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Adwords Copy Writing Tips

Submitted by steveblom on Tue, 2005-06-14 18:25. adwords copy writing | Adwords Tips and Tricks | mastering google adwords

Some Amazing Adwords Copy Writing Secrets

Ok, here's some copy writing tips:

I don't have any problem with Click Through Rate in most industries. My ads kill.

But, the rubber really hits the road when you try to teach this stuff to someone else. Its not enough to write great ads, or I would be doing this for the rest of my life, and that's not my job. My job is successful e-businesses. So in an effort to teach people how to make good Adwords campaigns, the first step was to just get multiple people making ads and to hire professional copywriters. That worked like a bomb. But, if you are the only copywriter, kind of lonely, looking at the adwords computer screen, what do you do?

First get your friends to help you. Anything you can do to get more people making ads besides yourself will pay off in spades. Have your friend make one ad in each of your ad groups, and then you make one, and test them against each other. See what happens. You might be surprised.

What else can you do after that? Well now we have to get into Adwords Copywriting.

There are always lessons to be learned from the old time direct marketing guys. Before there was an internet, people have had to solve the problem of how to write copy that would get people to respond, No matter the medium, people either respond to advertising or they don't. There is only one way to find out. TEST.

Fortunately, we have almost a hundred years of copy and tests done by people who have devoted their lives to this subject. One in particular, named John Caples had a 49 year career as a copywriter, never doing any else but write copy. 60 years later, his methods are still being used. There is no better testament to his effectiveness as a copywriter than that.

Adwords ads, while being different than classified ads are similar in that there is a limited amount of space. Some people even look at them as search results, which is what Google really wants. That's why there are all these restrictions on what you can or can't say in Google ads. But some of the same problems and solutions apply to these ads, as they do in classified ads. And for that, we can tap into a wealth of experience and knowledge from the direct marketing masters.

Lets take the headline first. If people don't read your headline, it doesn't matter how brilliant the rest of your copy is, because people that don't read the headline will not read anything further. There is a split second where people are glancing at the page. Some headlines catch their eye, others don't. Why?

According to Caples, headlines that people actually READ (as opposed to headlines that are clever, or that advertising agencies like, or that clients or even copy writers think are good) Contain 4 important elements in approximate order of importance:

  1. Self Interest
  2. News
  3. Curiosity
  4. Quick, easy way

By self interest we mean not how great you think your product is, but what is in it for your customer. Cory Rudl used to always put it like "What's in it for me?" and that is the key thing. So the first rule is that a headline like "Our most amazing car is now available that goes 100 miles an hour" while having a "benefit statement" really is written from the point of view of the advertisor, not what is in it for the reader. "What is in it for me is actually missing.

"Zoom at over 100 MPH" is a much better subtle restatement of this headline.

I will continue this thread on Adwords copywriting in my next post.

 

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Poor Man's Adwords Competition Research

Submitted by steveblom on Wed, 2005-04-20 03:55. Adwords Marketing | Adwords Tips and Tricks | mastering google adwords

The poor man's adwords competition research

Since it isn't under everyones power to spend 2000 bucks a month to monitor 500 keywords, I offer this simple advice:

  1. Pick the keywords you want through your usual process
  2. Run them all through wordtracker
  3. Pick the keywords you think you can kick some butt in. This strategey is different depending on what you are selling of course. People doing affiliate marketing have to find cheap clicks at any cost, and these days that means moving to keywords with a lot less search volume. But if your business can handle it and you need more clicks you are going to pick the terms that get a decent amount of traffic AND ARE HIGHLY TARGETED for you.
  4. Clear your cookies and go hit Google on a few of these key search terms and look who is out there. Refresh your browser a couple times and you will see who is testing different copy because you will see the ads change before your eyes when you do this.
  5. Take any notes you need to, copy and paste the ads somewhere if you want, but then clear your cookies again and come back in 2-3 hours and do the same thing. Each session you can hit a few of the key search terms you want to compete in
  6. Sometimes after even just a few days of doing this, you can already tell who you have to beat. But do this for at least a week. Many marketers do this for at least 3 weeks before they enter a new market.
  7. You are looking for people who show up almost ALL the time, especially around position 6, 7, 8. This means they are showing their ads the maximum amount possible and getting the cheapest clicks possible, and you can bet if they are doing that every day, day in and day out over a 30 day period they are making profit. Either that or they are really, really crazy. Sometimes the people who always show up number 1 should be watched too, but only if they always show up every time you search. If they show up number 1 for only half the time that's really inefficient advertising, and eventually you are going to wipe the floor with them.
  8. During this time, note the ads that are consistently winning, visit the sites to see the sales process, sign up for the newsletter or whatever, and learn what you can. Now with the knowledge of the winning ads, and who the top competitors really are, you can vastly increase the speed of progress of your marketing efforts.

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