Within the confines of a PPC ad text you need to be relevant to your keywords, list as many benefits as possible, be unique and stand out from your competition, and include a clear call-to-action. As you strive to to incorporate all of these tactics into your ad texts you shouldn’t loose site of the fact that you’re trying to connect with real people.

While monitoring your click-through rate and conversion rate, also the time-on-site, pages per visitor, percent of new vs. return visitors and a plethora of other available stats, you need to remember that these numbers represent people. These stats are numerical representations of how well you have connected with your target audience, and the individuals who make up your audience.

Paid search marketing, and marketing in general, is all about making the right connections with the right people. People have hopes, dreams, needs, fears, likes, dislikes, and the list goes on and on. Your PPC ad texts should address these core concerns.

Often, when writing PPC ads, we focus on why some should click on your ad. A core concern/emotion that is often neglected is fear (or perhaps apathy). You should also take into consideration why someone wouldn’t click on your ad. What keeps someone from clicking on your ad?

This is the great thing about search marketing: someone is searching for you (or someone like you). Don’t take this for granted; you have to take the next step to convince them that they’ve found exactly what they’re looking for.

When optimizing your ad text performance you should think about this: if a user searches on a keyword that is relevant to your products/services, and they see your ad copy (which is keyword-focused and benefit-driven) but they don’t click on your ad. Seems like everything should be in place. So, what fears or concerns is holding a user back? Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic ball to tell you why a specific user, or group of users, aren’t attracted to your ad.

Of course, the best to way find out what works is to split test your PPC ad copy. However, before you write copy to test, you need to meditate on what your audience is looking for. How does your product/service solve their current problem and what can you say in your ad text that will talk to your audience’s core concerns?

The answers to these questions will be different for every advertiser. However, once you have developed a few ideas, molded them into new PPC ad texts, then I wholly suggest that you split test your ads to see if you’ve addressed these issues.

This brings us back to stats. Yes, that which I earlier suggested you step away from to get some perspective, I suggest that you turn to when learning if you’ve improved ads. This is the best way to know if you’ve enhanced your messaging. So, this is a rough outline of the process:

1. Think about your customer’s core emotional concerns
2. Review the ad texts you have running now
3. Meditate on why certain ads have the best response rate
4. Meditate on why certain ads are failing
5. Think about why someone would *not* click on your ad
6. Review your competitors’ ads
7. Write new ads that address these concerns
8. Launch your new ad texts
9. Monitor the performance of your ads
10. Repeat the process and continue to refine your messaging

And the same goes for your landing page. We haven’t even touched on landing pages! You should think in similar terms for your landing pages as well. But that is another article for another time.

It could come down to the fact that your competitors are talking to your audience with more success. Reviewing your competition to see what they have to say could be very enlightening. And it could be that the majority of users aren’t finding what they want at all.

The 95 characters within a PPC ad text (not including the display URL) can be very complicated. The success of your campaign hinges on your ability to appeal to your audience on numerous levels. Be the solution to your audience’s problem/query, address their concerns, and you’re well on your way to success.

Inspired by a PPC Hero reader submission, this post will review some pitfalls that you need to be careful of when using dynamic keyword insertion.

Pitfall #1: Entering the DKI Code Wrong

Both beginners and experienced pay-per-click managers can fall victim to an incorrect keystroke. Whether it is a misspelling, missing space, or extra punctuation, most of us are guilty. However, when it comes to dynamic keyword insertion, a wrong keystroke can make the difference between a highly targeted ad text and ad spam. You have to be very careful how you type in the code. With one mistake your ads will end up irrelevant and in this case, spammy.

In the example below, the manager incorrectly entered the DKI code by adding an extra space before the colon. So the DKI code was entered in as {keyword :Eligo} versus {keyword:Eligo}. That extra space before the colon makes all the difference. When you enter the DKI code, confirm that there are no errors by taking the time to double check your work.

Pitfall #2: Misspellings in Ad Text

Bidding on misspelled keywords is an age-old practice for pay-per-click. But when you are using DKI with misspelled terms, those keywords are going to end up in your ads. In this example, all of these accounts were bidding on ‘chilrens’ to capitalize on a common keystroke mistake in search queries. For all three advertisers, their ads utilized DKI for headlines and the misspelling ended up in the title.

No matter how targeted and relevant you ad is, having a misspelled keyword in the headline or description will automatically hurt your credibility. To avoid this, restructure your pay-per-click account so all misspelled keywords have their own ad group… and don’t use DKI in this ad group!

Pitfall #3: Using DKI for Broad Match Keywords

In the cases below, the pay-per-click managers have combined DKI with broad match keywords. So when a searcher types in ‘Obama’ or ‘Leg Amputees’ they are served ads that are both irrelevant and confusing. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am certain that the Secret Service would not approve the transaction if I tried to purchase President Obama at an online bookstore.

The goal of using DKI is to serve highly relevant targeted ad text based on search query. Relevancy is hard to achieve with broad match keywords because you have a lot less control of when an ad is served. Do not use DKI when you are running broad match keywords. In many cases your ad text is going to end up with non-relevant terms.

If your ad texts look similar to the examples above, then you ad groups are too broad to begin with. Make sure your ad groups are structured properly for DKI so that every keyword in the ad group can appear in your ad text. Also consider your match type. DKI is best implemented in conjunction with exact match terms. By using exact match, you can define the keywords that will appear in your ads, and tailor the ad copy so it remained relevant across multiple search queries.

Pitfall #4: Creating Generic Ads

Formatting is crucial to creating relevant ad text using DKI. I often see DKI headlines that use only one keyword like our example below. This means the entire headline is one word, when is not optimal when you have 25 characters to work with. These headlines often look spammy, and in most cases, do not have high click-through rates.

Boost your headline relevancy by including another keyword similar to the example below. Of course, this format assumes that your ad groups are structured properly. If you cannot achieve something similar, then you need to consider restructuring your campaigns into more targeted ad groups.

Now you know some of the common pitfalls for using dynamic keyword insertion. Always remember, DKI should be used with extreme caution. It should only be used in the case of giving relevancy an extra boost. It should not be the crutch of your pay-per-click campaign. But when you decide to use it, make sure you don’t fall victim to these pitfalls!

For more examples on improper uses of dynamic keyword insertion, check the Your PPC Sucks blog.

I typically like to include as many benefits in my PPC ad texts as possible. Whether a client is offering free shipping, or free returns, or even free estimates/quotes, those ads will typically get the higher click-through rate therefore helping to increase my Quality Score.

One thing I have tried here recently is putting in customer testimonials into my clients’ ad text. I pulled the testimonials right off their website and incorporated them into my Google ads. They’ve been running for almost a month now and one ad has a click-through rate of 9.33% which is 20% higher than the average of my other two ads.

A few other ads I’m testing with the testimonials in them have only been running for a few weeks, but have already exceeded the best performing ad in that ad group. It’s important when you’re testing ads to give them plenty of time to generate enough traffic for a statistically valid sample size. .

If you’re trying to test different messaging in your ads to increase your click-through rates, be sure to check your campaign settings and set your ad delivery settings to ‘rotate’ and not ‘optimize’. Having it set to optimize Google will show only your best performing ad which doesn’t allow you to test your other ads evenly.

Since Quality Score is mainly based off of your click through rates, I would recommend testing all kinds of different messaging in your PPC ads. Try looking at your competitors, and find benefits for your company that can set you apart. Try adding testimonials, offers, phone numbers etc. What may not work for one person may work well for another. It’s up to you to test it and try it out for yourself!

The PPC Hero team frequently receives questions from readers regarding ad serving issues in Google. So, I have compiled a handy top 10 list of reasons why your ads may not be showing in Google. Start from the top and work your way down. By the end, you should (hopefully) see activity in your AdWords account.

1. Campaign/Ad Group Paused. A fundamental element for any campaign, Active vs. Paused. It may seem intuitive, but just make sure your account, campaign, and ad group settings are set to the Active setting.
2. Billing Information Issue. Review your account billing information to confirm it is correct (credit card number, expiration, address, etc.). If Google has any issue with billing, it will not serve your ads.
3. Daily Budget Not Set. Check your campaign daily budgets to make sure it is set above $0. Your ads will not run if you have no dedicated daily budgets within each campaign.
4. Keyword Bids Exceed Daily Budget. Your keyword bids may be too high for your daily budget. For example, if your keyword max cost-per-click is $4.00 and your campaign daily budget is only $10, then Google will not show your ads. If this is the case, just lower bids and/or increase your daily budget.
5. Low Search Volume. If you are not getting any impressions on your ads, it could be due to low search volume for your targeted keywords. Google will note low volume keywords within the “Keywords” tab in the interface. If your find that your keywords have a low search volume, use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find related keywords with higher search volume.
   
6. Disapproved Ads. If your ad text does not adhere to Google’s ad text policy, then your ads will be disapproved. When you sign up for email alerts, Google will send you an email if any ad text is disapproved. If you disabled email account alerts, then you can manually check your ad approvals in the interface. To find if your ads have been disapproved, login to your Adwords account and click on the Campaign Management tab. Then click on Disapproved Ads under the Analyze Your Ad Performance section. This useful Disapproved Ads Tool will tell you the when, what, where, and why’s for disapproved ad text. It will also provide suggestions for improving your ad text.
7. Disapproved Keywords. AdWords also reviews and approves your campaign keywords.  If the keywords fall under AdWords prohibited content. Google AdWords does not permit advertising products and websites related to firearms, drugs, cigarettes, pornography, hard alcohol, fireworks, and more.
8. Negative Keywords. Adding negative keywords to your campaigns is a good idea, but you have to be careful, especially when using broad match. Review your negative keyword list. Make sure that you have not added negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level that nullify your keywords within any given ad group.
9. Position Preference Is Preventing Ad Serving. In theory, position preference is a great tool when you want to control where your ads appear in Sponsored Search rankings. But if your keyword bids are not set correctly, the position preference tool can stop serving your ads. According to our Google rep:

   “Position preference instructs the AdWords system to try showing your ad whenever it’s ranked in your preferred position and avoid showing it when it is not. It does not mean that your ad will appear in the position you specify for every single search on your keyword. If you broaden your position preference, you’ll see that the keyword will trigger the ad.”

   So, if your bids are too high or too low for the selected position, your ads will not be served. The Google position preference tool will only show your ad when you qualify for the designated position. To fix this, either turn position preference off, or expand your preference to include more positions.

10. Patience. If all else fails, sometimes it is best to wait. Google ad text and keyword approvals can take up to five days. When you submit your ad text and keywords, you are entered into the Google review and approvals queue. If it has been more than five days, contact a Google rep to see if your keywords and ads have been approved. Here is a related post about reasons why your ads aren’t showing in Google.

If you have worked through this entire list and still don’t see results, then it is time to contact your Google rep. Your account may have bigger problems than bids, budgets and ad text approvals.

Have you encountered any other issues with ad serving in Google? Please leave a comment and share them with us!

In a recent post I discussed how moving keywords can affect your campaigns performance, and today we’re focusing on ad texts. As you know, ad text optimization is a continuous process where you eliminate your under performing ad texts and insert new variations to test against your best ads. However, there are times when you need to make major changes to all of your ads at once. Reasons for this change can be launching a new website or switching out promotional offers. We’ll focus on the later today.

With e-commerce clients, special offers can change frequently. And these changes need to be highlighted within your PPC ad text. Featuring special offers such as “free shipping” or “25% off” or “Buy 1 Get 1 Free” in your ad texts is a great way to increase your click-through rate (CTR) and your conversion rate. But making frequent global changes to your PPC ad texts can wreak havoc on your Quality Score. Why does this happen?

Keep in mind that your ads and keywords have a symbiotic relationship that has accrued a performance history, and when you sever that relationship, it can negatively affect your account. Therefore if you pause or revise all of your ads in a given ad group, your Quality Score can take a hit and so can your performance.

How do you change your ad texts while mitigating these negative results? You can use one or more foundation ad texts. What’s a foundation ad text?

Foundation ad texts are the ads that remain within your ad groups that don’t highlight your specific offer. They are still keyword-focused and benefit-driven, but they don’t highlight your ever-changing offer.

Since special offers can be the juice that improves your overall campaign, you don’t want to have too many foundation ad texts in each ad group, but having one or two ads within each ad group that are a constant presence that don’t get altered for different offers can help stabilize your Quality Score and performance. This is why they are called “foundation ad texts.”

Here is an example:

Let’s say you have a “25% off” offer that is going to end on Thursday, and on that same day you’re going to launch a new “free shipping” offer. Over the course of Monday through Wednesday you can slowly pause your “25% off” ads shifting your focus toward your foundation ad texts. And when Thursday arrives, you can insert your 1-3 new ad texts that highlight your “free shipping” offer. This way your not completely jolting your account by pausing all your ads and inserting new ads all at once.

By doing this, you’ve slowly removed your old ads allowing your foundation ads to maintain your Quality Score, and then inserted your new ads. Sure, with new ads there is going to be a period of adjustment but using this method may help smooth out the bumps in the road when switching our offers.

It seems as though Quality Score has fallen off the blog bandwagon here lately, but I’m here to say that the Quality Score and the Quality Index is still here and more important than ever.

One big problem that I have seen in many new accounts that have either transitioned from other search marketing agencies or in-house employees is the inability to accurately determine when to pause an under-performing ad text and exactly which ad to pause when testing. Pausing the wrong ad or making a decision to pause something too early can have a detrimental effect on your Quality Score.

Most PPC advertisers should know that the Quality Score is mainly based off how well your keywords relate to your ad text and landing pages. There are other factors that affect Quality Score but this is the main one.

It makes a lot of sense if you think about it:  Google will make the most money on ads that have higher click-through rates.  Ads that have high click-through rates get a lot of traffic, so it makes sense for Google and Yahoo, etc to reward those with higher click-through rates over others.  The way they reward you is that if you have a higher click-through rate, you’ll receive a lower page one minimum bid. This means that if you follow their rules, do all the things that get you a great Quality Score, then you’ll be able to place higher in the search engines results pages for a lesser cost.

Too many times I see ads that are paused or deleted that over time have a much higher click-through rate over other ads that are currently active. This tells me that people are not properly testing their PPC ads to determine a statistically valid ad winner.  And let me just say, if you’re not testing your PPC ads, then read this PPC for Beginners post already, geez!

Go back into your Adwords account, click on your highest volume campaign and ad group, view your ads, and change the date range to show one whole year of stats.  Check all of your ads and see if the ads you have active currently really do have the higher click-through rates.

If they do, great! If not, then you may need to reassess how you determine when to pause or delete and under performing ad text.

1. Go further back in time.  Most people just look at past seven day stats or month-to-date stats. Go back further in time to get a more broad view of how well an ad has really performed.  If you’re looking at a shorter data range certain seasonality or ebb and flow of traffic could have made the performance of an ad change. But the longer the data range you use the more those seasonality and ebb and flow of traffic changes affect the overall outcome.

2.  Know when to make your move and when to wait.  The more clicks you have on an ad text the more accurate your ad stats will be. If you only have a few clicks on an ad, that will skew your results. It’s like taking a survey of 100,000 people versus only 10 people. Obviously, those 10 people only represent a small number of the population. However 100,000 people will represent a larger population of people who think the same way. Don’t pause or delete your ads too soon.  If there isn’t enough click volume then wait until there is enough volume so you can make a statistically valid decision.

3.  Use the statistical calculator. Using the Teasley statistical calculator will assist you in making an informed decision on if and when to pause or delete an ad.  Where it says ‘element 1’ and ‘element 2’ is where you will enter your ad text stats. ‘Mailed quantity’ is where you enter your impressions and ‘# of responses’ is where you enter your click data.  Below it will show you the response rate (click-through rate) for each ad.

And below that you will get either a percentage of confidence or a ‘not very’ confident that the two elements will continue to perform in the way they are performing currently.

In conclusion, you may want to go back and double-check your ads to be sure you have the ad with the highest click-through rate showing. Of course you can then test different variations of your better performing ad to achieve an even higher click-through rate to improve your Quality Scores.

And next time you run through your PPC accounts looking to pause or delete ads, be sure to follow the steps above and remember more data will represent more accurate results.  In the end, your helping yourself gain additional traffic with high click-through rate ads, but you’re also improving your Quality Score which can lead to lower minimum first page keyword bids.

But a successful campaign is made or broken not by how many eyes get to your site, but by how many of them become leads, customers, or registered users. To that end, here are a few ways that you can ensure that you bring the best potential customers.

(Yes, we’ve covered some of this before. But a refresher on proper ad text is never a bad thing. Right?)

Use ads not just as a way to bring users to your site, but as a filter.
From the consumer side, shoppers can (very) generally be separated into price shoppers or value shoppers. If your product line is a price leader, make this clear.

If you’re not the price leader, of course, it is a bit more difficult. (After all, you never want ads to focus on how expensive your product line is.) To drive away window shoppers looking only for the best deal, use words that drive them away. Consider terms like premium, exclusive, or high-quality. These can be used in ad text or within the headline.

From a B2B standpoint, make sure that your ads effectively indicate what type of customer your product benefits. If your software solution or service doesn’t offer the capability to help Fortune 500 corporations, use terms like startup or small business.

Be as specific as space allows.
How many ads have you seen promising “Hundreds of [product] of all shapes and sizes!”? Too many, I’m sure. I call ads like this “Screamers,” and I would imagine that these offer the wrong mix of clickthrough (too high) and conversion rates (too low).

But by using specific, multi-word keyword phrases, and by then effectively expanding upon the product or service offered in your two lines of ad text, you give users a clear picture of what they will see at your landing page.

Consider using model numbers.
As keywords and within ad text, a specific model number can offer great conversion rates. After all, specificity is often the name of the game in pay-per-click, and model numbers are just about the most specific that you can get.

Model (or OEM) numbers are also an easy and appropriate way to make use of dynamic keyword insertion.

Industry language is good.
As I’ve already stated, your goal is not to bring in the maximum possible eyeballs, but the maximum possible high-value customers. To that end, using your most likely customers are the ones that already know about your product or service. These customers have jumped past the learning phase, and are entering the consideration phrase. There is no education involved at this point, as customers understand what they are looking for, and are now choosing from a variety of alternatives.

(For illustrative purposes, does a search marketing agency benefit more from users searching on “Internet Advertising campaign” or “ppc management”? The latter, of course, because that user understands what he or she wants.)

This is of particular importance in a B2B context or with a product that is infrequently purchased and where, therefore, there is a longer learning curve. Running shoes are running shoes, but not all CRM software solutions are created equally.

No matter the price, price can be your friend.
As stated above, you might not be the price leader. But if you use your price – an accurate price – in the ad text, and you follow through on that promise, you will see conversions follow.

One thing that comes across here is the importance of a well-targeted keyword list and a well-structured campaign. Specific keywords and an easy-to-manipulate structure are the backbone of any successful pay-per-click campaign, as these things allow for a more dynamic approach to campaign management.

Get granular with your keywords, write appropriate text for those keywords, and enjoy the increase in conversions.

While your ad text in this situation may appear to be optimal, there are countless strategies that you can try to drive up click-through and conversion. None of them will alter the key root of your messaging – in fact, most will just change how they look to the searcher – but all have the ability to drive incremental improvements to your campaign.

With that in mind, a few easy tests to consider on your current, high-performing campaigns:

1. Consider adjusting your capitalization structure.

Maybe you are capitalizing just the first word of a sentence or declaration, or maybe you are capitalizing every word. Though the tactic seems to be working, you may be giving potential customers to someone else on your keyword list. Consider pausing your lower-performing ads and running your highest-performing ad in an ad group against an alternative version with the same text and a different capitalization structure. (Quick tip: Try Excel’s Proper() function to capitalize the first letter of every word in a given text cell.)

2. The dreaded exclamation point.

I’ve never liked them, personally, but an exclamation point is shorthand for “this is important(!).” Of course, because they can come across as shouting as the searcher, your ads are limited to just one of the little, loud-mouthed characters. Adjust the location of the exclamation point, perhaps moving it to the end of the first line, on a different call to action within the ad, or out of your ad altogether.

3. Use other alternative punctuation.

PPC is all about appearances. A user conducts a search and, while they may see a few images or video links, the bulk of their SERP is full of text. Because of this, their eye will be drawn to text that stands out, that looks different, that is, yes, eye-catching. With this in mind, consider using punctuation to change the way your ad looks. I have had success with using hyphens in the middle of a line of text (“space, dash, space”), and with changing serial commas to periods. (“Space. Dash. Space.”) Come up with your own ideas as well.

4. Add a root directory.

A root directory, the thing that comes after the .com in your URL, can be a fantastic way to increase ad relevancy, to add another bolded element to your ads, and to artificially lengthen your message. Yet, they often go underused within ad text. Though they can look clunky, they can also draw attention to your ad, and they are worth testing.

5. Try an ampersand.

Too often in PPC, the ampersand is a fallback option, a way to make use of all seventy characters in an effort to maximize your message. However, the ampersand can be more than a space-saver – it can serve to set apart your text from the others on your SERP. Go through your ads, and replace the full word “and” with the ampersand character, and track results.

When it comes down to it, PPC is a game in which you have to be slavishly devoted to your numbers. It is the one advertising realm where everything can truly be tracked and, because of that, you cannot fall victim to your preconceptions of what “works.” You have to let the searcher make this clear to you.

Also, remember that what works with one campaign may not work for all of your clients or businesses. A B2B searcher is different than someone looking for consumer goods, and a discount shopper is different than a premium buyer. There are no best practices.

Take some high-traffic, high-performing ad groups, and tweak your top performer. Make one of the small adjustments above, initiate an A/B test with the top performer, let it run for a week, and check out the results. What might look silly on-screen to you may have maximum appeal to your customers and, if that is the case, follow the numbers.

We have covered the basics on writing benefit-driven ads that feature relevant, high-traffic keywords. Today, I would like to focus on writing ads that compete directly with your competitors and that make a conscious effort to stand out from the pack. Or beat them at their own game.

In a crowded PPC landscape, the ads for each keyword can begin to look very similar. Why is this? Often there is a thought leader who figures out how to write PPC ads that are highly effect. Other advertisers begin to notice these ads. As with any good idea, the imitators will follow. This is when the homogeneous, repetitive ads appear.

The first tactic of keeping your ads relevant and unique includes conducting a regular review of the competition and writing ads that are constantly fresh and different in order to scream above the chatter. Even if your competitors offer similar products or services, there has to be a way to make your ads scream by declaring new, exiting, bold statements that gain a user’s attention.

You should already know the unique benefits and value proposition of your product/service, but how can you make a statement within 70 characters that is completely different from the rest? Something new, something fresh? And I don’t mean just using an exclamation point in your ad text.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a universal answer. Each industry is different. The language and phrasing for each competitive space is unique. This is why you can’t write your PPC ads in a bubble. Get out there. See what is being said in all this chatter and say something different and say it loudly.

The second tactic for standing out from the crowd is screaming at the screamers. I was reviewing competing ads for a client that offers a stock investment newsletter. Honestly, our ads were better written than the rest of the ads on SERP. But I noticed that our tone and claims were too mild. We were not being aggressive enough.

In this space, the rest of the ads (even though they were poorly written) stated that their newsletters would help readers grow their portfolios with big gains on stocks. Our ads focused on safe, expert advice but we didn’t mention the percentage of growth or gains from our average newsletter subscriber.

When someone is  looking for stock tips, they are looking to make more money in the stock market. We wrote new ads that addressed this concern. We kept our “expert advice” angle (which few competitors were doing at the time), but we also featured actual percentage of gains. You may ask, “but didn’t your ads begin to blend in with the others? Just adding to the chatter?”

The best part is, any claims of we made in our PPC ad texts about possible gains from our stock tips, we backed up on the landing page stating how we generated these results for people. Not only did I review our competitor’s ads but also their landing pages. Often the copy on their landing pages was murky and unclear in regards to their level of expertise. The messaging on our landing page was clear, direct, and gave specific examples of success.

And here’s the best part: you don’t have to committ to anything. Split test your ads and let users decide which messaging works best. In summary, constently challenge yourself to write better PPC ad texts, and use your competition for inspiration. Make sure that your ads are better written and more bold than your competitors – even if you have to whisper or scream to get their attention.

I won’t go so far as to say that it’s a perfect system, but it’s close. You have at your finger tips the ability to create distinct advertising variations that will immediately become part of a traditional A/B testing process (or A/B/C – whatever, you get it). That is if you’ve remembered to set your ad delivery to rotate evenly! There aren’t very many forms of advertising where the testing process is initiated so easily. But don’t let that ease of entry fool you. Properly testing ad texts is a timely, methodical process that is not a one-time event.

I’ve used the cliché phrase many times before, but ad text testing is a process that cannot be successful with a “set it and forget it” attitude. If you create one or two ads per ad group and walk away assuming everything will work out fine, you’re sorely mistaken. Nobody can instantly understand all of the nuances of a keyword (or group of keywords) and it’s competitive landscape and write the perfect ad from the get-go. Maybe you’ll get lucky and you’ll generate a decent CTR or conversion rate – but why would you leave such an important thing to chance?

To be successful with PPC, you have to be dedicated. Dedicated to the process of ad text testing: Create ads. Review performance statistics. Determine the benefits, calls-to-actions or any other elements that are driving the best CTR and/or conversion rates. Then start the process all over again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Get to know this process, become comfortable with the cycle and make ad text testing your constant friend and companion. Do this, and you’ll find PPC success.

For a great primer for ad text testing, I strongly suggest reading one or all of these articles:

• Learn the Basics of Testing Ad Copy
• Measuring a Text Ad’s Effectiveness
• 4 Step PPC Ad Optimization Process