Spice Up Your Google Ad Copy With These Tricks.
How many times have you seen businesses advertise with this language:
Customized services
Award-winning solutions
Top-notch quality
Excellent customer service
50+ years of experience
Do these words inspire you to take action? Probably not. And still, this is what I see in the majority of advertisements.
These phrases are overused for a couple of reasons. First of all, Google Ads only allow 30 characters for a headline and 90 characters for a description. Confining your copy makes it challenging to be creative.
When you input ad copy, you’ll simply fill in the fields to build the ad previewed on the right.
Secondly, they just aren’t all that terrible! Commonly used phrases aren’t “bad” value props. The problem lies in blending with the competition and failing to build trust in users with blanket statements.
It starts with being specific.
Instead of finding new value props, you might be able phrase these points impactfully by being specific. For instance, instead of “Top-Notch Quality”, you could say “#1 Rated Ice Cream in LA”. Instead of “Excellent Customer Service” you could say “100 Customer Support Experts”.
Now that you’ve selected your value props and made them as specific as possible, try these practical tricks to boost ad engagement.
Emphasize stress relief.
Your products are a solution to a problem. For that reason, marketing copy should always be driven by the pain points of your target audience.
One of the most common pains a product solves is stress relief. And no one’s talking about it in their ads! Not only is it a unique approach, but speaking to stress feels personable and reassuring.
Try 30-character headlines like these:
Nervous about home-buying?
Stressed about ad budget?
Unsure of the process?
Relax and let us do the work.
Use adjectives no one else uses.
As we mentioned, there are plenty of widely-used adjectives you’ll find in ads. And there’s no real formula to find more unique or punchy adjectives.
Just go with your common sense and try pushing yourself to think of adjectives that say the same thing in a new way.
Instead of “custom,” say “unlimited”
Instead of “quality,” say “game-changing”
Instead of “leading,” say “world-class”
Instead of “expert,” say “elite”
Use prices and statistics.
Ad giant Wordstream recently listed statistics as their #2 recommendation for ad copy.
See how the numbers jump out in this ad? Better still, being upfront about price reduces a buyer’s research. Buyers know right away whether or not they can afford your services.
Numbers build trust, demonstrate value, and visually attract interest.
Use a symbol.
You’ll have to request an extra review step when using symbols, but they can be a unique way to outshine your competitors.
Do you have a trademarked tagline? Use a ™ or ® symbol to catch people’s eye. You can also use asterisks to indicate star ratings or plus signs to replace “and”.
Browse leading advertisers for inspiration.
The top ad experts in the country are working at big-name agencies. And most of these agencies are located in cities like NYC, Chicago, LA, and Miami.
To see what they’re doing, search a phrase like “marketing agency NYC” and see which ads appear.
Ready to start writing ad copy?
Before you get into the ad interface, I recommend you map out your key value props and copy ideas ahead of time. This will streamline the process so that when you’re focusing on ad structure, you have some verbiage to copy/paste into your ads quickly.
Not quite there yet? If you want to learn more about pairing down your value props and defining your target market, be sure to check out my Small Business Marketing Guide!
