Google Ads headline 1 2 3 example

Your ad is the only part of your account that a user sees. Perfecting your ad message is crucial to attracting the correct type of traffic that will lead to you hitting your business goals.

The two big questions these days are:

• How much control do you want over your messaging?
• Who is better at controlling your messaging – you or Google?

Google recently introduced a 3rd line of ad text.  However, there’s a bit caveat here – it might not always show.

When we think of our ads, we start thinking about ad testing; we usually think in two big formulas to start:

Headline 1 waves its hands around and shows that you are relevant to the search term. Headline 2 gives the user a big reason to want to do business with you (a benefit or call to action in most cases). We’re starting the headlines with relevancy and ending with a known message.

The headline 3 can show after the headline 2; but it might not always show. That means if you use the headline 3; you will NOT know how your ad will end as sometimes it will end with the headline 2 and other times it will end with the headline 3. Google does not provide stats to show you data based upon how many headlines were displayed so you can determine your overall ad’s look and feel.

For instance, if we are really focused on a call to action; here’s our two choices:

In the first example; we add the call to action where we think it should show – at the end of the headline. In the second example, we add it as the middle line; which does seem like an odd place to add it since your middle line is an action and your 3rd line might not always be related to that action.

In this case, we can’t pull stats from Google to see how often the 3rd headline shows; but what we can do is look at responsive ads to see how often they are showing the headline 3. In responsive ads, if you click the ‘view asset details’ you can see the combinations that were actually rendered.

Actual Combinations:

Note: there are many more combinations; but in the interest of not overloading screenshots; we’ve just displayed the six most common.

In this example, the 3rd line showed 0.08% of the time. That’s 1 impression of 3 ad lines for every 125 total ad impressions received. Across this entire account; no responsive ad displayed 3 headlines more than 0.1% of the time. That means if our ad uses a call to action as the 3rd line – it will rarely ever be seen.

Since there is so little data for ads with 3 headlines; we didn’t have a good enough data set to try and test out ads with 3 headlines versus ads with 2 headlines. So instead, we decided to test responsive search ads vs. ads with just two headlines to see who was better at controlling messaging – Google or Us.

In one account, we took 10 ad groups and created responsive search ads and a two headline text ad to see who was better at controlling the messaging – the advertiser or Google. While this is a small sample size; you can do this for yourself in your own accounts by just looking at your responsive vs. text ad stats. In this case, the two headline expanded text ads hands down beat the responsive search ads.

As Google’s machine learning is known to have some issues (just look at the optimize ad rotation); this leads us to a few conclusions for this quarter (we’ll want to revisit this data before the holiday season to see if something should change for q4):

1) If you are focused on CTAs, put your CTA in your headline 2. If you want to leverage headline 3, create an ad line that shows a benefit of the CTA and is directly related to the CTA so that your headline 3 supports your headline 2 and doesn’t look like just another headline stuck on the end of your ad.

2) If you are focused on benefits, put your strongest benefit in headline 2, and a supporting benefit in headline 3.

3) If it OK to skip headline 3 right now as it is displayed very infrequently.

4) If you are doing a lot of ad testing feel free to test responsive ads; however, don’t stop your text ad tests in those same ad groups as text ads are still going strong. If you aren’t very good at ad testing (it’s not that hard to learn how to scientifically test your ads), then responsive might be for you as at least someone is testing out some combinations (Google in this instance).

5) Keep an eye on stats Google provides. Right now, we just don’t have enough insights into data for responsive ad combinations or headline 3 stats to do a proper analysis on ad rendered formats to understand what is going to be ‘best’ in the future. We have to work with the stats we can get into; and at the moment, these are the best conclusions anyone can draw based upon the available data.

6) If you want to start testing them yourself, or just mass creating ads using 3rd headlines, take a look at the new Adalysis features that support the 3rd headline and 2nd description lines where you can easily add these new lines (or edit your ads and save new lines) to many ads at once: Easily Upgrade 3rd Headlines & 2nd Descriptions of All Your Google Ads With New Adalysis Features.

Google Ads, formerly Google AdWords, is a great way to promote your business and boost product sales. They are easy-to-use and typically offer a decent ad spend ROI, when used correctly. But how can you maximize your Google Ads ROI? Today, we will look at how to write great ad copy and how this can boost your Google Ads conversion rate.

Before we begin, a quick note: This guide will not cover the mechanics of Google Ads – there are plenty of decent guides online, and a good place to start is reading through some of the tutorials Google has put out there. Instead, the focus is on writing great ad copy.

Related: Why Google Ads are still the best way to get in front of your customers

So whether it’s your first time writing an ad, or you’re already a veteran Google Ads wordsmith, this guide has tips that can help everyone to hone those skills.

Before we dive in a quick note on the Google Ads text ad format.

You can use:

• Up to 3 Headlines each of 30 characters separated by vertical bars
• Have a visible URL
• 2 Descriptions of 90 characters
• Include extensions such as a countdown timer or site links

Note: I recommend putting the crucial information in the first two headlines, as the third headline may not show on all devices.

So let’s dive in!

1. Mirror user intention

Understanding user intention is the bread and butter of any effective digital marketing strategy. With Google Ads, you have a very short space to get your point across. This means if there is any doubt in the user’s mind about whether or not you can meet their needs, they won’t click. But how can you avoid this doubt?

The answer is to think about what action you want the user to take. Do you want them to sign up for an email list, watch a webinar, or directly buy a product? Once you know the desired user action, you need to reflect this in your copy.

The example shown above may seem simple. And it is! But the user’s intention is clear. Retailer Argos knows that users that search online want to reserve their product online and come and pick up the product in-store. But why? Online browsing is super convenient, but when it comes to customers making purchase decisions, especially larger ones, it’s much more reassuring to see, feel and check the product in-store. This sort of ad helps Argos pick up traffic who otherwise may not have converted straight away in the web store.

2. Repeat the CTA

One of the rules of great copywriting is repetition. And the same is true for Google Ads copy.

There are multiple ways of repeating the CTA, but the main two combinations are:

1) repeating the CTA in the headline and description

2) repeating the headline by using the site links extension.

In the example above, a UK web hosting company starts with an offer in the headline and repeats the offer in the site links extension at the bottom.

The site links extension has the advantage that it increases the clickable space of the ad. Careful not to use too many offers, claims in the site links extension as it can seem a little spammy as in the example below:

3. Eliminate redundancy

Effective copy should never include redundancy and this is particularly true for Google Ads.

You simply don’t have the time or space to waste words. “Can’t make it to the local yoga studio? We got you covered!” wastes 58 characters on something the user already knows. Much worse would be if this redundancy was in the headline. Instead, focus on the benefits of your offer. In this case, why are your online yoga courses so good? A better headline/CTA would be to offer a free trial class.

4. Be specific

When it comes to ads, the more specific the better. This can include claims, numbers or benefits. Try and answer a question specifically in your ad such as: how many happy customers do you have? or how many resources do you have? In the above example from Apple, there are two specific numbers: how much you need to pay monthly to get an iPhone 11 and how much you would need to pay if you trade in your old phone. Note how both numbers are exact. Also note that the claims are repeated in the body copy and using the site links extension.

5. Insert emotive words

Emotive words are words that elicit an emotional response from your users. In the example above, words such as “claim”, “confidence”, “help”, “deserve” elicit an emotional response. Sumo put together a list – use it to get inspiration and not as a definitive guide.

6. Use a countdown timer

Ok, so this is not technically a copywriting tip. But it is effective. You can add a countdown timer to your Google Ads. The great thing is you can set the timer and Google will dynamically insert how long it is left in the sale. A timer can be a great purchase incentive as people don’t want to miss out on a great offer. It’s not too tricky, just follow these steps from Google

7. Get personal

Lots of ads out there speak about “the company” or make promises like “We will help you succeed”. This waters down the personal connection. It is much more effective to talk directly to who you are writing to. So try to avoid all “we” forms and go straight for the “you form”. Have a read through the 3 ads above. Which one jumps out at you? Fiverr’s “Your Freelancer Is Here” headline copy makes it stand out from the other two and using “Your” plays a large role. The second ad uses “your” in the body copy, but this gets lost because Fiver’s headline steals the show.

8. Get hyperlocal

Including a local phone number can significantly boost CTR. ExtraSpace dynamically inserted their inventory details so that when users searched for storage in their local area, the number of available units was displayed. According to their findings, this boosted CTR by 113%.

Related: Boutique dog grooming business Dogue utilized a hyperlocal Google Ads campaign for their Sydney-based franchisees. It has since become their number one source for new online acquisition. Check out how Google Ads have helped grow their business in the video below:

9. Test, test and test some more

It’s impossible to predict which copy is going to perform the best. That’s why it’s best to perform A/B testing with different ads. It’s best to change one element of copy (headline, description) between ad sets, so that when you analyze the results you know what change was effective.

In order to analyze your Google ads performance, you need to focus on:

• Click-through rate: a critical stat which tells you how effective this ad is and which directly impacts the quality score of the ads. A higher quality score will help you lower your CPC and get your ads in more queries in higher positions.
• Conversions and profitability: If you are tracking conversions, and you should, you should prioritise and optimise the ads that are driving more revenue.

10. Bonus tip: Landing page congruence

Congruence is just a fancy word for similarity. The copy in your ads needs to match the copy of your landing page that it links to. Think about the tonality, who you are addressing (we vs. you forms) the user intention, and your CTAs. The Google Ads should match up as closely as possible to your landing page. For this reason, it may be worth creating separate landing pages with small text tweaks for different Google Ad campaigns.

Start growing your business with Metigy and Google Ads Today

Hopefully, you found some of the above tips helpful. The main takeaway is that Google Ads are not an exact science, but if you experiment and persevere, you will find the winning combination. Use the tips above to make sure your ad copy is on point, and the rest will follow.

At Metigy, we’ve addressed the number one challenge facing SMEs that want to start using Google Ads, the complexity of creating and running a successful Google Ads campaign. We’ve created a simple way for you to run a successful Google Ads campaign, backed by our AI recommendation technology.

Try Metigy today and break down the process of creating Google Ads every step of the way with simple setup and our AI recommendations help you capitalise on missed opportunities through keyword and audience suggestions.

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