Recently I went through a very large campaign and added new ads to all ad groups so that the copy precisely matched the landing page action item (the text on the button for a form).

Waddayaknow – it has worked. Very well. I actually find the copy that I am using a little cheesy so it was a bit of a “ok whatever” moment when I decided to do it. Out of all leads I received the next day 1/3 were from that one ad copy (the title had a keyword insert and the display URL was different for each ad group to reflect the theme of the ad group ).

It is always best to test action items on your page, whether it be words on a button, like Download Now v Download Software, and then have some ad text that correlates to these tests. It was mentioned in a meeting yesterday it would be great to be able to tie in a Google Website Optimizer test with ad text. Maybe one day (probably at the same time that I get my ad text testing platform)…

Matching Ad Text to Action Items

An English profession in college once told me that the best way to improve my writing was to read. Read everything and anything. It didn’t matter that I wanted to be a novelist—he told me to read nonfiction. Read mystery, science fiction, smutty romance, biographies, philosophy. Read the cannon and contemporary lit. Read work by British authors and Irish authors. Read translations of old and new work from foreign authors. Read until my eyes blurred and I lost all contact with society (okay, maybe he didn’t say that last point, but it is a real consequence of being a bookworm and you get the idea).

The purpose of all this reading is not to imitate, although that is an acceptable practice in literature (Virgil’s The Aeneid is just an expansion of one chapter in Homer’s The Iliad). The purpose is to learn what other successful writers are doing so that you can incorporate bits and pieces into your style, and discover what unsuccessful writers are doing so that you can avoid it. It helps you learn what you like and don’t like and helps to hone your craft. You absorb their knowledge of writing and even subconsciously learn proper grammar and punctuation.

This practice of learning by absorption and inspiration doesn’t just relate to writing. It’s the same for musicians—they should listen to as many different genres and bands as possible. It works for artists—they should view and deconstruct everything from Pollock to Michelangelo to Bob Ross to that kooky hippie on the street corner with his palette of crushed fruit and flower petals. And it can even apply to (finally, we get to the point!) search copywriters.

Every single time you do a search, whether it’s for professional or personal reasons, you should read all sponsored ads. Note the use of keywords, calls to action and messaging. Even pay attention to punctuation, capitalization and abbreviations. This helps you understand what others are doing , what punctuation/grammar is acceptable and what calls to action are working. You can think of this as market research, regardless of whether the ads are from competitors in your industry or just other businesses advertising online. Understanding what is out there in every vertical helps you further refine your efforts. Take bits and pieces from ad copy that you like and think would work for your business. Note elements that you do not like and be sure to avoid these. You may discover an approach that you have not yet tried or find something that everyone else is doing that you had missed. The more ad copy you read, the more knowledge you’ll naturally absorb by mental osmosis.

You might be thinking, How many mistakes can one person make in just 70 characters? Check out this ad and tell me if you would click on it:

My guess is no. And that’s not just because the display URL seems to say that the wrinkle creams have gone wild. It’s because “wrinkl” in the title is spelled wrong. Who would give their money to a company that can’t spell their own product correctly?!

Even if you make just one spelling mistake or slight grammatical error (I would never, ever buy a product if their ad copy contained a period outside of quotation marks, I’m just saying), it can significantly decrease your click through and conversion rates. With graphical ads, a miniscule typo might be overlooked if the image is distracting or compelling enough. Not the case with PPC ads; because they contain only text, the mistakes are much more obvious and potentially detrimental.

Be sure to review each and every word of your text ads before pushing live. Follow these helpful proofreading tips:

• Patience, My Dear – Wait a few hours or even overnight, if possible, before reviewing your ads; give yourself a rest period so you can review them with fresh eyes.
• Tag Team – Ask a colleague to review them as well—don’t forget, even the best writers have proofreaders and editors.
• Shout it Out – Okay, maybe don’t shout, but read your ads aloud in a monotone voice. Reading aloud forces you to slow down and allows you to hear flaws in the rhythm of the text. If you have close office quarters, find a quiet spot where you won’t bother anyone.
• Move Away from the Excel Doc – I implore you, do not write your first draft in Excel! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve proofed a colleague’s work created in Excel and found numerous errors that would easy have been fixed with spell check. It may be an extra step in your process, but writing in Word then transferring to Excel can save you from making costly mistakes. But remember: take all green squiggly underlines with a grain of salt; spell check makes mistakes, too.

Those 70 characters leave a lot of space for mistakes, but there’s really no room for them. If you want your PPC ads to be successful, make sure to scrutinize every letter of text and proofread with an eagle eye.

Brand terms are considered proper nouns, which means that they are always capitalized regardless of where they fall in a sentence. But what about brand terms that are meant to be all lowercase (for example, let’s use…oh, I don’t know…how about, expertSEM!)? The first part of the word, expert, should be all lowercase. SEM, because it is an intialism for “search engine marketing,” should be all caps. But what happens when it is placed at the beginning of a sentence?

I recommend that you rearrange the entire sentence.  I always attempt to do this myself, especially when writing a client’s name or other brand term that Location3 doesn’t own. If you cannot rearrange the sentence, it is perfectly acceptable to capitalize the e. When writing search engine marketing ad copy, blog posts, website copy, print collateral or any other type of material—online or off—this rule holds true.

I was recently asked to write some ad copy for a client’s LGBT campaign. Naturally, I became a bit nervous that I might inadvertently offend someone with my messages. Now, don’t get me wrong, I lived in Los Angeles for two years and spent most of my time in WeHo, hanging, dancing and drinking with my boys. Many a lively night was spent at The Abbey, PopStarz, HERE, O-Bar and other homo haunts that I can’t remember the names of. And before you gasp at my language use, you must understand that I was allowed to say “homo haunt” and numerous other raucous and would-be insulting comments. I was permitted this liberty because I was part of the community and, thus, even though I was neither gay nor a man (and still am neither, in case you were wondering!), it was accepted as endearing banter. What worried me was, if I included some of my snarky comments or insider terminology in the ads, would people view it as me understanding the customers or would they think I was being rude?

Marketing 101 teaches you to know your audience—research target demographics and tailor your message to reach them. I was fairly confident that I knew the audience, but I had no idea how to market to them. So I turned to The Advocate to glean their tone and see how other advertisers were doing it. What I found was the same tone I often took up with my boys and heard at The Abbey every night of the week—playful, boisterous and good-natured derision. Yet, this tone was simply not appropriate for the client, as they have a more high-end, luxury offer.

I knew my audience relatively well, and through some quick research, found out an accepted way to market to them; however, those were not the only elements to this equation. Had I used this informal tone and assimilated language, the client would have been disappointed if not furious. And the audience, not knowing that the copy was written by an honorary LGBT member, may have truly been offended thinking the client was being irresponsibly droll.

The moral of the story is, knowing your audience is not enough. You must also consider your client—their position, typical marketing messaging, vertical and any other distinguishing factors—before writing search engine marketing ad copy. If you only tailor your message to your audience, you run the risk of misrepresenting your client and their product/service. To avoid potentially offending a customer or losing a client, be sure to know your audience, know your client and while you’re at it, take a clue from the LGBT community, and know yourself.