Ad copy can make or break a campaign, even when working with online advertising it is essential that you write copy that not only grabs the attention of your audience but also sells.

Ad copy matters more than you might think. It’s important to supplement your text with images and video, but words on the page have a powerful impact on what consumers do.

A photograph of a smartphone doesn’t tell you its specs. A video about a running shoe can’t attract search traffic without an intriguing copy to go with it. You need the copywriting portion of your sales page to compel action.

Unfortunately, far too many marketers don’t know what ads copy is or why it matters. Worse, they write uninspired copy that turns off consumers and gives their competitors the advantage.

As you’ll learn from this guide, writing ads copy isn’t a one-and-done practice. Your copy needs to change and evolve with your target audience, and the only way to know what works is to test it.

Sure, refining and testing copy takes more time. But if it results in more revenue for your business, you’ll want to do it the right way. This guide will show you how to craft fresh and exciting copy that sells!

What is Ad Copy?

Ad copy is a text that persuades consumers to buy a product or service. You can write ads copy in paragraph form, create lists, or overlay it on an image.

The best ads copy focuses on how the end consumer can benefit from whatever you’re selling.

Where many marketers go wrong with ads copy is allowing the product or service to speak for itself. Consequently, you need to reach them on an emotional, visceral level and tap into their desire for what you’re selling. This means hitting pain points, calling out qualities that beat the competition, and appealing to your target demographic.

Many people mistakenly believe that design alone sells products. That’s not true. Ads copy is essential for helping consumers make decisions and for highlighting the top benefits your target audience can enjoy by investing in what you’re selling.

Yes, design matters. However, without ads copy, it won’t produce revenue for your business.

We’ve come up with the best tips for producing eye-catching, persuasive, engaging ads copy. You can use these strategies to learn how to write copy that sells, re-write existing ads copy, or start over from scratch.

1. Choose one focus

Your target audience has one specific pain point, one goal, one desire. They might have secondary pain points, goals, and desires, but you need to focus on one to send the point home.

A prospective customer having issues with a skincare product might have one of many pain points:

• Headaches
• Dry Itchy Skin
• Aging or Mature Skin
• Stress
• General Bumps and Scrapes

You might mention each of these but focus on one based on your buyer personas and your customer data collection. That way you are not overwhelming your audience with too much information.

2. Define your goal

Yes, you want to sell something, but do you have a specific sales goal for the page? For instance, do you want to sell one particular product, a product bundle, or a more expensive version of your product? You can use your ads copy to push your audience toward the desired action.

It’s also important to define your goal in terms of conversions.

Before you write your ads copy, test it, and put it in front of lots of consumers, you should get an idea of your baseline conversion rate. Based on historical sales data or an educated guess, what percentage of your visitors currently convert on your sales page?

Knowing where you’re starting from is the only way you’ll know whether the changes you make are improving your desired metrics.

3. Identify your target audience

You need to know exactly what your target audience expects from your product or service. If you’re not able to speak to those desires, you’ll wind up with sales copy that never converts.

Picture your ideal customer in your mind when writing sales copy. Think about the following:

• What challenges that person faces
• How he/she overcomes obstacles
• What goals he/she’s trying to reach
• How you can help

Specifically, tie your product’s or service’s benefits directly to those qualities.

Maybe you know that the majority of your customers are scared off by your high cost. Describe how they can save money over time with a net gain for their pocketbooks.

If you can present this information with hard data, you’ll convert more prospects.

4. Speak to Your Audience

There is no substitute for being relevant when it comes to writing copy for your online display ads. Now that you have discovered who your audience is, writing relevant copy that really speaks to your audience will be much easier. Using the research you have gathered you can start to create copy that really communicates with your audience.

Lack of relevance simply means that it is not going to show up in search results and this will certainly work against you. A great way to make the advertising copy relevant is by ensuring by using keywords that are relevant to your product or service that you are promoting.

5. Make it readable

Too many marketers write ads copy that’s not only boring but also hard to understand. Lists of specs that a layperson couldn’t possibly understand, for instance, will never inspire a consumer to convert.

Readability comes down to several factors:

• Relatable language
• Lots of negative space
• Bold or larger copy to indicate important points
• Storytelling

Selling a skincare product can take a lot of ads copy. Interpret your words with illustrative visuals, and consider using an infographic-style format to further engage your audience.

6. Tell a story

Using a narrative to focus ads copy can yield amazing results. Tell a story around your focus to help people connect to your product and brand.

It doesn’t have to be a true story. You can also use testimonials and case studies to tell stories. Alternatively, tell your brand story and what led you to create your product or service in the first place.

Keep in mind that you are writing copy in a limited space that has to capture the attention of a viewer within a second or two. Now is not the time to start writing your epic advertising saga or explaining how to create your product is in detail, leave that for the landing page or your upcoming memoir. Keep the story short and to the point.

7. Identify a buyer’s main objections and work against them

Someone will always object to buying your product or service. It doesn’t mean you’ve created a bad business. It just means that we, as consumers, are very good at either justifying purchases or finding reasons not to buy something.

If you’re able to identify objections and refute them in your sales copy, your prospects won’t think you’re hiding anything from them. Plus, you’ll get to work around their objections subconsciously.

8. Create an attractive call to action

At the end of every ads copy should be an attractive and easy-to-spot call to action (CTA). Consider using a button so it’s even more eye-catching.

Regardless of what you do in your online ad writing, writing a killer CTA will certainly work to your advantage and this is something that you should not hesitate to do. You need to create a killer call to action that is written in such a way that will make the viewer really want to click on your display ad.

“Buy now” is a standard call to action used by many online marketers, but if you really want to stay a step ahead of your competitors, opt for an alternative that depicts your creativity at its best. Again, remember that the copy that you use in your CTA should reflect what will happen once someone has clicked your ad and arrived on your landing page.

9. Test Ad Copy

The best way to see if your display ad copy works and how you can improve it in future campaigns is by testing the copy during the run of your campaign. Even though you might think that your ad copy is the best it can be, you should always test to collect solid proof of this, instead of guessing.

Predicting how your new ad will perform is a bit tough and it is thus important that you test your ad copy. Don’t be surprised if the ad copy you are expecting to win ends up losing in the end. This is the exact reason why you should always test every element of your display ads, including the copy.

Conclusion

Ads copy isn’t difficult to write, but it doesn’t always work after your first draft.

In fact, it might not spark conversions until you’ve produced five or 10 — or even more — versions of the same page.

While you’re collecting data from your website visitors, you can continuously tweak your copy. You don’t have to take your sales pages offline or drastically alter your web design.

However, you don’t want to neglect the data collection process.

Why? Because everyone makes buying decisions differently.

Your products or services present unique solutions for your target audience, so you need to find the perfect language with which to communicate with them.