How to Write Google Text Ads

Written by Jon Kaspszak on May 13, 2016.

A Google text ad is marketing at it’s most fundamental form – pure messaging. Here are a few tips to get the most out of your ad copy.

Keywords in Ad Headline

The ad headline is first thing a user will see, so it has to grab attention quick. Mention the keyword in your headline that triggered your ad to appear. This can be tricky with only 25 characters to work with – but if the keyword can fit, use it.

Users are looking for a solution to their query. Mentioning the target keyword in your ad headline lowers the cognitive load for a user trying to decide which result to click. The easier it is for a user to click your ad, the more traffic you can expect.

Check out how Google does it:

Concise Messaging

Your ad text lines give you 70 characters to work with. Get the most out of those 70 characters by writing clear and concise copy.

Make sure sentences use active voice. Sentences written in active voice have the subject performing the action. Active voice sentences make your message clear and easy to understand. Passive voice sentences complicate meaning and confuse the reader. Here are examples of active vs. passive voice ads:

Active Voice:

Passive Voice:

Call-To-Action

A call-to-action (CTA) reinforces your ad by telling the audience to take action now. You’ve probably seen CTAs at work before. In an image ad, they look something like this:

The CTA completes the ad by asking the user to take action. In an image ad, tailored CTA text over an eye-catching background color is good practice.

The CTA in a text ad requires us to be nimble. Depending on how many characters you have remaining, there may only be room for a two-word CTA. But even a short CTA is effective for driving audience action. Here are a few examples: