Rewrite the ad people scroll past

Match what people search

When an ad group gets plenty of views and few clicks, the ad often doesn’t say what the searcher is looking for. Grantkeeper reads the group’s keywords, its recent search terms and the current ad text, and writes a new responsive search ad that repeats the words people use, names the place, and states the next step.

Google’s limits for responsive search ads are 3 to 15 headlines of up to 30 characters and 2 to 4 descriptions of up to 90 characters. Grantkeeper writes close to the full set and steers clear of common editorial problems: all caps, extra punctuation, symbols in place of words, and phone numbers typed into the text.

Fictional example: the keywords are about weekend pantry shifts, but the current ad says “Make a difference today.” The new ad leads with “Weekend Pantry Shifts” and “Volunteer in Elm County,” and one description says “Pick a 2-hour Saturday shift at the Elm Street Pantry and sign up online.”

Run it beside the old ad

The new ad is added paused to the same ad group. Switch it on in Google Ads and let both run for a couple of weeks. Google Ads shows each ad’s clicks side by side; tell Grantkeeper which one to pause and it does.

Every headline has to stay true, and the page it links to has to deliver what the headline says. If an ad mentions Saturday shifts, the page should show Saturday shifts. When a program changes, refresh the ad before the old line goes stale.

Write headlines that make sense in any order, since Google combines them in different ways. A headline that only works after another one can read oddly on its own.

Ad text is one of the quicker things to change when the click rate dips. The 5% CTR guide covers the other options.