There’s no shortage of advice online on how to write search ad copy correctly, and I decided not to skip this topic, since your campaign’s success depends as much on ad copy as it does on keyword work. Most advice, including in Google’s own guides, boils down to putting the keywords users type into search right in the headline. And in most cases, that really does work. Now imagine everyone has done their homework, added the maximum number of extensions, and used the {keyword} ad customizer, expecting a great result. But in the end, five nearly identical ads show up in the results, and the first one grabs all the attention.
How to write ads that get a high CTR
To write ads with a high CTR, break the work into two stages:
- The creative stage.
- Selection.
The creative stage includes:
- Gathering information about the product being advertised.
- Analyzing the product and competitors.
- Developing at least three unique selling propositions (USPs), phrased in 3–5 words, to use in ad headlines.
The logic is this: a user typing a search query isn’t just entering a keyword — they’re asking a question. Your CTR depends on how precisely your ad answers that question. If you can be creative, clear, accessible, and playful with words, your ad will get a higher CTR. Which leads to an important conclusion: if you work in paid search, you need to build up your knowledge of copywriting and marketing in general.
Selection involves:
- Running A/B tests to find the best-performing ads.
- Following the polarity principle — comparing headlines that are dramatically different from each other. Testing similar variants doesn’t give you clear conclusions.
- Setting up even ad rotation.
You can use labels to test different parameters. For example, I put labels on unique selling propositions and on the {keyword} ad customizer. You can learn how to set up labels in my article “Setting Up Labels in Google Ads.”
Wrapping up
To sharpen your skills and get better at writing ads, study the classics of copywriting and marketing. Text advertising has its roots in analog marketing, which already has a huge body of knowledge you can apply to online advertising.