Writing compelling paid search ads

- Your ad is the bait to get the attention of the person searching for information. I'm going to show you the basics of writing an ad that will get clicks. There isn't enough space in the ad to provide a full sales presentation. So, it has to be fast, efficient, and compelling, to move the user to the next stage of the process, the landing page. On the landing page, is where the sale or the offer is presented, or, where the promise in the ad is delivered.

There are four basic components of writing a compelling paid search ad. The first is the USP, or the unique selling proposition. This is what separates you from your competition. What makes your company or offering different, or unique. What are you offering that they can't find anywhere else. In this example, Expedia offers a discount for booking hotel and flight together. They also present a build our own vacation option, and highlight that they have more than 11 million reviews on their site.

The second component of a compelling ad, are the features and benefits of your offering. Now, here it is important to understand the distinction between a feature and a benefit. A feature describes the aspects, such as size, color, or time. For example, a feature statement for a Caribbean vacation would read, 10 days, 11 nights in a beach-front resort. These are important for early stage buyers, as they describe the offer.

Benefits are more emotional, and present a personal gain, usually, beyond the product itself. So, a benefit statement would read, reconnect with your family, and make memories for a lifetime. Benefit statements are effective for late stage buyers, who are ready to make a decision. In this case, the emotional draw of making memories, justifies the expense of a family vacation. The third element, is the call to action.

What are you asking people to do? A good ad does more than inform, it presents a tangible action, such as compare, buy, save, download, win, or book now. A strong call to action moves the user along in the process by improving the click-through rate of an ad, presenting a clear benefit to the user. Finally, ad extensions can increase your effectiveness. These are extra links and features on your ad.

They can be a phone number, an additional offer, or links to other pages. In this example, both beaches.com and cheapcaribbean have site link extensions, but they are displayed differently. Beaches.com is the first result. And, so the site links are given more size and space. The first ad always has prominence and higher visibility of extensions. Cheapcaribbean has site link extensions as well, but, they are smaller and listed across the bottom of the ad.

As you can see, crafting a page search ad is a mixture of art and science. Knowing the intent of your target and matching a compelling offer is what it takes to get the clicks.