Writing the Best Possible PPC Ad - Focus on Benefits

If you want to get the highest possible CTR from your pay per click ads (and who doesn’t?), you should be applying a lesson that copywriters use in virtually every other field.  They write ads that focus on benefits.

There’s a distinction between benefits and features.  Features are aspects of the product you’re selling.  A feature of a cordless screwdriver, for instance, may be the fact that it can hold a charge for up to three solid hours.  That’s a great fact about the product, but it isn’t the kind of thing you should be writing about.  Instead, you want to look for the benefits of owning that screwdriver–what it could really mean for potential customers.  Instead of extolling the virtues of it’s long battery life, you’d want to hammer home the fact that it makes household repairs and assembly fast, fun and easy.  Instead of talking about the fact that it can use either straight or Phillips heads (another feature), you should be talking about the way it saves the user from bloody knuckles, offering a comfortable solution.

Focusing on benefits has been a hallmark of successful marketing for as long as people have been putting pen to paper.  However, many in the SEM world aren’t necessarily experienced copywriters.  Thus, they apply a sort of logical approach to ad writing.  They emphasize, naturally, what the product has instead of painting a picture of how its use will positively change the life of the buyer.  That’s a mistake.

Are your PPC ads focusing on benefits?  If they aren’t (or if you’re not sure), it’s time to revisit them.  Adjust them to fall into line with this time-tested approach to successful copywriting.  You’ll undoubtedly start to see a differenece as your CTR increases.