Last Updated on 2021-01-03 by ppcguybklyn
A while ago, I wrotean article about paid search advertising copywriting tips. But whether it’s in search engines or social platforms, as long as there is a need for digital marketing advertising, writing advertising copies is almost a step that cannot be omitted. Good ad copy can increase the click-through rate and conversion rate of ads, but how can we write effective ad copies? I hope to provide a more detailed and comprehensive guide. In this article, I have compiled five steps based on experience that I think can make writing digital marketing ad copy easier.
Step 1: Design advertising copy according to different advertising goals
The first and also the most important step: Like any element that constitutes an advertising campaign, before designing an ad copy, we must first know what the goal of the ad is. Then design different copies according to different goals. Generally speaking, here are three main goals for digital marketing advertising:
- Enhance brand awareness
Operating a new brand or an advertising account for a brand with a low profile usually requires the use of large-scale purchase ads to increase the brand’s awareness. The goal of this type of digital marketing advertising is to get the most people to know this new brand at the lowest cost. Therefore, the writing direction of advertising copy at this stage must be simple and clear to introduce the main content of products and services to the advertising audience, and bring out the characteristics of the brand. The most common method is to design a short and catchy slogan for the brand, and put it in the advertising copy, so that the advertising audience can associate with the brand as soon as they see these words.
- Visibility and social reach
In addition to general brand awareness-enhancing advertisements, the way to make advertised products and services more widely known is to use exposure or social reach-oriented advertising. The purpose of this kind of advertising is to let more people see and interact on the social platform, the better. The difference between this type of advertising copy and brand awareness advertising is that sometimes the copy does not need to mention the characteristics of the brand. Instead, the advertising content is written based on the current popular events and activities most relevant to the content of the advertising product. Simply put, in order to gain the highest exposure and social reach, these advertisements must be published in conjunction with major events and activities in the advertising content-related industries. For example, when engaged in the consumer electronics industry in the United States, it is usually during the CES (Consumer Electronics Show). The launch pursues exposure and community reach to achieve the effect of publicity.
- Get more conversions
This is usually the advertising goal most people want to pursue: hoping that the more conversions the advertisement can bring to the site, the better. Conversion-oriented advertising copy must clearly inform consumers why they have to buy products on our website. Product features and any discounts (such as free shipping) that can attract consumers to stop must be placed in the ad copy. Using short text to attract consumers to convert on the website is the most difficult part of writing this type of ad copy. Therefore, it is usually the most needed to test the effect of different versions of conversion-oriented ads, using continuous experimentation. The combination of graphics and text and product, as well as finding the most suitable advertising audience characteristics, is a process that must be experienced in operating this type of advertising. When writing this type of copy, it is very important to prepare several different versions of the same copy in advance, and to test the effects of different changes in advertising.
Don’t forget to use different Call To Action for different goals
After determining the goal of advertising, the most important step is to use different Call To Actions according to different advertising goals. If it is brand awareness or exposure, texts like "learn more" and "visit website" are usually used to encourage advertising audiences to click on the advertising link. If it is conversion-oriented, usually use "Buy Now", "Shop Now" or similar Call To Action to remind consumers to conduct conversion activities on the website. Including Call To Action in the ad copy is a very important step. By directly telling the audience what they should do after watching the ad, the content of the copy can be more proactive.
Step 2: Determine the tone of the copy based on the characteristics of the advertising audience
After knowing the goal of writing advertising copy, we have to decide what tone to use to write this copy. At present, most digital marketing advertisements are aimed at the 25-45-year-olds who are the strongest consumers on the Internet. Therefore, common buzzwords and even emojis that are closer to this age group are usually used to make the ad copy look more lively. But if our advertising content and brand image are aimed at more mature, stable and high-income customers, such as fashion or luxury brands, the tone of the advertising copy should not be too frivolous, otherwise it will make the advertising product itself look very cheap. Or the content of the advertisement is mainly B2B products and services, then the tone of the advertisement copy should be more professional, honest and reliable, so that potential customers will want to take the initiative to contact after seeing the advertisement.
How to determine the tone of the ad copy according to the target of the ad is an important ability in writing ad copy, and it also takes a lot of time to practice. Understand the preferences of the biggest potential customers of the product you are advertising, and determine the content of the advertising copy based on this, so that you can produce the most efficient advertising content.
Step 3: Refer to the competitor’s ad copy
If we decide on the goal and content of the advertisement, but we are still not sure whether this kind of advertisement copy can effectively attract the attention of consumers, we can choose to refer to the advertisement copy used by competitors. Especially those competitors that have much larger company sizes and higher advertising budget than us. Usually this type of companies spend a lot of time and energy on advertising, which means that their ads that can be seen on search engines or social platforms have been tested and optimized. Referring to these finished products of copywriting is much more effective than creating out of imagination. Of course, this is not to say that we should copy and paste the competitor’s ad copy directly, refer to the other party’s semantics, and convert these texts into a copy that is relevant to our advertising content and consistent with the brand image.
Step 4: Check semantics and grammar
After you finish writing the ad copy, don’t forget to check the semantics and grammar of the ad copy to make sure the sentence is fluent and there are no obvious grammatical errors. After all, obvious typos or ambiguities in the advertisement will not only affect the performance of the advertisement, but also compromise the brand image of the advertisement. Try to use some tools to check these items before the ad goes live. If it is an English ad, Grammarly would be a good choice. Launching the ads after confirming that there is no problem with grammar and semantics is what a competent advertiser would do.
Step 5: Adjust according to copywriting performance
After the advertisements are launched, it does not mean that the work of this copywriting ends here. In order to maximize the effectiveness of advertising, we should constantly adjust our copywriting according to the performance of the advertisements and make sure that the ones that are currently running are the most efficient versions. Most advertising platforms provide A/B testing functions. We should build other versions based on the current copywriting, and then use A/B testing to observe whether different versions will bring greater benefits (higher click through rate, conversion rate, or exposure, etc.). The work of writing ad copy can only be concluded after repeatedly testing different versions of ad copy and finding the copy that best suits our advertising audience.
(Original Post inShelly's Adventure)
