How to Write Flawless Google Ads Copy: 4 Simple Rules

I’ve been writing Google Ads copy for quite some time now, and I genuinely enjoy it. Creating effective Google Ads (AdWords) campaigns is challenging and exciting. And that’s what I like about it the most.

You might think that I’m a bit of a weirdo. But I’m okay with that, mainly because it’s not a complete lie. I love what I do and believe my little obsession with Google Ads can help make your advertising campaigns better.

As of now, I’ve created Google Search campaigns for more than fifty different businesses, and, believe it or not, none of them were in the same industry. From Thai gin manufacturers, motorcycle helmets, commercial vacuum sealers, and topsoil screeners to white noise machines, I’ve advertised them all. 

So, I can claim I do know a thing or two about writing compelling ad copy, and what’s more, do it fairly quickly.

Yes, writing Google Ads copy that converts requires practice and knowledge of the advertising industry specifics. But hey, luckily for you, I have all that experience. And today, I’m willing to share the best Google Ads copywriting practices I gathered during the endless hours I spent in the Google Ads accounts. 

Are you a business owner trying to test the grounds for your first Google Ads campaign or a newbie marketer looking for some cool ideas? Scroll down to discover my tips and tricks on how to write flawless Google Ads copy without making your brain melt. 

And if you’re interested in learning more about how to do Google Ads for your business, check out our complete Google Ads Guide!

What Is a Good Google Ad Copy?

Before I spill some of my precious secrets, let’s clarify a few things to make sure we’re on the same page:

1. Ad copy plays a significant role in your Google Ads campaign performance. However, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Great Google Ads copy alone won’t take your campaign to the moon if you’re missing proper settings, conversion tracking, and have a poor landing page.
2. You can create different campaigns in Google Ads and do many more sophisticated things with them. In this post, I’m only focusing on the specific ways to write Google Search text ads quickly and, what’s more important, effectively.
3. You can create search ads directly in the Google Ads Dashboard or the Google Ads Desktop Editor. I prefer the latter for streamlining the whole process. So, if you notice an unfamiliar interface on some of the screenshots in this post, it’s most likely Google Ads Editor.
4. The purpose of my post is to help you feel more comfortable dealing with Google Ads, distinguish between good and bad copy, and create variations of Google Ads text ads by yourself when needed. However, if you require a full Google Ads strategy, feel free to check out our Google Ads Management subscription service. Zima Media’s expert team (myself included) will be happy to help you jump-start your online marketing efforts.
5. Google Ads is all about testing. I cannot even recall how many times I’ve said this phrase out loud. Please take my advice as general guidelines but don’t forget to adjust them according to your business goals and industry. Never be afraid to experiment, and remember that advertising doesn’t happen overnight.

Okay, now that we’re all good, it’s time for some real talk.

You know your Google Ads copy is good if:

• It clearly describes your product or service
• It’s super relevant to your landing page
• It includes your target keywords
• It has a specific call to action (CTA)
• It highlights the unique benefits you offer to your customers
• It’s free of grammatical blunders
• It addresses your prospects’ Google search queries
• It blends in with the organic search results
• It’s not deceiving
• It follows the same capitalization style (either Title Case or Sentence case)

Google AdWords Ad Copy Character Limits

When you decide to add more search ads to your Google Ads campaign, choose expanded search ads rather than simple text ads. Expanded text ads let you add three headlines (30 characters each), two descriptions (90 characters each), and two 15-character paths to complete your final display URL. 

My advice is to try and use all of the characters for the descriptions. Yet, I suggest experimenting with the number of characters for the headlines and adding both short and long texts. For example, your first headline can be 30 characters, the second one 9 characters, and the third 23 characters. This way, you’ll provide Google with enough options to test and show your ads on different devices.

Google Ad Copy Rules

Now that you know the general specifications of Google Search ads, here are a few important things you need to remember when writing your Google Ads copy:

1. Consistency is king. When crafting your ad copy, stick to the same capitalization style. I prefer using Title Case in my ads. But you can also go for a Sentence case if you want. Just make sure you choose one and don’t create a hard-to-follow mix. To be 100% sure, check your copy by pasting it into the Capitalize My Title tool.
2. Do not use any punctuation at the end of your first description. Google puts a period after a first description automatically. It just might give you that one extra character you needed to finish your sentence. But feel free to use an exclamation mark or a period at the end of the second description.
3. Do not use ALL CAPS in your title or descriptions because Google won’t approve your ads and also, you don’t need to SHOUT to your potential customers 😉 The exception applies to abbreviations and some brand names. Otherwise, stay away from capitalizing everything to avoid spending time rewriting your ad copy over and over.
4. Do not use exclamation marks in Google Ads headlines as well as any repeated punctuation or symbols in the main copy. In fact, you can use only one exclamation point in your Google Ads descriptions. You can check out the rest of Google’s advertising policies here because there are many more.
5. Make sure to proofread your copy for grammatical mistakes. There’s nothing good about seeing a poorly written ad. Grammatical errors can also make your ads look like a scam. Although I’m an experienced copywriter, I still check all my text ads for typos using Grammarly.
   
   Disclaimer: The only “mistake” I allow myself to make is omitting an article or punctuation sign if I’m short of characters to finish a thought in the description. But grammatical mistakes in words are a no-no for me.
   

Google Ad Copy Examples

Let’s review a few ads from a popular Canadian brand Lululemon. 

Example #1: Search Term →  Rain Jacket 

Pros: 

• Clear CTAs: Shop Rain jacket, Shop Online
• It’s an expanded text ad with two descriptions, a phone call extension, and two site link extensions
• Main keyword in the URL path: /rain_jacket

Cons: 

• Inconsistent capitalization in the description. Most of the text is written in a Sentence case except for the last CTA “Shop Online”, which is written in Title Case. It’s not tragic, but I’d keep the same style throughout the ad copy.
• No mention of the keyword “rain jacket” in the description
• Inconsistently capitalized headline “Shop Rain jacket”

Example #2: Search Term → Sport Bag

Pros: 

• Mention of the search term in the headline
• Mention of the keyword “bags” in the URL path
• Unique selling point: free shipping

Cons:

• No mention of the search term in the description.
• The description is outdated considering that Boxing Day was almost two months ago. 
• Since the ad looks irrelevant, I’m more prone to believe that the deals they describe no longer exist and won’t click on it. This ad is basically wasting the company money. That’s why it’s important to keep ads relevant and pause outdated promotional and seasonal ads.

Even though Lululemon’s ad appears first in search results, I’m more likely to click on Nike’s ad that has a clear message and satisfies my search intent to buy a sports bag:

Pros:

• Mention of the target keywords in a headline, description, and URL path
• Unique features: free delivery and returns
• Inspirational message in the description

Cons: N/A

As you can see, even big brands with in-house marketing teams and huge advertising budgets have a lot of room for improvement. The things I mentioned might seem insignificant, but they can save your small business a few hundred dollars and help maintain a good brand image. 

Google Ad Copy Guidelines

You might be wondering when I’ll finally tell you how to speed up the process of creating different Google ad copies without sacrificing their quality. Well, it’s about time I unravel this mystery.

Below I’ll describe the usual steps I take when writing copy for Google Search ad campaigns. I’ll take Zima Media’s services as an example. 

Let’s go!

Step 1: Choose Your Landing Page

I want to advertise our marketing agency. So, I choose Zima Media’s home page as a final ad destination: https://zimamedia.com/ 

P.S. Here, I expect you to already have your keyword research done and ad groups created with relevant keywords in them.

Step 2: Use Your Target Keywords and Landing Page Copy to Create Google Ads Copy

Step 2.1: Create an Expanded Ad #1

My first ad group, “01 Marketing Agency,” consist of four keywords:

Here’s how I’d create my ad copies:

Expanded Text Ad #1:

Headline 1 = H1 from the landing page that also includes a target keyword
Headline 2 = CTA #1 from the landing page
Headline 3 = H3 from the landing page

Description 1 = Description from the first paragraph + CTA #2 on the landing page
Description 2 = Description from the first paragraph + CTA from H3 on the landing page + one of the target keywords

Path 1 + Path 2 = one of the target keywords

And voilà, here’s how my first ad turned out:

Step 2.2: Create Expanded Text Ad #2

Now, I copy-paste my newly-created ad and modify it to create a second ad.

Expanded Text Ad #2:

Headline 1 = A target keyword
Headline 2 = Same CTA as in the first ad + “Now”
Headline 3 = A different H3 from the landing page

Description 1 = Another H3 + a sentence from the first paragraph from the landing page
Description 2 = H2 from the landing page + CTA + target keyword + unique selling point/modified CTA from the landing page

Path 1 + Path 2 = one of the target keywords

And my second ad is ready to go!

Step 2.3: Create Expanded Text Ad #3

Now, I copy-paste one of the ads I created again to create my third ad variation for this ad group.

Expanded Text Ad #3:

Headline 1 = Company name + target keyword
Headline 2 = CTA #2 from the landing page + “Now”
Headline 3 = A different H2 from the landing page

Description 1 = Modified H3 + a sentence from one of the paragraphs + CTA from the landing page
Description 2 = A sentence from one of the paragraphs + a different H2 from the landing page

Path 1 + Path 2 = one of the target keywords

And in a matter of a minute, I have my third ad:

Step 3: Create Ads for the Other Ad Groups in Your Campaign

So, what’s next? If you have more ad groups in your search campaign, you need to simply copy the three ads you created, paste them into a new ad group and modify them according to the target keywords.

For example, my second ad group, “02 Marketing Services,” consists of these keywords:

Here’s how my process of creating ads for this ad group looks like (I’ll highlight the changes I made to the ads from the first ad group to create new ones for the second ad group):

As you can see, I needed to add only a few modifications and less than a minute to have another set of three ads ready. It means that if I can do it, you can do it too.

Step 4: Add a Responsive Search Ad to Each Ad Group

On February 18, Google announced that responsive search ads are now the default in Google Ads. That’s why I suggest adding one responsive search ad per each ad group to keep Google happy and your account well-optimized.

Creating responsive search ads is very straightforward. Once you have your expanded ads ready, Google will automatically auto-apply various headlines and descriptions from your existing ads. All you’ll need to do is just add more headline variations and check whether the descriptions are correct.

Here’s how a responsive search ad looks for my “01 Marketing Agency” ad group:

Now, you’re all set. Congrats!

Creating Effective Google Ads Copy Is Easy: FREE Template

I know it might seem a bit confusing the first time you sit down to write your Google Ads copy. But it’s clearly not rocket science. 

As long as you match your ad copy to your landing page and target keywords, you’re good to go. Plus, the more ad variants you create, the more room Google will have for testing and gathering valuable data. 

Things to Remember:

• Each ad within a particular ad group should lead to the same landing page to avoid confusing Google algorithms. 
• If you advertise a few different products or services within one search campaign, then the corresponding ad groups can lead to different landing pages.
• If you have a good landing page, you can consider your ad copy ready. All you need to do is transfer it into your Google Ads account.
• Always keep your ad copy relevant to your landing page and target keywords.

You shouldn’t start running ads if:

• Your landing page has little content and doesn’t include your target keywords
• Your landing page is not secure, aka http:// instead of https://
• Your landing page isn’t mobile-friendly (test your page here)
• Your landing page loading speed is low (check your page speed)
• You don’t have conversion tracking set up (How to Set up Conversion Tracking for Google Ads)
• You’re not ready to spend money on online advertising (How to Determine Your Google Ads Budget)

If you found the way I approach creating Google Ads ad copy helpful, complete the form below to download my FREE Google Ads Copy Template to be able to write ad copy on the go, just like I do.

And remember, creating ad copy is easy if you know a trick or two 😉