The Good, the Bad, the Creative

Seven tips to make sure your ad’s aim is true

When it comes to your ad copy, there’s good, there’s bad, and—I know this all too well—there’s sometimes ugly. Like the desperadoes in the old westerns, the latter need to be rounded up and sent away.

To help us clean up this town we call Sponsored Search, we’ve put together our own magnificent seven—tips, that is:

Keyword Inclusion – Whenever possible, make sure to use the keyword in your titles and descriptions. It can help make them more relevant and attractive to the people searching on them.
Keyword Insertion and Alt Text – Keyword Insertion helps ensure that the keyword always appears in the ad, and Alt Text helps the ad to read correctly and appear the way you want it to.
Quality and Clarity – Clear, effective titles and descriptions give searchers a distinct idea of who you are and what you have to offer. Avoid spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as poorly worded titles and descriptions.
Relevance – Make sure that your ads are relevant to the keywords in your ad group. Avoid “catch-all” ad copy that simply doesn’t fit with certain keywords.
Keyword/Creative Conflict – Avoid ad copy that appears to clash with your offerings, such as a description that stresses low prices on shoes when in fact you primarily sell shirts. Even when the keyword appears in the creative, searchers may skip the ad if you stress something else.
Competitive Advantage – If you got it, flaunt it! If you offer something that may give you an edge such as free shipping or a low price guarantee, be sure to mention it in your copy.
Ad Testing – By creating multiple ads, you can use ad testing to test the viability of your ads and see which message resonates more with searchers. Routinely checking on the status and performance of your ads will help you stay on top of consumer response.

Now that you’re armed with ideas, you can have your bad ads heading out of town by high noon, if not sooner.

— Noah Belson, Content Quality Analyst

Photo courtesy of freeparking via Flickr

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19 Comments Add your own

1. PPC Advertising Roundup f&hellip | March 12th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

[...] The Good, the Bad, the Creative - Seven tips to help you make sure you are on target with the search queries. “Must read!” [...]
2. Pay Per Click Journal | March 13th, 2008 at 12:23 pm

Loving the tips but more importantly, loving the great photo! LOL
3. HgH | March 13th, 2008 at 9:43 pm

Where do you input “Alt Text” in the ad?
4. Deb | March 13th, 2008 at 10:35 pm

I will try these 7 tips to see if it makes a difference. I hope it helps.
Thanks,
5. Shaye | March 16th, 2008 at 10:21 pm

This is some great simple advice that will help any business with their ad performance. It really does pay to learn a bit about SEO (you don’t need to master it) just a good conceptual knowledge of how search engines operate is enough to peak your ad results : )
6. Roger P. | March 18th, 2008 at 1:25 pm

Hi HgH,

To use Alternate Text within your account, please follow the steps below:
* Login to your account
* Click onto the appropriate campaign and ad group where your keywords are located
* Click onto the keyword you want to use the Alt Text feature with
* Under the graph on the right hand side, you will find Alternate Text
* Check the box next to “Use alternate text for this keyword if Insert Keyword is used in any ad”
* Add the replacement word in the box that appears right underneath and click “Save Changes”

Hope this helps,
Roger Park, Manager, Marketing Communications
7. Jack Stone | March 19th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

Another possibility would be if your system actually WORKED, instead of being completely screwed up. That might have an impact. Instead of just displaying ads, you (and Google) have outsmarted yourselves with complicated but dumb algorythms that limit the display of ads based upon misguided and nonsensical assumptions.

As a result, ads start out running great… for a few days. And then your system’s dumb rules brings the ad to a screeching halt, so that it no longer displays properly.

Looking at sites where the ad should be displaying (was before), there can be BLANK SPACE — no ad from anyone is being displayed.

In other words, your misguided programming rules would rather display NOTHING AT ALL where the advertisements go then to display a paying ad.

Once again, these are ads that WERE displaying on specific keywords, in fact. Then they just stop working. And on those searches, THERE IS PLENTY OF ROOM for the ad to display. There are UNUSED SLOTS going to waste.

And all of this is because your programming imposes some misguided, poorly-thought-out rules and the machine “decides” that the keywork is not getting enough results.

Well, how the heck is a keyword supposed to get results, if you never display it?
8. Keith | March 19th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Great tips. I’ve done 6 of the 7 in the past and they have increased my CTR and ROI. My quality score rose as well.
9. Melanie | March 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Thanks for the tips. I do try to get my keywords and ads to match, but I am confused. My ads don’t show up as much as I would like. Does Yahoo have exact phrase match options like Google does? I am more familiar with Google Adwords. When adding keywords, do I use parenthesis and brackets if I want exact matches?
10. ryan | March 19th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Yeah, I’d agree with Jack. You, and Google, seemed to have effed up such a beautiful, beautiful concept. A year or so ago I’d just load up some keywords, enter my budget and click, click, click here come the customers. Now? Now, even after hiring a professional SEO firm to manage my account, all I get are modest clicks with no traffic. I do hope you remove your heads from your arse and listen to your customers.
11. Nicolas Zangenberg | March 19th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

Great tips!
12. The Unit | March 19th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

Makes me feel alot better to know that I am currently doing most of what was stated and now I can tweak my ads. Thanks.
13. Joe | March 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pm

Great ideas. Yahoo really tries to help their advertisers.
14. Howard | March 19th, 2008 at 7:00 pm

It seems that all marketers ignore the obvious. Thanks for the straight forward internet marketing tips. I appreciate honesty and reward honest marketers with my business. Like the honesty of the discounts they offer at IEMarketPlace.net
15. Roger P. | March 20th, 2008 at 9:41 am

Hi Melanie:

The Standard match type displays your ads for exact matches to your keywords, as well as for singular/plural variations and common misspellings. Do not use parentheses and brackets for this match type.

More information and overview on match types is located here:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ysm/sps/start/overview_matchtypes.html#tips

Hope this helps!
Roger Park
16. Kathy | March 21st, 2008 at 9:33 am

Thank you for the super tips! Every little bit helps! We little people need to start getting a piece of the pie too!
17. Daw Hosting Blog | March 23rd, 2008 at 6:08 am

The 3rd one - “Quality and Clarity” is very important and most online advertisers always underestimate it.
18. Tampa Furniture and Mattress Clearance store | April 18th, 2008 at 11:32 am

Auto keyword Insertion rocks. Good job!
19. John Rhodes | May 31st, 2008 at 1:25 pm

Does anyone know of a good company that can help with SEO?