Is Your Ad Copy Ready For The Holiday Online Shopping Rush?
Drafting ad copy can be a daunting task – how do you make your ad jump out to your potential customers? What winning combination of tone, offer, and keywords turns the best results for your company? The next time you are reviewing your ad copy and considering a change consider these key five questions: Who?; What?; When?; Where?, and; Why? Before this holiday season passes you by take the time to examine your ad, and your customer, from all angles and you will find the perfect balance that will keep your cash register ringing.
Who?
Obviously, You! But, what about you? What makes you stand out from your competition? Other than a great 50% off sale or Free Shipping, how is your product or service better than the same one being pitched across the street? Identify yourself first – tell them who you are and how you can help them. Make sure the keywords fueling your ads aren’t outdated; write down a few of your products and services and then perform a search. Do any of your competitors show up? If not, you may want to go back to the drawing board, you won’t be making any sales using those old words!
Next, make your potential customer feel that you understand their needs and are prepared to bring them solutions. A Google study done in 2005 indicated that the headline of your ad represented 40% of its impact. The first line of copy accounts for 25%, the second line of ad copy holds 20%, and the display URL 15%. PPC gives you the ability to snag your potential customers the moment they come looking for you – don’t disappoint them with boring ad copy that looks identical to your biggest competitor!
What?
Your product, that’s what! If you have identified with your potential customer and you’ve grabbed their focus, you’ve got to demonstrate what sets you above the rest. Examine the similarities and differences between your products and services and how everyone else is packaging that sale. Your headline will be the first thing your customers scan before clicking on your ad. Try words like “New”, “Improved”, or “Guaranteed”.
When?
There’s no time like the present! Successful ad copy inspires a potential customer to perform the next step whether it’s adding a product to their shopping cart or making a phone call. Be sure your ad copy includes a “Call to Action” which tells your potential customers exactly what you want them to do. Equally as important is creating a sense of urgency among your potentials; you want them to feel as though if they don’t act now they’ll be missing out on huge savings or a great deal. With the busy holiday season approaching you’ll likely be running specials that won’t last but a few weeks so create excitement with your ads using words like “Act Now”, “Won’t Last”, or “Holiday Special”.
Where?
Like we mentioned earlier, ad structure is key. Snappy headlines followed by concise, inspiring ad copy will give you that much needed edge over your competitors. More than that, a well-written ad that reflects your keywords will boost your quality score and could have you placed higher in search results than your competitors for less money! Structuring ads for maximum impact is more than just the order of certain words. Although your generally well-performing ad may yield you conversions, consider reworking that ad for the holiday season. If your Call to Action is placed at the end of the second line of ad copy and you have a potential customer quickly scanning your words – don’t give their eyes time to move onto the next ad. What works fine during the rest of the year probably needs to be reworked for the holiday season or any time that you have a big sales event. Experiment with the ordering of your text ads as well as different language.
Why?
If you’ve gone through the four steps above, the “why?” of this section should make itself apparent in your ads. At this point, your potential customer should be converting to your customer – someone who makes a purchase from you and validates all of the work that you have put into your ad. By now you will have informed your customer exactly who you are and what product or service you are offering. You will have also used a well-placed Call to Action within your ad, and you will have created an environment that implies a temporary savings that must be taken advantage of immediately. Your customers will answer the “why?” that we ask because they will make their purchases from you and not your competitors.
Drafting ad copy takes patience; it means knowing your vertical, your competitors, and industry best practices. But above all of these things, drafting ad copy means that you need to understand your customer and how you can best convey the message that you are better than your competition. In a few short weeks online traffic is going to increase exponentially as customers are shopping for the holiday season, but with a down economy you can be sure that your potential buyers will be comparison shopping more than usual. Can you afford to run the same ads during this critical time that you’ve been running all year? Remember that your competitors are preparing themselves for the holiday season and you should be too.
Answer the Who, What, When, Where, and Why and you’ll be stress-free this holiday season!
