Are Your Headlines Eye-Grabbers?

Use two basic tools in your account to get noticed

When you just have mere seconds to catch the attention of a searcher on the web, your ad copy better scream, “I’m just what you’re looking for!” Until we introduce ads that can seductively talk to users, the next best things for getting your ads noticed are our insert keyword and alt text features.

Insert Keyword
Research shows that web users are more likely to click an ad that has—in its title or description—the search term they typed in. Not only can this help bring you more traffic, but a greater number of clicks can also help increase your quality index score, which can push your ads higher in search results at a lower cost-per-click.

To help you achieve these goals, we recommend the use of the insert keyword feature in your new and current ads, to dynamically place the search term into your title or description. You will see this option appear to the bottom right of the title or description field once you start to type in the field. Just click the “Insert Keyword Automatically” link wherever you would like your keyword to appear, and our system will then include the word or phrase that matches prospective customers’ queries when they search for what you sell.

For example, if your ad group is focused on selling different types of televisions, you could use the insert keyword function in your ad title to insert any of the terms that users might employ to find the ads (i.e., “plasma TVs,” “HD TVs,” “projection TVs,” etc.) in your ad group.

Here’s how to insert a keyword automatically in your ad’s title or description.

1. At the point in the title or description where you want a keyword inserted, click the “Insert Keyword Automatically” link below the text field.
2. In the Keyword Insertion dialog box, enter the default text (text that is used if inserting a long search term makes your title or description exceed the character limit).
3. Click the “Add Keyword Placeholder” button. “{KEYWORD:default_text}” is inserted into the title or description.

Alt Text
The alternate text feature displays your ad with different text where the search term typed in by the user would go. Alternate text overrides the default keyword replacement, provided that insertion of the alternate text does not cause the title and description to exceed the maximum length allowed. (If inserting the alternate text would cause the title or description to exceed the maximum length, the default text defined in the keyword token will be used.)

Here are a few circumstances in which it makes sense to use alternate text:

1. To substitute shorter text than the actual keyword
Example: Use the alternate text “30GB mp3 player” instead of the term “white mp3 player 30GB 2.5-inch display” so the ad’s title and description fits within word limits.

2. To substitute more readable or more grammatically-correct text than would result from the user’s search term
Example: Use the alternate text “Refrigerators” instead of the non-plural term “refrigerator” so that the ad title reads “Great Deals on Refrigerators”.

3. To substitute case-specific text
Example: Use the alternate text “California” instead of the keywords “california” or “CALIFORNIA” so that proper nouns appear correctly in the ad.

4. To substitute more descriptive text than the actual search term
Examples: Use “vacation trips to Hawaii” when they searched for hawaii trips.

To specify alternate text for a keyword:

1. Open the Keyword Details page.
2. Select the “Use Alternate Text for This Keyword” checkbox.
3. In the “Enter Alternate Text” field, enter your alternate text for this keyword. As you enter the text, the ads that use Insert Keyword are updated with the alternate text.
4. Click “Save.”

Remember that if inserting the alternate text in the ad title or description causes the title or description to exceed the maximum length, the alternate text will not be used.

— Jeff Hecox