1. Google Marketing
2. Online Marketing Was Never So Easy
3. Market Your Business on Google Now
4. www.Google.com/AdWords

We’ve added numbers to correspond to each text ad element (aren’t we helpful?)

See how Google marketing folks have written each of the ad elements in these text ads? That’s what you want to do. Not impressed? Trust me that each element in these ads has been carefully crafted to maximize you clicking… if you’re a prospect!

Now it’s your turn.

Here’s what to keep in mind when writing each element of your own text ads.

The all important headline

Your headline has a big job. Namely, to break through the search results clutter and grab the attention of prospects before they move on. Did I mention that you only have a split-second to do that? Clear, concise, and engaging headlines work best. And when in doubt use keywords since those reflect what your prospects are actually searching for!

Your benefits statement…  it’s not all about you (sorry!)

Everyone likes to talk about themselves. I sure do. But your customers actually care about themselves more than they do about you. Keep that in mind when writing your benefit statement. For example, why should prospects use your services? Maybe they’ll look beautiful and feel good too. Or make tons more money. How about impress their friends and family? Now those are benefits!

Give them a good reason to act now!

Congrats on getting them to notice your headline and for hitting the “me” button with your benefit statement. Now it’s time to say why you’re unique and drive them to action. How about: “Free Quote and Overnight Delivery” or “100% Organic but Supplies Limited”. You get the idea!

What about your URL?

Did you know that the URL is the second most visible element in your text ads (after your headline)? It’s true! So make sure and capitalize the first letter in each word of your URL so it’s easier to read. And if you’re sending prospect to a landing page (smart!) that has a long URL… then take advantage of the fact that Google lets you display a special shortened URL.

Some other comments and helpful stuff

Remember, you still need to find out what works best given your prospects, products, and competition! Try different headlines, benefits, and calls-to-action. And don’t be stingy in using keywords in your text ads when you can. The bottom line: just keep testing which text ads and ad elements generate the most clicks from your prospects.

Want to learn more? Here are some helpful blog posts to keep you moving down the path from novice to “Mad Man”.

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And don’t forget we’re here to help. Always feel free to give us a call at 888-330-3236.

When it comes to online advertising, Google and other “paid search” providers have us convinced that it’s all about “clicks.” How many clicks did your paid search program generate? Which ads generated the most clicks? What are you paying per click? You get the idea!

But wait a minute… just because someone clicked on your ad doesn’t mean they’ll buy your product or even give you a call. Far from it! As a matter of fact, many website visitors that result from your advertising efforts will never buy from you. Why? Because they leave your site within seconds of arriving (i.e., they bounce), which means they have no interest at all. So forget clicks… you need to first understand bounce rate when evaluating your online advertising performance.

Why is bounce rate more important than clicks? Because bounce rate is a good proxy for how many unqualified website visitors you’re paying for. As a matter of fact, these visitors are so unqualified they don’t even stick around long enough to find out what you’re selling… let alone buy from you. But you’re still paying for every click that sends them your way.

Here’s some quick math to put it in costly perspective:

Let’s assume you spend $1,000 with Google to send 1,000 visitors to your website. Let’s also say that 60% of these visitors leave within ten seconds of arriving so your bounce rate is 60%. This means you paid Google $600 (60% of $1,000) for clicks so unqualified they barely lasted seconds on your site!

Now it’s time for the obvious question: do you know the bounce rate of your advertising campaigns? It’s easy to find out if you have web analytics set up for your site. Just look at your web analytics’ dashboard and start paying attention to your “bounce rate” stats. And if you’re not using web analytics then now’s the time to start!

With that in mind, here are some guidelines for improving your bounce rate:

• Track ad campaigns separately. Make sure you’re evaluating the bounce rate for each ad campaign. That way you can quickly get your arms around which campaigns have the highest bounce rate (i.e., most unqualified visitors) and the lowest (i.e., most qualified visitors).

• Stop poor performing ads. That new text ad may be generating a ton of clicks but what’s the point if your bounce rate is 98%? This example may seem extreme but once you start focusing on bounce rate you’ll see that (unfortunately) it’s not. Simple solution: stop running ad campaigns with high bounce rates… or at least, rethink what you’re doing.

• Send visitors to custom landing pages. Maybe your homepage isn’t the best place to send visitors once they’ve clicked on your ad banner. If you’re running a promotional offer, you should instead send them to a “landing page” that’s been customized for that offer. Who knows… you might discover that more of your clickers are qualified prospects after all.

• Test, test, and test some more. As every good marketer knows, it’s all about testing and optimizing. Now that you’re focusing on bounce rate you should do the same! Test different types of ads, placements, keywords, landing pages… you name it. You’ll soon find a good balance between what you’re paying per click and lower bounce rates.

All sounds great right? But I bet you’re still wondering what benchmark percentages to use to determine good vs. bad bounce rates. Ask the experts and they’ll be quick to say, “It depends.” But I never find that very helpful so I’ll go out on a limb and offer a simple benchmark. Shoot for an average bounce rate of under 50% for your online advertising efforts.

Just keep in mind that we’re talking about your ad campaigns. Bounce rates from visitors that type in your URL directly or that come from natural search should be much lower… but don’t be surprised as they’ll bounce too!