What are ad texts?

With ad texts, it is possible to advertise your company, a product or a service via the Google advertising network. The reason for this is that when you enter a suitable search term, your ad is displayed on Google's SERP (Search Engine Result Page), giving you the opportunity to attract potential customers to your website or online shop.

How are ad texts structured?

Ad texts are structured according to a certain pattern, which is called ETA (Expanded Text Ads). It is important for you to know that they consist of three sections:

• Title: You can expand the title of your ad to a total of three text blocks. Here you are somewhat limited as far as the characters are concerned (only a maximum of 30 characters per text block). As you can see in the example below, the title appears in blue. The subtitles are separated by a "|", but can be displayed differently depending on the device. Keep the title short and focus on the most important information you want to convey to your customers!
• 2. hypelink: The hyperlink is the link that leads to your desired page and is recognizable by a green color. You can also recognize it by the fact that it is next to the framed word "Ad". Besides your domain, the hypelink optionally contains a path text.
• 3. ad description: this part of your ad will be displayed in gray and is limited to 90 characters. When writing your ad description, make sure to focus on the benefits for your target audience by presenting the most important information about your product or company. Bait phrases like "BUY NOW!!!" are not appreciated by Google and violate their editorial guidelines. However, a well-chosen CTA (call-to-action) is allowed and can be, for example, a simple "Order now".
  

What ad extensions are available in Google Ads?

With the help of ad extensions, your ad appears larger and is more present on the SERP. Also, you have the chance to provide your customers with only one ad, several for them relevant (!) Information. Which extension is the right one for you depends on the ad and its content. You can choose from the following Google ad extensions:

• Location Extensions: For example, if you run a physical store in addition to your online shop, you can use this extension to invite your users to visit you, as you share your address or even opening hours and photos of your store with your customers.
• Affiliate Location Extensions: You are the owner of a retail chain and want to show prospective customers at which locations they can purchase your products? Then use this extension.
• Extensions with additional information (callout extensions): Here you can add additional information about your product or service, such as "free delivery".
• Sitelink Extension (Sitelink Extensions): With sitelinks, you can add additional links to your ad. For example, you want a potential customer to immediately find the business hours of your store? Then lead him directly to the right subpage of your website with links to your opening hours.
• Image Extensions: This the possibility to extend the ad with small image elements to make the ad more attractive. Up to 20 images can be added to a campaign or ad group.
• Snippet Extension (Snippet Extensions): Through the snippet extension, you can highlight individual important information or features (e.g. brand or model) about a product.
• Promotion Extensions: With this you offer users a first insight into your products and interested parties can immediately see how expensive a product you offer is.
• Price Extensions: These allow you to list prices for your specific services and products under text ads in the search network.

To make it easier for potential customers to contact you, we recommend the following extensions:

• App Extension (App Extensions): Do you have your own app? Then definitely use this extension so that users are quickly and easily redirected to the app store.
• Call Extensions: By adding your phone number, customers can easily reach you for their requests. Especially for mobile devices, this is very practical, because the stored phone number can be called directly.
• Lead Form Extensions: By clicking on this extension, it is possible to create a form that is played out directly and thus no further page has to be accessed.
  

How to write Google ad copy that entices clicks!

Probably the most important thing when writing an ad text is that it is relevant to your target group - that is, it has a benefit for them. After that actually comes another important rule regarding ad copy, namely "Keep it simple and short!" (KISS).

As mentioned above, you have 30 characters for the title and 90 characters for the ad description. These restrictions are already aimed at the KISS principle. Google wants to achieve that you really only use the most relevant information of your product or company.

Prospects should know what your ad is about and why they should click on it now. Here are some more recommendations to help you write great ad copy:

• Know your target audience: as a first step, think about who you want to target with your ad. Also ask yourself what your target audience might be looking for and how you can pick them up from their search. Depending on the users' concerns, you should write different ad texts and fill them with the most important main keywords to appear relevant to your target group. Read more in our blog post "CX-UX-UI differences".
• Keywords: While we're on the subject - include at least one main keyword. This will help you signal to Google that your ad is relevant to search queries from interested parties.
• Call-to-action: Include a short CTA and signal to users what the next step is for them to take. For example, a short CTA could be "Order now".
• Use numbers instead of text: Numbers stand out from the rest of the text and catch the user's attention.
• Work with discounts and exclusive offers: Answer users' "why?". Why should they click on your ad? Good arguments would be, for example, exclusive offers or discounts, which they get by visiting your landing page.
• Landing page: Speaking of landing pages, your ad text will get your potential customers interested, but you should also keep your customers' needs in mind. Match your ad with your landing page (= the page users are redirected to when they click on a link). This is especially important because of the quality factor.
• Speak the language of your target group: You should not only adapt the wording of your texts to the language of your target group and your image on your website or online shop, but also in your ad texts. This will set you apart from standard texts and thus from your competitors.
• Highlight USP: Last but not least, it is necessary to highlight your unique selling points (USPs) to outshine the competition. This can be the offer of free shipping or an above-average selection of a product.

For more information and tips on good ad copy, check out our blog post on the topic.

Examples of good Google Ad texts

How does Shopstory do it?

• Shopstory connects to your online shop product catalog
• From this, Shopstory generates efficient keywords in relation to your budget and compares them with the competition.
• Shopstory generates keyword-enriched recommendations for you, which can give you more visibility on Google, taking into account your budget and the competition.
• When you execute a "Growth for your Google Ads" recommendation, all the necessary information (title, price,...) for your ad is already pulled from the product catalog and presented to you in a preview.

• You can put the ads generated for you online immediately with one click or still manually adapt individual text modules to your wishes.

Summary

1. Know your target audience and define who you want to reach with your ad.
2. Highlight your special features while speaking the language of your target audience.
3. Use keywords to look relevant to specific search ads.
4. Build in CTAs to signal users their next steps.
5. Use numbers in the form of prices or discounts.
6. Match your ad with your landing page.

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Sources (retrieved on 02.08.2021):

• https://www.netzproduzenten.de/blog/gute-anzeigentexte-fuer-adwords/
• https://www.more-fire.com/blog/6-tipps-fuer-starke-adwords-anzeigentexte/
• https://www.omsag.de/online-marketing-blog/sea/die-besten-tipps-fuer-erfolgreiche-google-ads-anzeigentexte/
• https://www.textbroker.de/adwords-anzeigentexte
• https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7332837

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