The Anatomy Of A Pay Per Click Ad

When doing Pay Per Click advertising, a big challenge is fitting in all of the messages an advertiser wants to convey into the very limited space made available by the search engines. However, by looking at each section in a little more depth, marketers can fine tune their approach and look at ad copy writing as filling out a formula for effective advertising.

The first part of the ad is the headline. The main purpose of the headline is to bring focus to the ad itself. After all, if no one takes a look at the headline, they will likely not read any further. Google places keywords that match between the search query and ad copy in bold, so this is one way to bring out the ad's message, although more creative copy can also be effective even if it is not bolded.

The next part of the ad is the first line of the description. This can be longer than the headline, and its purpose is to start focusing on features, benefits, and the unique selling proposition of the company or products/service itself. It should give the searcher a reason to keep reading the ad. Adding punctuation at the end of the first line will make it stand out more if it is in the first one or two places of the sponsored search results.

The third part of the ad is the second line of description. This section should mainly focus on the call to action after the benefit message is given in the first line. Using an exclamation point is typically a good idea, as the main goal is to convince the searcher to click on the ad if they find its message relevant to their search.

Finally, the display URL must be included with every ad that is displayed. However, the display URL does not have to be the exact landing page URL that is on the website. The root domain must be the same, but the landing page does not have to match the displayed URL exactly. Thus, it is vital to think of this as an opportunity to reinforce the marketing message, rather than simply conveying information about the website itself.

There are a number of different ad copy formulas that can be followed for effective marketing messages. A couple are listed here below.

Engaging Headline > Feature > Benefit > Display URL

Engaging Headline > Benefit > Call to Action > Display URL

Engaging Headline > Unique Selling Proposition > Call to Action > Display URL

One final point is that it is often enlightening to use this paradigm to analyze competitors' advertisements and break them down into their component parts. Many times, marketers focus simply on features and calls to action, while leaving out an effective headline and not using the display URL to its maximum potential.

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