People don’t read. Or, they don’t read very carefully. If you write an Adwords text ad with a headline that is very enticing, people might click without even understanding what it is that you are offering. That’s a big problem. You just wasted good money advertising to people who had no need or desire for your product. But that’s not all. You also messed up your Adwords metrics, measuring a complete marketing failure that can distort overall performance numbers if it goes on for very long.
But the problem isn’t just a poorly written ad. Sometimes it begins with a poorly defined keyword that virtually sets you up for failure.
For example, I recently set up an Adwords campaign for a merchant account services provider that provides a capability for setting up recurring payments. This is neat functionality for HVAC technicians, lawn care providers and anyone that wants to sell a subscription of services as a package. Every month, the customer’s credit card gets charged the agreed upon price.
Unfortunately, I got a little careless and set up a keyword “subscription payments.” It seemed harmless at the time.
The ad was not great, but not bad, and one of two I was testing:
EZ Subscription Payments
MerchantGuy.com
Set up monthly or even weekly
credit card payments by customers
The ad clicked through to a landing page that was about recurring billing. People didn’t read. Instead, they filled out the form and asked that we help them unsubscribe from newspapers and magazines! What?
1) Be sure to use keywords that don’t have an alternate meaning for an audience you don’t want to click your ads.
2) Write text ads that are very clear about what you are offering.
3) Craft a landing page and form that is clear about what you are offering.