PPC Ad Copy - How To Write Ads That Convert in 2024

We believe that you should always begin with PPC ad copy before everything else.

This process of working backwards from the ad itself has proven time & time again to be the most successful strategy for us when optimizing PPC accounts for our clients.

Getting the ad itself right first informs everything else.

Why is Ad Copy So Important in PPC?

For Google search ads and Bing search ads, the adverts are nearly 100% text based.

This means that ad copy plays an incredibly vital role in the success of your ads.

👉 People are clicking on your advert based on the words they're reading alone.

Let's bring it back to basics.

If somebody types in a query to Google and gets served a number of adverts along with a number of organic results in their web browser, then clearly they have an important choice to make - 

Which result should I click on? 

And that's why ad copy is so important in PPC marketing. 

It makes logical sense that Google only want to show the ads that have the best chance of being clicked, otherwise they don’t get paid!

Stop thinking that customers care about your poetic headlines - they don’t.

They’re searching because they want to find a solution to a problem.

Responsive Search Ads (RSAs)

Prior to 2022, we had something called expanded text ads - These were ads where you could control the exact headlines that your potential customers were shown.

However, because of developments in automation and AI, Google has switched everything now to Responsive Search Ads.

The way they work is pretty simple:

1. For each PPC advert, you add in anywhere up to 15 headlines.
2. Google will automatically select the best possible combination of those headlines to show to the customer.
3. They make that decision using machine-learning, taking into account factors like what the user searched for in the first place.
4. For example, if one of your headlines was “Emergency Dental Repair” and someone searched for “emergency tooth ache” there’s a greater chance Google would display that particular headline.

RSAs generally perform much better, because you’re giving Google a ton of ammunition to work with, and they can adapt the ad accordingly with a combination of your 15 headlines. 

Ad Copy Best Practices

It’s still up to us humans to write the perfect ad copy!

So let's get into the best practices.

We're aiming for a strong selection of different headlines into our headlines.

👉 Keywords

First off, we need headlines that actually mention the keywords we’re targeting!

Using our dental example, we may use ad copy such as:

• Dentist in [Location]
• [Location]’s Best Dental Practice
• Award-Winning Dental Services
• Cheap Dentist in [Location]

👉 Pain Points

On the other hand, we’re certainly going to want to include a few other headline variations which feature ad copy that talk about the pain points we solve.

• No Membership Required
• Prices from $49.99
• No Hidden Costs
• Up Front Pricing
• Emergency Service Available

👉 Social Proof

Additionally, we can throw in some social proof headlines:

• Trusted By 10,000 [Location] Residents
• 10,000+ 5-Star Reviews
• Trusted By Celebrities

👉 Benefits

Add in the benefits / outcomes of your product.

• Beautiful Teeth Guaranteed
• White Teeth in 3 Months
• Adult Teeth Made Perfect
• Results in 1 Month Or Money Back

👉 Call to action:

And finally, we’re certainly going to throw in some ‘Call to action’ ad copy in to our repertoire of headlines, to help push the user to take action.

• Call Us Now
• Book Online Now
• Simple Booking Process
• Easy No Membership Booking

Ad Copy to Avoid ⛔️

We’re feeding Google’s AI with the juiciest ad copy available, and then letting their automatic machine learning select the best combinations of ad copy based on the specific customer.

Where we see most people go wrong with ad copy is just adding in filler headlines that really mean absolutely nothing.

❌ AVOID AD COPY LIKE THIS -

• Satisfaction guaranteed
• Best quality at the lowest price 
• State of the art technology
• More bang for your buck
• Revolutionary technology
• Experts in (SERVICE)
• Elevate your (SERVICE
• Unlock your potential 
• Your ultimate partner
• We help you reach your goals
• The family run business
• We’re here to make your life easy

Basically avoid fluffy, non-sensical jargon that users will gloss over. This has proven time and time again to negatively impact CTR (click through rate) and it doesn't excite anyone. 

For some more inspiration on bad PPC ad examples, check this guide.

Relevance

The other important thing to consider is relevance.

It’s fine writing the best ad copy in the World that converts. 

But is it actually relevant to the page on your website that people are clicking through to?

Once again, Google loves relevant ads, because they want to make their customers happy.

If I click through on a beautiful ad promising me the World, then I’m expecting the page I land on to deliver. 

Unfortunately, there’s often a disconnect here.

Some people get their PPC ad copy written professionally (Which is great) but then the page on their website doesn’t match up.

That’s why at our agency, we deal with both the ad copy and landing pages. We like to be in control of both factors.

Dynamic Landing Pages

What can really help you to fix any disconnect between ad copy and the page your visitors land on is dynamic landing pages.

👉 Dynamic landing pages can adjust their headline based on what keyword the visitor searched for.

For example, if someone searched for "Car insurance for under 20s" they can actually land on a page might says "Get Car insurance for under 20s"

So we can actually show a different page to the visitor depending on what they type into Google.

This is fantastic for relevance and makes sure that the person feels the page is relevant to the ad they saw.

Examples of PPC Ad Copy

Let's look at some specific examples of PPC ad copy now!

Example 1) Emergency Cleaning Services

❌ The brand showing at the top of Google ad search for "emergency cleaning services" is probably only there because they have the highest bid.

❌ Their advert is only calling out specifically to people who are looking for 'death cleanup services' - Which is quite morbid and I can imagine accounts for only a very small number of people searching for emergency cleaning services!

✅ Whereas I do like the advert below this, which mention having 'same day cleaning' and also mention a price.

Example 2) Mortgages

✅ The first advert from Rocket Mortgage is disarmingly short & sweet - "Get Approved in Minutes" is absolutely perfect. It hits the biggest pain point when searching for mortgages, which is a fast approval.

❌ If you carefully read the second ad example, the grammar is poor - "Get an online mortgage quotes" is grammatically incorrect. Additionally, they've used headlines which are just too long and complex. As a user compare this to the first example which is just so simple and attractive, cutting right to the point. 

Example 3) Roofing Services

There's good and bad about both of these ad examples.

✅ I love the fact that the first one includes my very specific location.

This can be triggered by typing in {LOCATION(City)} to your headline, which will trigger automatically enter the person's specific location.

✅ I also love that the second ad mentions a very common pain point "Don't Overpay" which is short and sweet.

❌ I don't like the mention of "Roofing solutions" as it's too broad and not the type of language that every day customers would use. Stick to the specific solutions themselves like "Roofing installations" or "Roofing repairs"

Our Secret To Ad Copy 🤖

I’m going to share with your the exact methodology we use to get ad copy inspiration for all of our PPC clients.

It’s incredibly simple and involves using ChatGPT.

Here’s the process:

1.  Go to every place you can find reviews of your business - Google reviews, Trust Pilot, even reviews from friends.
2. Paste all of those reviews into ChatGPT and tell ChatGPT to highlight all of the important pain points and benefits that your customers report.
3. Then, tell ChatGPT to write very succinct ad headlines no mare than 8 words in length which would entice potential new customers to click on your ad.
4. Finally, tell them to create 20 different variations.
5. If you like some of the particular variations, you can ask them to write more of those.

👉 If you want to take it a step further with more data, you can even throw in the reviews of your most successful competitors, and let AI analyse exactly why people are choosing to go with your competitors.

This is honestly the best method I know to rapidly get ad copy inspiration, and it has the added benefit of also allowing you to understand what people most like about your product or service by analyzing the reviews.