In all honestly, I tend to say the landing page is the most important aspect of a PPC campaign for the simple fact that it is the last metaphorical ‘domino’ to fall in PPC which will gain you a conversion. However, all of the elements in PPC are important. The keywords you use in your campaign affect the CPC and what type of traffic you gain. As well as this, the advert itself will have a large impact on the overall success of a PPC campaign. For example, a poorly designed search advert will lack a high click through rate and will discourage high quality traffic to click onto your landing page. It is all about first impressions in PPC. This is why you need to make sure your search advert gives out the right message to the web user. 
 

Too Much Information

A large problem why many search adverts fail is because the advertiser crams in far too much information for the web user to digest. We need to remember the objective of the search advert:

• To grab the reader’s attention
• To briefly inform the web user about what the advert is trying to advertise.
• To entice the web user further into the content.
• To gain a click from the web user.

If you want to grab the reader’s attention, you need to make a title that is attractive and enticing to read. I mention only the title to grab the web user’s attentions since 99 times out of 100 the web user will look at the title of the advert before any other area. To create a great title, it can be:

• Extremely short and to the point.
• Include numbers and figures to encourage the web user to click onto it.
• Easy to read

The point of the title is to grab the web user’s attention so don’t make it unnecessarily long.
 

The description is the area where you will inform the web user briefly about the contents of your advert and landing page. The trick to this section is to provide some information but not all of the information. If you provide too much information, you are giving the web user less incentive to visit the landing page. For this reason, try to limit the description to one or two sentences with a short call to action at the end.

To entice the web user further into the content, it is strongly recommended that you use numbers and figures like MoneySuperMarket did. The only trouble with this is that there will be some campaigns out there that just cannot adopt figures to their description. In these cases, it might be better to keep the description slightly shorter and concentrate more on a larger CTA.

In essence, stopping a PPC search advert from failing is not too difficult. We are lucky PPC adverts are simple in their design with only a few add ons such as extensions. However, if you are unsure if your advert is failing, conduct an experimental campaign and change one variable at a change in the advert to see how it affects the performance of your campaign. From doing this, you will be able to define the best set up for your search advert.