How to Create Effective Search Ads

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Written by: Connections Marketing

One of the best things about digital marketing is that there are many tools and resources available to anyone who wants to use them. Search ad placement has become an important component of ad campaigns for SMBs. When placing your advertisements on web pages you want the most positive results from search engine queries possible. And the best way to do this is to optimize ads as well as messaging on platforms such as Google Search, Yahoo and Bing.

But the creators of these campaigns can’t afford to overlook the strategic side of search ads. It will be integral to how you build your brand: by anticipating what potential customers want to know so that they will click your ads sooner and more often. If you’re still feeling your way around digital advertising, the tips below can serve as a preliminary guide for creating the most effective search ads. They’re easy to overlook, particularly by small companies that lack dedicated marketing teams to keep up with the ever-changing world of digital advertising.

Write Useful and Compelling Ad Copy

Your content is one of the most important aspects of your ad strategy. To attract consumers to your ads, you want to answer their potential questions directly in the ads. Google Search offers some insights that could apply to any search engine:

  1. Create messaging focused on user benefits. Users tend to respond to ads that best address their needs.
  2. Incorporate keywords in headline and description line messaging. Consumers engage with ads that appear most relevant to their search.
  3. Use unique language in your ads. Use specific calls to action to increase engagement with online ads.
  4. Mine your campaign level asset reporting for information. Asset reporting helps businesses understand which assets seem to resonate more with their customers.
  5. Check metrics for insights into users’ reactions to ads. Metrics like Search Ads can help ensure the right messages get delivered to the right users.

Optimize Your Online Ads

Once you’ve created useful and relevant ads, there are ways to tweak them to boost their potential. As you may have noticed, writing solid ad content is important – but it’s just one component of creating ads that will work in your favor online.

Start by tailoring each online ad with keyword insertion and ad customizers, which are tools that help target certain ad groups. Remember, using unique headlines and ad descriptions can help the system create more ad combinations. Furthermore, you can combine responsive search ads with Smart Bidding and broad match keywords, which will help get more appropriate and well-matched messages to as many relevant users as possible. It also sets the right bid for each query, which gives you more control over how much you pay when a customer searches keywords and clicks your ads.

Evaluate Ad Results & Test for User Preferences to Improve Performance

You may not achieve immediate success. The beauty of the ad tools now widely available to anyone who needs them is that they provide quick insights into what’s working and what can be improved. For example, the success of ads can be evaluated fairly easily based on incremental impressions, clicks, and conversions that ad groups and campaigns are getting. In the future, the wording you use, especially in headlines, can be modified to reflect the new data you have on your users’ preferences.

Improve Your Odds by Hiring a Highly Rated Digital Marketing Agency

Don’t get discouraged if you’re still a bit confused by the many pieces that go into today’s advertising strategies. Even if you’ve taken the right steps, things like ad-level performance and commonly used metrics won’t provide everything you need to know about your brand’s performance. A highly rated digital marketing agency can take over the missing parts to ensure that you’re making the most of clickthrough rates, conversion rates, and everything else that will improve the results of your campaigns.

The specialists at Connections Marketing are certified Google Partners, meaning we have been recognized for maximizing campaign success for our clients, driving their growth and demonstrating Google Ads skills and expertise. We can oversee your whole campaign or simply take some of the load off your plate. Contact us today to discuss the best marketing methods for your business.


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