How to Write More Effective Digital Ad Copy

You may be wondering what is an ad copy? "Digital Ad copy" refers to the copywriting of advertisements—the combination of headline, main body, and call to action written to form an ad. It's daunting to select from various advertising methods or channels. Should you use a video or an infographic? Should you post to Instagram, Google, or YouTube? These are important questions, but by far, the most crucial consideration is what your ad actually says; the words you use underly all of these options and make or break your message.

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So, before you blow your advertising budget on the latest trending outlet, make sure you become familiar with writing effective ad copy. There are many types of copy, and each one may differ slightly in the ad copy structure depending on the audience and the platform. It's always best to look at great ad copy examples to discover what they're doing well. 

• Get the user excited to purchase the product

• Help them to know you have the product they're looking for

• Explain how to sort through the options if you have a lot of SKUs

• Make them want to engage with the page to find the product

• Click through the image or subcategory and get to conversion

• Answer questions they have about the category, not product-specific

• Not take away from user experience and hide product below the fold

Many people ask, what is ad copy in google ads? Crafting strong ad copy on Google Ads isn't hard, but to do it right, we have to flex both art and science muscles. We're only given a small number of characters on search engine results pages (SERPs), so we have to make them count. When writing copy, it's important to think about the experience your visitor is having, from query to ad copy to the landing page. A staple best practice of ad copywriting is to include keywords in ad copy to mirror the searcher's query. By parroting back phrases similar to what they searched for, we're telling them that they're in the right place.

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Adding keywords to ad copy is fairly simple, but it's important to make sure the keywords are being used well. Don't just stuff in as many as you can. An ad that's saturated with keywords likely doesn't convey any message and could be worse than an ad with no keywords. It's more important to accurately articulate what you're selling. Keyword placement in ads can also play a large role. I highly recommend you test keyword placement within your ads to see what works best. 

In a Facebook study done by Wordstream, they noticed that businesses with active ad campaigns saw a 77% increase in followers compared to businesses not running any advertising. Followers should not be the most important metric you use to gauge your Facebook advertising's success. However, earning more followers does show you're increasing brand awareness, and it provides an opportunity to drive more new traffic to your website. Some advertisements can break this rule, but at the beginning of your advertising campaign, you should write content to fit the character limits so your text isn't cut off and users can see it all at once. 

Facebook ad character limits are:

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• 25 characters for a headline

• 30 characters for a link description

• 125 characters for ad copy (primary text)

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This is where good writing comes into play. Follow the KISS (Keep It Simple, Smartie) principle. Write simply and use language your audience understands. Don't use big words or try to impress them with industry jargon. Think about what pain points trigger your audience emotionally, lead with that, and present your brand as the solution. The headline is a great place to hook them, the link description shows the solution, and the main ad copy is where you do your persuading. 

• What kinds of questions do they ask?

• What are their common pain points?

• What are their personal demographics?

• What kind of content do they consume?

• Ultimately, how does my product or service make his/her life better? 

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This will help you develop a strong understanding of who your reader is and will allow you to better speak their language.

Remember your call to action. Don't assume people know what you want them to do. Spell out the next steps using simple, straightforward language. Consider your goal when drafting your CTA. Do you want to drive traffic? Collect leads? If you want your audience to download content, include the word "download" in the CTA. If you want them to visit your site, use the word "visit." The best CTAs use strong action verbs like join, subscribe, and launch.

When it comes to using psychology in your copywriting, nothing spurs people into action like a powerful emotional response—especially online. This principle is what makes clickbait so effective; people read something, experience a strong emotional reaction to it, and then click through. This technique is one of the most powerful at your disposal when writing PPC ad copy.

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The emotional responses you can try to provoke will depend on what you're offering and the desired effect you want this emotional reaction to have on your prospects. Negative emotions, such as anger, disgust, and fear, can provoke an incredibly powerful response in the reader, but it can be a challenge to balance this reaction with the rest of your messaging—you don't want the negative emotional reaction to carry over into perceptions of your products or brand. 

Similarly, positive emotional triggers, such as affirmation and humor, can be highly effective at prompting people to click on your ads—but they can be tricky to implement well due to the subjective nature of these emotions (especially in the case of humor).

This technique doesn't have to be particularly overt, and you don't necessarily need to outrage potential customers to get their attention. In fact, sometimes, a more subtle copywriting approach can be just as effective, as this ad demonstrates.

A/B testing your ad copy is a great way to remain agile and see which elements work best. If you're not familiar, A/B testing is a way to compare two things and see which performs better. Consider using different word combinations in separate ads to see which copy is more compelling (use two different headlines or different ad copy). Focus on the benefits of your offer in one ad and the value proposition in another. Run both ads and determine which ad copy is more effective.

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If you need some help crafting ad copy, we offer copywriting services and marketing operations consulting to help you dial in your ad copy and increase your ad ROI. Schedule a consultation call with us to get started.