If you’ve ever done a Google search, you’ve already seen an AdWords campaign. Just look to the right of the search results, and you’ll notice a list of ads directly related to your query. AdWords campaigns are a very focused and cost-effective way to attract the attention of people with a potential interest in your product or service.

Google AdWords are a unique communication vehicle at many different levels. (1) The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. (2) You choose the keywords you want to advertise with, therefore it is more targeted than any “traditional” advertising vehicle. (3) You bid on the keywords
against other advertisers and can determine exactly what you want to pay.

Successful AdWords campaigns consist of five vital components.

1. Careful selection of relevant keywords.
2. Effectively written ads.
3. Savvy bidding.
4. Effective landing page.
5. Quick follow-up from the sales force.

For this article I want to focus on point #2, writing effective ads (I’ll come back to the other points in future posts). Writing an effective ad with Google can generate a huge return-on-investment (ROI). Not only do effective ads garner more click-throughs, but with Google, those high click-through rates also help your firm climb “higher-up” in the ad listings, without paying more.

So what’s my amazing tip? Well this should be obvious, and to some it will be. But we are stunned to see how many AdWords campaigns don’t follow this simple rule. When writing AdWords ads, use the keywords you are bidding on in the ad copy. In a perfect world you’d include the keywords in the headline, but at the very least include them in the ad copy.

Something this simple, which most AdWords users don’t employ, will help your ad rise above the clutter. At this point you might say to yourself, “but I have so many keywords, I can’t get them all to appear in the ad, much less the headline.” The solution is simple; break your campaigns into as many ad groups as you need to enable you to adhere to the above rule. Google doesn’t charge more for each ad group and it is yet another way to have a much more targeted campaign.

Before we started using the keywords in the ads we had a 1.5 percent CTR (click-through-rate). Generally speaking, a 1.5 percent CTR would be considered a well-performing ad. But when we started using keywords in our headlines and copy we saw our CTRs increase to above 3 percent, which is getting close to staggering performance.

If you have a Google AdWords campaign in place and you are not using keywords in your copy, give it a try. We are pretty sure you will be stunned by the results.