Create Effective Text Ads: Google Best Practices
Successful marketers need to deliver the right messaging for the right moment. Better creatives improve ad relevance and drive more qualified clicks from your text ads.
In this text ads guide for AdWords, you’ll learn how to create compelling ads as people search on Google.com.
1. Take advantage of expanded text ads
- Take full advantage of your character limits.
Why: Longer headlines increase the clickable space of your ads, communicate more to someone who’s searching, and further qualify the clicks that you receive.
- Focus on your headlines.
Why: The content and quality of your headlines matters and will determine how well your ads perform.
Read more about taking advantage of expanded text ads.
2. Write compelling, genuine ad copy
- Don’t simply add a second headline to your existing ads. Rethink your entire ad creative.
Why: Building a connection with someone through an ad can be tough. Additional characters allow you to provide consumers with more insight into your offering.
Read more about writing compelling, genuine ad copy.
3. Set up your expanded text ads for success
- Use keyword insertion and ad customizers if you have a lot of ads to maintain.
Why: You can tailor your creative to a user’s search while reducing your management overhead, including in your URL navigation fields.
Read more about setting your ads up for success.
4. Test and optimize creatives
- Test and iterate your ad creative.
Why: You can learn about your users’ preferences and improve your performance by honing ad text, especially your headlines.
Read more about testing and optimizing creatives.
Moving from standard to expanded text ads
As you make the transition in your account to longer ads, keep these guidelines in mind:
- Test multiple versions of expanded text ads. You’ve most likely spent months (or even years) crafting successful ad text under the old limits. One new expanded version isn’t guaranteed to win, which is why you should experiment with multiple approaches, ideally 3-5 per ad group.
- Don’t forget lessons learned from standard text ads. If your existing text ad outperforms your expanded text ad on certain queries, try mimicking your standard text ad in the new expanded template. Consider promoting description line 1 from your standard text ad into headline 2 of your expanded text ad. Similarly, if successful ad text contained numbers or pricing, retain those as you rethink that entire creative. You have a chance to be more compelling, which may simply mean that you add a little bit more context to your already compelling ads. You can even experiment with moving around different components from previously successful ads.
- Focus your ad tests on your headlines, using the advice found throughout this guide. This guide is based on beta testing along with what we observed over years of performance with longer headlines. Headlines are important, and it’s crucial to test that additional space first.
- Leave your standard ads running until the new expanded versions perform. If you find that shorter, standard versions are performing better, compare that ad side-by-side with your new expanded text ads. Learn from what’s working and expand on that success with your additional text.
Ready to create expanded text ads? Get started now.