Making An Ad That Your Competition Can't Beat

“Nice ad, bro!” The title of an email from a former colleague at my previous agency, “I’ll take a guess that you wrote this ;)” was the body of the message, with a screenshot of an ad I wrote the night before:

His guess was right, I did write this!

A day later a former employee of my current agency contacted Matter Solutions' Director Ben and let him know that they had been sharing my ad around their agency’s office as well. Since then we’ve had a few “acknowledging nod” emails from others in the digital space. It would appear my creativity struck a chord in the industry.

Funnily enough, I didn’t think it was as creative as another ad I’d written a couple of days before:

I’ll take the compliment, though.

You’d think, considering that I work in what should be a creative space, that breaking the mould with something unique would be difficult, due simply to the character limitations of the AdWords system, but it ain’t the case. Still seeing the same basic set up, Boring Title, Boring Description, Boring Sitelinks, the same unimaginative shit like every other ad in the line up, the same attempts to appeal to the uninitiated like the population is somehow stupid enough to not know what AdWords is or what it does.

I’m not going to lie and say the moment these ads went live that there was a sudden and overwhelming interest in Matter Solutions from clients like, “oh Sam, I was waiting for someone to smash the binds on imagination!” There was a few extra calls and enquiry emails, and the Click Through Rate did increase, but it was clear that it was those within the industry that it had tickled.  

Real recognise real, for real.

It’s a hard gig, though, let’s be honest. As cool as it is having something that stands out from the pack, it still must balance everything required for Google Ad Rank, so it can’t be something outrageously outrageous. It does still need to adhere to the Quality Score protocol, relevant to the Search Terms and at least referenced in the AdText.

Sometimes it comes down to whether or not your company is willing to test the “outside of the box” type of creativity. I’m lucky to work here, as our Brand Voice allows me the opportunity to promote with a little cheekiness and a little geekiness, coupled with a little arrogance, cause that is what we are at Matter Solutions.

Writing ads is second nature to me, character limits has been a restriction for years, so with the new Expanded Text Ads, I’ve been able to explore my humour, or as the guy who sent me the email in the introduction said, “ETAs give plenty of room for gags”.

I guarantee that our industry is too scared to follow in the footsteps, they’re trying too hard to be something they are not. If you’re looking for AdWords management, be with the team that stands out from the pack.