Writing Ads for Google Ads? Read 5 great tips!

Google Ads and Analytics are based on metrics. Sometimes people get lost in all those numbers. Based on metrics we have a couple of tips on how to write an effective Google Ads ad.

As Google Ads has so many possibilities, sometimes we just play around with the campaigns, but what is common to all of this is that we aim to achieve maximum results through constant testing of campaigns and personalization.

We have learnt that we aren’t the only ones with that kind of approach. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon is known for always having an empty chair at his table when he’s at an important board meeting. That chair is reserved for the most important person in Amazon: For the customer!  Thus, at a board meeting, each member of the board when proposing or deciding has a reminder that everything he does must satisfy the customer.

Measurement and pattern recognition are important

Sometimes some successful patterns appear, therefore it is important to make the time to analyze why some ads are doing better than others. By researching the success of Pixar, Michael Dolan found that successful films were made according to a pattern / algorithm that went something like this:

Once upon______________. Everyday________________. One day____________________.

Because of that________________. Because of this______________. Until______________.

If you watch the cartoon ‘Finding Nemo’, you will see that the storyline could be sorted out like this:

Once upon a time there lived a father named Marlin. He was very protective in regards to his son Nemo.

Everyday Marlin had warned Nemo of the dangers of the Ocean and begged him not to go further into the waters.

One day Nemo ignored his father’s orders and swam out further into the ocean.

Because of that, he was caught by a diver and ended up in an aquarium in a dental ordination.

Because of this, with the help of other sea creatures Marlin sets out to help Nemo.

Until Marlin finally found Nemo. They both learnt that love begins with trust.

I’m not stating that there exists an algorithm for a successful ad, but I do know that there are some rules / patterns of behavior which most often increase CTR and Conv. rate (e.g. curiosity is a strong motivator for a click on an ad or a grammar mistake made purposely. Forgive me if I don’t discover everything, but what I’ve discovered when writing ads, is that it’s not a bad idea to write at least one ad following these rules and guidelines / test against others:

Headline 1: Repeat the search term

Headline 2: Explain your USP (unique selling point/sales proposition)

Headline 3: Emphasise your USP

Description line: Put some numbers or dates and write a strong CTA (call to action)

Words are deadly

Just a few, small amount of words can make a huge difference, was proven by Rosser Reeves (The legendary member of the so called Madison Avenue, who coined the term USP – Unique sell proposition, was the first to advertise a politician, the first to introduce rhyme in an ad text). You can often hear stories from his life about how he helped a blind man.

During a lunch break, he and a colleague made a bet that he would help a blind man fill his cup for donations. The blind man had managed to collect only a few coins in a cup, as most passers-by were uninterestedly passing by him. Next to him was a cup and a handwritten cardboard sign that read: ‘I AM BLIND’. By accepting the bet, a colleague helped him realize one of the greatest urban advertising legends.

Roser Reeves – Image taken from: linkedin.com

Reeves approached the blind man and introduced himself briefly. He suggested that he should add something else to the cardboard sign. As the blind man had agreed, he added what he wanted on his sign and went off with his colleague further away from the blind man just to observe passers. Not too long after, and the cup was full. Most passers-by were now stopping, making conversations with him and even putting banknotes into his cup. Are you asking yourselves what did Reeves add on the sign? Just 4 words: It’s springtime, and…

The new sign had now read: It’s springtime, and I am blind.

Presentation and personalization lead to performance growth of up to 80%. 

For a long time, sales representatives were looking for people who could be described as extroverts. Research and measurements have shown that the best sellers are the ambivert people. (Adam M. Grant, Rethinking the extraverted Sales ideal: The ambivert advantage, Psychological Science, 2013). Extroverts tend to exaggerate and therefore they get on the customers nerves, and introverts are unable to extract the most important information, therefore they cannot solve any customer problems.

Adam M. Grant – Image taken from: en.wikipedia.org

Add a personal verse – e.g. a photograph in your email

However, I would like to introduce to you a very interesting test conducted by a radiologist Yehonatan Turner (The effects of Including a Patient’s Photograph to the Radiographic Examination).  Given the consent, he photographed 300 patients and placed each photograph of each patient with their x-ray examination, that was then further examined by his fellow radiologists (radiologists are probably one of those doctors that rarely or even never have actual contact with their patient). Radiologists said that they had felt more empathy for their patient viewing their x-ray examination because they had a photograph of the patient pinned to the x-ray. In addition, they found an abnormality, an accidental finding for patient number 81 that was not part of their goal in the primary search.

When he had given his fellow radiologists the same x-ray examinations after 3 months, this time without pinning photographs onto each examination. 80% of accidental findings were not found. Without a photograph of the patient, radiologists are less thorough and less precise.

Perhaps your clients may read your email more carefully if they had a picture of the person who is at least in the signature?

Google recommendations 

Writing something about how to write good quality ads, and not include in my blog Google’s recommendations would be flawed. Whilst we at our agency don’t use all of those recommendations, especially not for new clients or for those that have a small feedback sample, I still believe that it’s not a bad idea to take and test some of the recommendations for successful ads because Google says:

– You must use a minimum of 3 ads per Adgroup

– You need to use all possible extensions (extensions raise the CTR about 15%)

– Ad rotation must be set to optimize for….

– The Attribution model for conversions is best when it’s data driven.

The effect of stories or how just a simple message can turn tables around

A good story or message can increase ROI (return on investment) by 32 times.

“Stories are such a powerful driver of emotional value that their effect on any given object’s subjective value can actually be measured objectively.” Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker

“When people are finding meaning in things — beware.” Edward Gorey

http://significantobjects.com/

Significant Objects, a literary and anthropological experiment created by Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn, demonstrated how the effect of narrative on any given object’s subjective value can be measured objectively.

The idea first came to them by inventing a fictional story about an object and then listing it on eBay in order to determine the impact of words the story had on the objects value. And guess what? It did!

Phase 1: “Narrative transforms insignificant objects into significant ones”, written by Sheila Heti, Nicholson Baker, Lydia Millet, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Lethem, and 95 others, was the first volume of stories to prove this hypothesis. The experiment was purchasing objects from thrift stores and garage sales for no more than a few dollars, writing a fictional story, in any style or voice about the object and then listing the object on eBay. The winning bidder is mailed the significant object along with a printout of the object’s fictional story. The results of the experiment? Objects bought from the thrift store for a total of $128.74 were sold for a total of $3,612.51, all of which went to Significant Objects volume 1 contributing writers.

Phase 2: Significant Objects second volume of stories, written by Kathryn Davis, Tom McCarthy, Amy Fusselman, Neil LaBute, Gary Panter and 45 others sold objects pinned with their stories and raised $2.244.11, which was donated to “826 National”, a creative-writing tutoring program for teenagers in seven cities. Third volume of stories written by Wesley Stace, Rick Moody and Heidi Julavits, raised $1,748.82 and was donated to “Girls Write Now”, a non-profit that mentors at risk young women in New York City. After that, they published a “week of epistolary stories”, guest curated by Ben Greenman. Money raised went to the non-profit lit publication “One Story”. Also published a week of stories leading up to their first ever live event and Object Slam, in San Francisco and donated the money raised to “Root Division”, the arts organization that hosted their event. Various phase two efforts raised $4,351.50 for worthy, lit-related entities.

Significant Objects evolved from a simple experiment into a thematic literary journal, using eBay as it’s publishing platform.

Bottom line: A simple word, sentence, paragraph, story, can make a tremendous difference in the world. It can change the way people look, characterize, feel, believe and interpret the specific object given.

Why am I telling you all this? It’s the same when writing an ad! Effective ads are written when there is a story behind the subject being advertised!