How to Write Ad Copy That Works

Many people feel that the design of an advert; the effort and skill that goes into producing it as well as the aesthetics of it, is the most important factor when it comes to marketing products online.

While design is undoubtedly a vital part of online advertising, the substance behind it, (the content) is equally, if not more important. The design of your ad will grab your audience’s attention but it is your content that will pull them in.

Ad copy is, of course, completely subjective and although there are no strict rules as to how you should write your content, there are a basic number of questions you can ask yourself in order to get off to a confident start. (For the purpose of this guide, when I mention ‘ad copy’ I am referring to content in ads like Banners, PPC, text ads (Google AdWords) etc. not in depth copy such as product descriptions etc.)

What is your promotion/purpose?

It may go without saying but always have a purpose to your ads. Sit down and think of this before you even attempt to write your content.

You’ll be amazed at how hard it can be to write ad copy when you’re not entirely sure what you want the outcome to be. If you’re advertising through an outlet like Google AdWords or Microsoft’s adCenter it also makes it harder to choose keywords if you’re not sure who you want your audience to be.

If you have a particular promotion in mind you’ll know exactly which features to mention in your ad copy. Even if the purpose of your ad is to simply promote your entire website, it helps to firmly establish this and again it will help you with keyword targeting and content writing in general.

Who is your audience?

Following on from your promotion, the second factor that will help you when it comes to writing compelling ad copy is to have a firm idea of who your audience is.

Obviously, most businesses will know their general audience well and will have some insight into variables like buying habits, demographics, geography etc. However, your audience is something that needs to be considered with each advertising push as its very likely to change.

No matter how insubstantially, each promotion you run will lean towards a slightly different audience so just sitting down and having a quick think over that will help you determine what kind of language would be appropriate for your ads, as well as the kind of tone your writing needs to be.

What can you offer?

As I mentioned above, when I mention ad copy in this guide I’m referring to smaller, text based ads and the great thing about those is that they’re short. Short ad copy, although it may not seem it, can be extremely beneficial in that it forces you to become customer orientated.

As much as it can be helpful to send your customers to a ‘What we Do’ page full of self indulgent text about how amazing your company is, you simply don’t have the space for that with banners/text ads etc.

With ads like these ‘compelling ad copy’ is something that appeals to your audience, not something that entertains your marketing team’s journalistic side. Answer these questions; What can you offer THEM? How will THEY benefit from your product/service?

What is your Call to Action?

You’ll be hard done by to find a successful ad that doesn’t include a call to action. A quick Google of the word ‘advertising’ and I can already see ‘Get Started Today’, ‘Get Your Business Noticed’ ‘Start Earning the Revenue You Deserve’.

You’ll notice they’re not direct call to actions in the ‘Do It Now!’ sense; however it’s that persuasive language that needs to come into play with this element of your ad.

The trick to a persuasive call to action is to write something that each member of your audience can read and say “yeah! That applies to me.” I look at a call to action as a phrase/sentence that should get your audience excited.

I particularly like ‘Start Earning the Revenue You Deserve’ example mentioned above. I think it has the potential to instil a sense of motivation in an audience that not only pulls at their financial heart strings (“Start Earning the Revenue”) but also has a somewhat psychological impact as they’re convinced they “Deserve” the revenue.

Structure your Ad Copy

With text and banner ads you’re only likely to have 3 sentences, including your headline (4 at a push) so once you’ve asked yourself (and answered) all of the above questions you need to structure your ad.

Think about in which order you want to present certain information, which point do you want your audience to give most attention to? (this will likely be your headline). Do you need/want to include contact information? Which page do you want to send clicks to? (this is important for conversions). After your headline which is the most important bit of information?

Once you’ve given your ad a structure you can start testing your ad. Remember you can (usually) change the structure and content of your ad copy at any time during a campaign so if you decide certain text isn’t working for you then you can always switch it up.

Note: Read Other Ads

I’ve included this at the bottom because this point can really be slot in anywhere between the above questions if you get stuck. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a look at other ads to shine a different light on the copywriting process. It goes without saying that I’m not encouraging you to steal their content but it can be helpful to look at the wording, the order in which the message is displayed, the length of the title etc.

The main reason that you definitely should not copy anyone else’s ad copy, irrelevant of that fact it’s near enough plagiarism, is that you don’t know if it works! The whole trick with writing ad copy is to find the combination of words, sentences, and headlines that work for you.