How to Optimize Your Google AdWords Text Ads with 2 Key Best Practices

So you’ve defined your target audience and now know how to apply the information from your target audience to optimise your Google AdWords campaign. What now?

Google uses Expanded Text Ads across the board (as of 31 January 2017), comprising of:

• Two headlines, 30 characters each
• Description, 80 characters
• Destination URL, that can be customised with two paths, 15 characters each 

How then, do you use this ad space effectively? Here are two best practices to keep in mind.

1. Write With Your Target Audience’s End Goal In Mind

Remember, people who search in Google for something are aware of a problem they are facing. They are hence searching on the Internet for either information about their problem, or for a solution to that problem.

As a marketer, you need to anticipate what your target audience is looking for, and place that end goal in mind when writing your ads. For example, if you are marketing a database management solution for an enterprise-level company, people who search your keywords are likely to be facing an issue with a disorganised database. They would likely be feeling frustrated about wasting time on unnecessary administrative tasks.

You could then write an ad that went:

“Wasting time on Database Management? Our database solution reduces administrative time by 90%. Click to sign up for a free trial.”

Ask yourself: what do people want to ultimately accomplish? And how can your product or service help them?

2. Target Your Ads Locally

It’s very easy to use a single ad campaign for an entire country, or to even use the same ad globally. After all, that means less management on your end.

However, if we look at the data, localised ads and content constantly outperform ads that aren’t localised.

Image Source: Xploree

Ad localisation can take many forms:

• Translating landing pages and ad creatives from English into local languages
• Understanding the cultural and linguistic nuances of the country you are looking to target
• Specifying the range or radius of which your ads should be shown to

Within the Google AdWords interface, we can use location targeting to focus on specific cities or even neighbourhoods

With your ads, you want to show that help is nearby. Communicate that to your target audience by using local telephone numbers over a national 1800 number, or including neighbourhood or city names in your ad copy. Having phone numbers with geographic proximity to the visitor can double your conversion rates!

Need an example? IKEA is a master of localising content to fit cultural nuances in its flagship catalogue, which is printed and distributed globally.