5 Ways to Write PPC Ads That Get Clicks & Conversions
Despite all the buzz surrounding social media and mobile marketing, pay per click (PPC) advertising is still a powerful tool for getting targeted clicks and increasing website conversions. In fact, sponsored search results account for 64.6% of clicks for keyword searches of highly commercial terms. For real estate professionals, this means that your target audience does pay attention to PPC ads, and if you use them properly, you can drive traffic to your landing pages and get more quality leads. However, simply launching a PPC campaign and throwing up a bunch of ads isn’t a guarantee of success. If you want to get quality clicks that lead to conversions, you need to know how to write killer PPC ads. Following these 5 tips will help you out.
1. Know the intent behind keywords—You can’t talk about writing PPC ads without talking about keywords. Before I talk about implementing keywords into your PPC ads, I want to point out the importance of understanding the intent behind keywords. For example, when someone searches for “homes for sale in (city name)” are they just browsing? Are they looking for a lot of choices? How close are they to being ready to buy? You need to understand the average searcher’s intent behind every keyword you target, and do your best to identify keywords that have high commercial intent that will trigger action.
2. Incorporate the keyword into your ad—When you’re writing a PPC ad for a given keyword, it’s important to include that keyword in the title and body of your ad. If you can get it in the URL as well, even better. Why is this important? First, it reassures searchers that you have what they’re looking for; second, when you include the searcher’s keyword in your ad copy, the keyword will be bolded, making your ad stand out.
3. Make sure your ad copy ties in with your landing page copy—There needs to be unity between what you’re saying in your PPC ads and what you’re saying on your landing pages. If your ad is about one thing but your landing page has a completely different message, you’ll confuse visitors and make them go away. Be consistent in your messaging.
4. Focus on a benefit—Consumers are always interested in what’s in it for them. It’s not enough to put up a generic, keyword-driven ad; you have to sell the searcher in order to get them to click. For example, if you had access to exclusive listings people can’t search anywhere else, you’d want to mention that in your ad. Or if your site has some unique feature that makes browsing homes easier, focus your ad on that. It’s all about selling the searcher on the benefits they can experience when they visit your site.
5. Get them to take action—The call to action is a hallmark of a good ad. Let searchers know in advance what you want them to do when they arrive on your page. For example, your ad might tell them to “Search homes in your area now for free.” Or it might tell them to sign up for a free consultation. The point is to have a clear, compelling call to action in your ad, and make sure you repeat that call to action on your landing page.
Geordie Romer
Posted at 09:03h, 20 DecemberRobert- I haven’t tested much with PPC ads. Do you think that landing pages work best in real estate for searching for real estate at a city level, a zip code level, or a neighborhood level? Does a landing page for a specific listing work or do MLS searches convert better? What about signups for free PDFs or whitepapers?
I’d love anyone’s thoughts who has done any testing.
Robert McGale
Posted at 12:25h, 20 DecemberGeordie – It is important to focus on the keywords, that will determine
which landing pages you want to go with. If you are targeting a specific
neighborhood you will want to have your landing page focused there. As
for MLS or specific landing pages. You generally want the customer to
visit your site and not a third party site. So it would be the logical
choice to set up a landing page that will send them to you.
The most important part is test. Never just assume something will work. Always test it out. You never know what people may like.
Patrick Hake
Posted at 10:24h, 20 December@geordieromer:disqus All of the landing pages you mentioned work. The most cost effective are neighborhood and niche level landing pages, such as bank owned, foreclosures, short sales, etc.. You can typically rank at the top of PPC for those terms with a relatively low bid. For “City Real Estate” or “City Homes for Sale” it can be a lot more expensive. I like to bid relatively low on these but have a high daily budget. Often times competitors will have their budgets exhausted by the end of the day and I end up getting some cheap traffic from the top spot after they have dropped out. As Robert said in his post, you need to make sure the ad matches the landing page. Be sure to get vistors to listings ASAP when they land on the site and have prominent calls to action, like “Request More Info” or “Schedule a Showing”. In my expierience, they could care less about who we are and how great we are, They want to view homes. Also, if you are planning on managing your own Adwords, I strongly recommend using the Adwords Editor that Google provides http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwordseditor/ It makes managing multiple targeted ads and campaigns much easier than using their web based software.
Arindam Dutta
Posted at 06:01h, 03 JunePay per Click Advertising involves creating and placing ads
in the margins of the search engine result pages. If you sell a product or
offer a service that folks can purchase the moment they arrive at your web
site, pay per click is a great tool.