Best practices for digital ad campaigns
By Christine Nelson, Ingenuity Marketing Group, LLC
October 25, 2021
When investing in Google Ads or other digital ads, your obvious goal is to attract people to your firm who need your help. You can’t control how people search for your services, but using digital ads regularly can help you build brand awareness and a more detailed profile of qualified leads.
The structure of responsive ads gives you the ability to create multiple headlines and descriptions. Then, depending on how someone is searching, the ad algorithm will interchange those headlines and descriptions to align with the most popular searches. Responsive ads are like getting an electronic billboard that flashes different versions of your ad during rush hour. You get more impact for your investment.
Keywords can be important in the development of your ad headlines and descriptions, and sometimes building this copy manually is more strategic than taking suggestions from the ad tool. You still know your industry and clients or candidates better than a robot does. Plus, the ad needs to make sense to humans.
If you have been using the same ad copy for a while, 6–12 months for example, it is usually helpful to change up the headlines and descriptions to better reach your target audience.
Create an engaging landing page
Google prefers to showcase ads with landing pages. The best landing pages have these three factors: relevance with original content, transparency and easy navigation.
Think of the landing page associated with your online ad as the friendly receptionist of your firm. You only have a few seconds to hold their interest and assist with their needs. Your message should feel authentic without a hidden agenda or bait-and-switch strategy.
Be inviting, concise, but clear on what action you want visitors to take once they arrive at your website. Desirable leads should not bounce off the page and do nothing. The ad landing page must intrigue them and promise enough value for them to leave an email or download a resource.
Tips to make your landing page engaging and effective:
- Deliver on the ad’s promise. The landing page should directly relate to information a visitor expects to find after clicking the ad.
- Create engaging content. Use a brief video to better explain your services. Create a downloadable resource to share, or display a gallery of friendly client faces and testimonials. This content is more engaging and persuasive.
- Make it easy to connect. Ads can build awareness and invite questions, but also convert visitors to prospects. Invite visitors to connect through a contact form, a subscribe button or an appointment scheduler. Then follow up!
Ask these three questions when designing an ad landing page:
- How will a visitor navigate the page? Design your landing page with minimal copy, interactive features, one big, bold call to action and maybe sublinks to relevant pages on the site. Avoid diluting your main call to action with too many links.
- Are you providing clear information? Be direct and up front with the information and services you want to highlight on each landing page, and what the visitor should do next.
- Is your landing page relevant to the ad? Use similar keywords and phrases on the landing page as you do in the ad. Reward visitors with information they want.
Monitor your quality score
The Quality Score is Google’s rating system for your ad performance and relevance. This rating is represented on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest or best performing. If your ads have a lower quality score, they are less likely to be placed in front of people searching for your services.
Not getting the results you want? Don’t link to the same landing page with multiple ads. Use your best-performing ad 1-to-1 per landing page. Also, review and add better keywords.
Christine Nelson is a senior communications consultant with Ingenuity Marketing Group. You may reach her at 651-690-3358 or christine@ingenuitymarketing.com.
