3 Basic Tweaks to Improve Your Paid Search Ad Copy & Increase CTR

Paid search involves a million moving parts, but today we want to call out ad copy as a particularly important aspect. Good ad copy is convincing, drives click-through rates, and makes your ad stand out relative to your competitors. All this can lead to better quality scores and lower costs.

However, if you've ever stared at the blinking cursor with a case of writer's block or wished you had more time to test and optimize, you're not alone. Many search marketers are guilty of neglecting their ad copy from time to time. Even search marketers who take the time to fully test different ad copy and decide on a winner may not be refreshing it as often as needed to continually combat ad fatigue.

In this post, I'll walk through some basic methods to increase your ad copy CTR and make it stand out:

1. Use Your Value Proposition - What's the reason why searchers should visit your website? What benefits do you offer and why should people choose you against your competitors? In the example ad below, the value proposition is clear and straightforward, offering people a way to create a custom website quickly and easily. Someone looking for this service might be enticed by the 100+ design selections offered and simplicity of the "3 Easy Steps" messaging.

2. Capitalize the First Letter of Every Word - There's evidence all over the web that capitalizing the first letter of every word in your ad will help increase CTR. Consider the two ads below, and it's clear to see which one stands out more.

3. Use a Strong Call to Action - What should people do after reading your ad? A strong call to action will instruct searchers on the next step they should take, and create a sense of urgency for them to click on the ad. For example, if you were selling life insurance, "Get a Free Quote Today" is a call to action telling searchers to visit the site right away for a quote.

Keep in mind that optimizing for a boost in CTR doesn't mean that the conversions will magically appear. Just because you create outstanding ad copy to make a searcher click doesn't mean they will convert. Search marketers need to look at all these different elements in a holistic way and use data to evaluate how effective their ad copy is in terms of both click-through rate and conversion rate. For example, if you are driving a CTR of 10% and generating new traffic, but bounce rates are high and conversions are low, then chances are your ad copy isn't relevant to the landing page you're driving them to and needs to be re-evaluated.

Good luck, and happy ad copy writing!