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As you progress in your Google Adwords efforts, sooner or later you run into this- no matter how great your keyword choices are, unless you can make good ads your campaign is dead in the water.

What is the secret of a good Adwords ad? Read on and find out.

The biggest problem you face is that Google considers a "good" ad to just be one that gets clicked on the most, but you need an ad that is going to bring people to your site that are actually real customers, and not freebie seekers, if you are going to actually make some profit.

That is one of the hardest things about Adwords, it is actually a delicate balance between ads that get clicked on a lot, that Google considers "relevant" and the ads that have the highest possible return for your advertising dollar, which are often not the same thing.

This article is going to present a few ideas starting at the basic level, and then continue with some pro refinements to add to your Adwords campaigns.

GETTING TO SQUARE ONE WITH GOOGLE

A lot of marketing of anything is like a funnel:

At the biggest end of the funnel you need a lot of people that are coming into your store.

Not all of those people are going to become customers but your advertising has brought them in, so they are mildly interested in what you have to offer, and they are willing to take advantage of free information and learn a little bit more. They are easily turned off.

A certain percentage of those people above will be willing to take your free pamphlet, or give you their email address to sign up for your free newsletter or download something that they think will help them learn more.

A certain percentage of THOSE will call, contact a salesperson or if it is a small item, buy it right there.

An even smaller percentage will become your customers, and if you do a good job, become your lifeling customers, and buy more products from you.

These percentages make or break your business, regardless of what you are selling.

How does this relate to Adwords? Your Adwords strategy should mirror your marketing strategy for your entire business, with a couple of added tweaks.

The first thing we are going to do is, for the people that are frustrated with their Adwords campaign, getting words inactive or disabled and not being able to really get the campaign off the ground, we are going to build the first part of your marketing funnel, which oddly enough is exactly what Google wants you to do!

What Google wants is relevant search results.

This probably won't ever change, and hasn't changed in at least 5 years now. If you can deliver an ad that delivers relevant content to what a person is searching for and offers the solution to that problem as a benefit statement, you have won half the battle right there.

There is more to this than you think, and tapping into this Adwords secret is actually a major marketing secret, if you can do it. Some people can't.

What you need to do is...(drumroll please)

PUT YOURSELF IN SOMEONE ELSES SHOES.

Can you do this for real? If you are in an argument with your wife can you stop and look at everything exactly like she would? Can you look at the world the same way the mechanic does who fixes your car? If your kid wants candy, can you actually look at the world like your kid would?

If you can, you have mastered the ultimate Adwords copy writing secret, and the secret of master marketers.

Or to say it a different way, its not about YOU, its about THEM

Here is how to use this secret in Adwords, and why you need to use it to the hilt:

When people search for something on the internet, they never go with the intention of buying something, they go to research and find out about things, and they usually want their information FREE.

They came to the search engine in the first place because they wanted to solve a problem. Find out what that problem is, and give them the solution to that problem AS A BENEFIT STATEMENT and you will kill most of the other Adwords advertisors out there in your market.

The key, the mantra from Google is relevance.

The key for you, is relevance, and what problem are they trying to solve with doing that search.

Lets say someone is searching for "cheap childrens shoes"

That problem is obvious-the person wants some shoes for their kids, and doesn't want to pay a lot for them.

Ok Sherlock, now answer these questions:

Is the searcher a man or a woman?

How old is the searcher?

What is their economic status?

What kind of house do they live in?

What kind of computer are they probably using?

Are they a Democrat, Republican, or Other?

You are right- You don't know. But there are some statistical probablilties if you are in the US.

There is a very high probability that it will be a woman, who is internet saavy, and there is a good chance that her household actually has some good disposable income. In other words, she may not consider herself rich, but she is definately not poor, and probably considers herself a smart shopper as well.

So this ad should be written to HER if possible.

Just for fun, I went to Google, searched for cheap childrens shoes, and I found the following ads. Here they are, in order:

Kids Clothing
OldNavy.com Summer's Must-Have Styles For Kids- Old Navy - Fun,

Fashion & Value

Children's Shoes
www.angelcovers.org Sandals that are fun for kids! The squeaks are a great parental aid.

Those were on top of the page, we would consider those positions 1 and 2.

Here are the ones on the right side of the page in positions 3-10:

cheap kids shoes
Over 300 shoe brands.
365 day return policy at Zappos.
www.zappos.com

Kid's Shoes at Shoebuy
Free Shipping. No Tax. All Sizes.
Plus Free Returns & Great Savings.
www.shoebuy.com

Kid's Shoes
Learn About ReNForce Sneakers -
Durable Shoes for Your Active Son!
www.NewBalance.com

Children's Footwear
Find the Latest Styles for Children
At Affordable Prices - Shop Online!
www.JCPenney.com

Compare Prices at BizRate
Bargain Prices.
You want it, we got it!
BizRate.com

Find Shoes at Shoes.com
Shop Over 200 Brands at Shoes.com
Free Shipping, Free Returns, No Tax
www.Shoes.com

Save on Discount Shoes
Save 35-70% on Discount shoes.
Web Only Sale-20% off select items
www.SierraTradingPost.com

Sandals - Free Shipping
Your online shoe source
Free Returns & 110% price match
www.shoedini.com

Which ads were best? It depends.

The ultimate test is to do this same search 3 months from now and see who is still there. That is the ultimate test of what is "best".

One thing is that the ads that are listed on the top of the actual search results have to have a minimum click through rate that is pretty high, in order to be featured there, and a pretty high cost per click, which is why you will often find big lazy corporations in the top spots.

They just pay for the number one spot, and in most cases that's just the way it is. Just try to outspend them. You can't.

So in this case if you have a small shoe store, forget about trying to compete with Old Navy. That won't happen.

As you look over the ads, you find a couple sandal manufactures, a shopping comparison site with a kind of generic ad, a shoe manufacturer, another major retailer, JC pennys, and a couple sites that seem to have exactly what the searcher is looking for, lots of shoes at discounted prices.

So what copy would get you to click on these ads?

Here's the benefits, extracted out of all these ads:

*Discounts
*Fun
*Huge Selection
*Return Policy
*Lowest Price Guarantee
*Desireable Styles (only in the old navy ad)
*No tax

Note that if you have done your market research, ( Check out http://www.dataresourceconsulting.com/marketing-surveys.htm for how to do this )You should know what the most important concerns are for your customers. The only way to know for sure is to ASK THEM.

If you don't know the key benefits your target market is seeking, or what the key problems or concerns they are facing, you can't write an effective ad. For the purposes of this article we will just use these benefits above and assume they are correct.This might not be the case, and out of all these benefits only one or two will be the most important, but just be aware that market research fits in right here and is very important.

For now, we will just assume that our market research shows that shoe shoppers want low prices, great desireable styles, an easy return policy, lots of shoes in stock, and lets add fast shipping to that list for fun.

Remember all we want to do at this first level for you, the frustrated advertiser is make an ad that people will click on, so that your advertising program won't be constantly disabled by Google and you can actually start getting some visitors to your site.

What is the weapon? Lets stay with relevance first. One of the other advantages of relevance is that if you use the keywords in your ad that the user types in, Google automatically makes them bold by default. So you can get a bold ad for the same price as a regular ad, just by making it more relevant.

This helps you, especially in the title.

Not one advertisor here actually used the actual search phrase in the title. So lets use that to our advantage. Here's a first try:

Cheap Childrens Shoes, Childrens Shoes-Cheap Prices, Major Brands, With Free, Fast Shipping! www.mysite.com/discount

In this ad, the title and most of the first line would be bold, which will help us. Also we are tweaking the display url, and using that as an additional, subtle benefit.

Here's another idea:

Cheap Fun Childrens Shoes Thousands of Name Brand Discounted Shoes, Shipped Fast with One Click! www.mysite.com/freeship

This one does the same thing, but emphases convenience and instant gratification, something that works in lots of industries and something that internet surfers are notorius for demanding.

Like anything else, you have to try a few variations. I have no idea how well these ads would do, and I have no affilation with any online shoe store or company, this is just based on a 30 second quick look of one search, but It is a decent first stab at it.

Now that we have conquered relevance, lets take the next step:

DON"T BE CHEAP

When you have a couple ads that you want to test that you think are pretty relevant to the keywords, and you have the first ads to test, start out by bidding high enough to get your ads in the first 4 positions.

Make your budget enough that you will be one of the first ads that people see, so you can be fair about how it performs.

If you start off with the idea, "well I can only afford 30 cents a click" you have already lost the game.

You might have a great ad, but if you bury it on the second page of search results you are going to have more automatic software visiting your ad than actual searchers, and your click through rate will be abysmal.

If your budget isn't high enough your ad just won't be shown enough for you to be able to tell how good it is. You need at least 200-400 impressions (times your ad was shown) for even the smallest test and the smallest budget, and Ideally all done the same day, or you will drive yourself nuts.

Once you have tested your ad, either it will have a better than .5 Click through Rate (this means one out of every 200 people clicks on the ad) or it wont.

If it does, you can then optimize the price. If it doesn't, keep testing new ads until you can get something that works.

Once you get your ad with at least a .5 click through rate you can then move onto more advanced concepts, including optimizing the price.

Free Resources to learn more about Adwords copywriting:

1) Try the Adwords podcast at http://www.aardvarkabductions.com/

There is a free one hour mp3 all about Adwords copywriting that you can listen to, with several leading copywriters

2) Check out http://marketingnewsblog.adwordstraining.org

Free Blog with lots of resources and Adwords tutorials, and additional info about Adwords copy writing.

3) Or, you can hire a professional to do it for you, and maximize your site for the highest return as well:

http://www.dataresourceconsulting.com/search-engine-optimization.htm

This article ended up being a little longer than I planned, and is a little bit to digest in one sitting, so I am going to quit here, and save the optimization techniques for a second article.

Here's to beating the system and cracking the Google Adwords code!

-Steve Blom