The secret of Adwords Copy Writing

The secret of Adwords Copy Writing



As you progress in your Google Adwords efforts,

sooner or later you run into this- no matter how

great your keyword choices are, unless you can

make good ads your campaign is dead in the water.



What is the secret of a good Adwords ad? Read on

and find out.



The biggest problem you face is that Google considers

a "good" ad to just be one that gets clicked on

the most, but you need an ad that is going

to bring people to your site that are actually

real customers, and not freebie seekers,

if you are going to actually make some profit.



That is one of the hardest things about Adwords,

it is actually a delicate balance between ads that

get clicked on a lot, that Google considers "relevant"

and the ads that have the highest possible return for your

advertising dollar, which are often not the same thing.



This article is going to present a few ideas starting

at the basic level, and then continue with some pro

refinements to add to your Adwords campaigns.



GETTING TO SQUARE ONE WITH GOOGLE



A lot of marketing of anything is like a funnel:



At the biggest end of the funnel you need a lot

of people that are coming into your store.



Not all of those people are going to become customers

but your advertising has brought them in, so they

are mildly interested in what you have to offer, and

they are willing to take advantage of free information

and learn a little bit more. They are easily turned off.



A certain percentage of those people above will be

willing to take your free pamphlet, or give you their

email address to sign up for your free newsletter or

download something that they think will help them

learn more.



A certain percentage of THOSE will call, contact a salesperson

or if it is a small item, buy it right there.



An even smaller percentage will become your customers,

and if you do a good job, become your lifeling customers, and

buy more products from you.



These percentages make or break your business,

regardless of what you are selling.



How does this relate to Adwords? Your Adwords

strategy should mirror your marketing strategy

for your entire business, with a couple of

added tweaks.



The first thing we are going to do is, for the people

that are frustrated with their Adwords campaign,

getting words inactive or disabled and not being

able to really get the campaign off the ground, we

are going to build the first part of your marketing

funnel, which oddly enough is exactly what

Google wants you to do!



What Google wants is relevant search results.



This probably won't ever change, and hasn't

changed in at least 5 years now. If you can

deliver an ad that delivers relevant content

to what a person is searching for and offers the

solution to that problem as a benefit statement, you have

won half the battle right there.



There is more to this than you think, and tapping into

this Adwords secret is actually a major marketing

secret, if you can do it. Some people can't.



What you need to do is...(drumroll please)



PUT YOURSELF IN SOMEONE ELSES SHOES.



Can you do this for real? If you are in an argument

with your wife can you stop and look at everything

exactly like she would? Can you look at the world

the same way the mechanic does who fixes your

car? If your kid wants candy, can you actually look

at the world like your kid would?



If you can, you have mastered the ultimate

Adwords copy writing secret, and the secret of

master marketers.



Or to say it a different way, its not about YOU,

its about THEM



Here is how to use this secret in Adwords, and why you

need to use it to the hilt:



When people search for something on the internet,

they never go with the intention of buying something,

they go to research and find out about things, and

they usually want their information FREE.



They came to the search engine in the first place

because they wanted to solve a problem. Find

out what that problem is, and give them the solution

to that problem AS A BENEFIT STATEMENT and

you will kill most of the other Adwords advertisors

out there in your market.



The key, the mantra from Google is relevance.



The key for you, is relevance, and what problem

are they trying to solve with doing that search.



Lets say someone is searching for "cheap

childrens shoes"



That problem is obvious-the person wants some shoes for their kids,

and doesn't want to pay a lot for them.



Ok Sherlock, now answer these questions:



Is the searcher a man or a woman?



How old is the searcher?



What is their economic status?



What kind of house do they live in?



What kind of computer are they probably using?



Are they a Democrat, Republican, or Other?



You are right- You don't know. But there are

some statistical probablilties if you are in

the US.



There is a very high probability that it will

be a woman, who is internet saavy, and there

is a good chance that her household actually

has some good disposable income. In other

words, she may not consider herself rich,

but she is definately not poor, and probably

considers herself a smart shopper as well.



So this ad should be written to HER if possible.



Just for fun, I went to Google, searched for cheap childrens shoes,

and I found the following ads. Here they are, in order:



Kids Clothing

OldNavy.com Summer's Must-Have Styles For Kids- Old Navy - Fun,



Fashion & Value



Children's Shoes

www.angelcovers.org Sandals that are fun for kids! The squeaks are a great



parental aid.



Those were on top of the page, we would consider those positions 1 and 2.



Here are the ones on the right side of the page in positions 3-10:



cheap kids shoes

Over 300 shoe brands.

365 day return policy at Zappos.

www.zappos.com



Kid's Shoes at Shoebuy

Free Shipping. No Tax. All Sizes.

Plus Free Returns & Great Savings.

www.shoebuy.com



Kid's Shoes

Learn About ReNForce Sneakers -

Durable Shoes for Your Active Son!

www.NewBalance.com



Children's Footwear

Find the Latest Styles for Children

At Affordable Prices - Shop Online!

www.JCPenney.com



Compare Prices at BizRate

Bargain Prices.

You want it, we got it!

BizRate.com



Find Shoes at Shoes.com

Shop Over 200 Brands at Shoes.com

Free Shipping, Free Returns, No Tax

www.Shoes.com



Save on Discount Shoes

Save 35-70% on Discount shoes.

Web Only Sale-20% off select items

www.SierraTradingPost.com



Sandals - Free Shipping

Your online shoe source

Free Returns & 110% price match

www.shoedini.com



Which ads were best? It depends.



The ultimate test is to do this same search

3 months from now and see who is still

there. That is the ultimate test of

what is "best".



One thing is that the ads that are listed

on the top of the actual search results

have to have a minimum click through

rate that is pretty high, in order to be

featured there, and a pretty high cost

per click, which is why you will often

find big lazy corporations in the top spots.



They just pay for the number one spot, and

in most cases that's just the way it is. Just

try to outspend them. You can't.



So in this case if you have a small shoe

store, forget about trying to compete with

Old Navy. That won't happen.



As you look over the ads, you find a

couple sandal manufactures, a shopping

comparison site with a kind of generic ad,

a shoe manufacturer, another major retailer,

JC pennys, and a couple sites that seem to have

exactly what the searcher is looking for,

lots of shoes at discounted prices.



So what copy would get you to click on these ads?



Here's the benefits, extracted out of all these ads:

*Discounts

*Fun

*Huge Selection

*Return Policy

*Lowest Price Guarantee

*Desireable Styles (only in the old navy ad)

*No tax



Note that if you have done your market research,

( Check out http://www.dataresourceconsulting.com/marketing-surveys.htm

for how to do this )You should know what the

most important concerns are for your customers.

The only way to know for sure is to ASK THEM.



If you don't know the key benefits your target

market is seeking, or what the key problems

or concerns they are facing, you can't write

an effective ad. For the purposes of this article

we will just use these benefits above and assume

they are correct.This might not be the case, and

out of all these benefits only one or two will be

the most important, but just be aware that market

research fits in right here and is very important.



For now, we will just assume that our market

research shows that shoe shoppers want low prices,

great desireable styles, an easy return policy, lots of shoes

in stock, and lets add fast shipping to that list for fun.



Remember all we want to do at this first level

for you, the frustrated advertiser is make an ad

that people will click on, so that your advertising

program won't be constantly disabled by Google

and you can actually start getting some visitors

to your site.



What is the weapon? Lets stay with relevance

first. One of the other advantages of relevance

is that if you use the keywords in your ad that

the user types in, Google automatically makes

them bold by default. So you can get a bold

ad for the same price as a regular ad, just by

making it more relevant.



This helps you, especially in the title.



Not one advertisor here actually used the

actual search phrase in the title. So lets

use that to our advantage. Here's a first try:



Cheap Childrens Shoes

Childrens Shoes-Cheap Prices, Major

Brands, With Free, Fast Shipping!

www.mysite.com/discount



In this ad, the title and most of the first line

would be bold, which will help us. Also we

are tweaking the display url, and using that

as an additional, subtle benefit.



Here's another idea:



Cheap Fun Childrens Shoes

Thousands of Name Brand Discounted

Shoes, Shipped Fast with One Click!

www.mysite.com/freeship



This one does the same thing, but

emphases convenience and instant

gratification, something that works in lots of

industries and something that internet surfers

are notorius for demanding.



Like anything else, you have to try

a few variations. I have no idea how

well these ads would do, and I have

no affilation with any online shoe store

or company, this is just based on

a 30 second quick look of one search, but

It is a decent first stab at it.



Now that we have conquered relevance,

lets take the next step:



DON"T BE CHEAP



When you have a couple ads that you

want to test that you think are pretty relevant

to the keywords, and you have the first

ads to test, start out by bidding high enough

to get your ads in the first 4 positions.



Make your budget enough that you will

be one of the first ads that people see,

so you can be fair about how it performs.



If you start off with the idea, "well I can

only afford 30 cents a click" you have already

lost the game.



You might have a great ad, but if you bury

it on the second page of search results

you are going to have more automatic

software visiting your ad than actual searchers,

and your click through rate will be abysmal.



If your budget isn't high enough your ad just

won't be shown enough for you to be able

to tell how good it is. You need at least 200-400

impressions (times your ad was shown) for even the

smallest test and the smallest budget, and Ideally all done

the same day, or you will drive yourself nuts.



Once you have tested your ad, either it will

have a better than .5 Click through Rate

(this means one out of every 200 people clicks on the ad) or it wont.



If it does, you can then optimize the

price. If it doesn't, keep testing new ads

until you can get something that works.



Once you get your ad with at least a .5

click through rate you can then move onto

more advanced concepts, including optimizing the price.



Free Resources to learn more about Adwords

copywriting:



1) Try the Adwords podcast at http://www.aardvarkabductions.com/



There is a free one hour mp3 all about Adwords copywriting

that you can listen to, with several leading copywriters



2) Check out http://marketingnewsblog.adwordstraining.org



Free Blog with lots of resources and Adwords tutorials,

and additional info about Adwords copy writing.



3) Or, you can hire a professional to do it for you, and maximize

your site for the highest return as well:



http://www.dataresourceconsulting.com/search-engine-optimization.htm



This article ended up being a little longer than I planned, and is a little

bit to digest in one sitting, so I am going to quit here, and save the

optimization techniques for a second article.



Here's to beating the system and cracking the Google Adwords code!



-Steve Blom







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About the Author



Steve Blom is a founding partner of InTouch Media Group, a publicly traded



company specializing in the online marketing field.



http://www.intouchmediagroup.com



steve@intouchmediagroup.com

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