When advertising pay-per-click, a big challenge is fitting all the messages that an advertiser wants to convey into the very limited space available by search engines. However, by examining each section in a little more depth, marketers can sharpen their focus and see copywriting as a formula for effective advertising.

The first part of the ad is the title. The main purpose of the title is to focus the ad itself. After all, if no one takes a look at the headline, they probably won’t read any further. Google places matching keywords between the search query and the ad text in bold, so this is one way to make the ad message stand out, although more creative text can also be effective even if it is not in bold.

The next part of the ad is the first line of the description. This may be longer than the title and its purpose is to start focusing on the features, benefits, and unique selling proposition of the business or the products / services themselves. It should give the searcher a reason to keep reading the ad. Adding punctuation to the end of the first line will make you stand out more if you are in the first or first two places in sponsored search results.

The third part of the ad is the second line of description. This section should focus primarily on the call to action after the benefits message is delivered on the first line. Using an exclamation point is often a good idea, as the main goal is to convince the search engine to click on the ad if they find the message relevant to their search.

Lastly, the display URL must be included with every ad that is displayed. However, the display URL does not have to be the exact URL of the landing page found on the website. The root domain must be the same, but the landing page does not have to exactly match the displayed URL. Therefore, it is vital to think of this as an opportunity to reinforce the marketing message, rather than simply conveying information about the website itself.

There are a number of different ad copy formulas that can be followed for effective marketing messages. A couple are listed below.

Catchy title > Feature> Benefit> Visible URL

Catchy title > Profit> Call to action> Visible URL

Catchy title > Unique selling proposition> Call to action> Visible URL

One final point is that it is often illuminating to use this paradigm to analyze competitor ads and break them down into their components. Often times, marketers simply focus on features and calls-to-action, while omitting an effective title and not using the display URL to its fullest potential.