When it comes to pay per click advertising, one of the most important things to do well is write your ad. Ad copywriting is important because if you can’t write an ad that gets the click then nothing else matters. Whether or not your landing page converts is a moot point. You won’t have any ROI because no one is clicking on the ad. Therefore, writing an effective pay per click ad is very important.

These pointers from the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog are worthy of mention:

* Be precise in describing what you offer. Ads that are not well written or are unclear do not perform well.
* Make your ads concise and factual. Ads that are too salesy might repel, not attract.
* Don’t use ampersands (&) and numbers in place of words. These symbols can make your ad look unprofessional.
* Provide a strong call-to-action. If your business provides something unique, make sure to include that in your ad.

Remember, when it comes to ad copywriting, you only have a limited space to write your ad and get the click. Use every word wisely. Don’t include information that isn’t important. The purpose of your ad is to get people to click on it to visit your landing page. That’s all it is suppose to do. But - and this is the flip side - get too many people to click who are not targeted prospects and you’ll end up losing money. You want people to click, but you want the right people to click. Therefore, optimize your ad for targeted traffic.

Your headline must grab their attention right away, but you use your ad description to do two things:

1. First, draw clicks from your target market
2. Secondly, discourage clicks from people who you know will not buy your product - untargeted leads

Let’s say, for instance, that you make a product that is perfect for 40-year-old married men. You don’t want 15-year-old girls clicking the ad because they are not the right target. Therefore, include language that doesn’t appeal to that market but that does appeal to the 40-year-old married man target.

If you do those two things with your ad copywriting then you can run a successful pay per click campaign and get the click through on your ads.

(Source) For example, people searching with terms like “prom dress” usually want to be able to browse a variety of styles and colors, and may not click on an ad that promotes a “red floor-length strapless prom dress.”

I don’t agree with that statement at all. Most searchers in 2008 still don’t know how to conduct a search properly. But I do agree with the principle that this statement is being used to back up. You do want your PPC ads to point to a page that is geared toward selling the specific item your ad mentions. It’s more about keywords and optimization best practices than anything.

Let’s take that prom dress example again. Suppose you have a web page that is beautifully written and ready to take order for corsages. You don’t really want to write an ad that attempts to draw traffic from people looking for long evening gowns. You want your own to be optimized for the keyword “corsage”. Otherwise, why advertise?

If you are just looking for general traffic related to prom dresses and such then by all means write your ad toward that mindset and send the traffic to a general web page related to prom dresses. It could be your catalog to allow browsers the opportunity to find the dress they want. But the bottom line is keyword optimization. Without it, you are shooting yourself in the PPC foot. And that hurts.