Have you ever wanted to pull your hair out while writing text ads?  We keep this cheat sheet of  2-3 letter words handy to help stimulate the process and thought others might find it useful as well.  PPC management can be more efficient when you avoid writers block creating text ads.

ad creative, Adwords, PPC, search marketing

There is a fantastic formula in Excel which I find myself using quite often when creating ads for Geo-Targeted campaigns.  Its called: Substitute

SUBSTITUTE(text,old_text,new_text)

To demonstrate how it works, here is an example.  Keep in mind that your campaign structure will most likely be different than how it is outlined below.  You will need to take this strategy and contour it to fit your needs.  The concept is what is most important here.

*Columns F & G would contain the Display & Destination URL

To instantly create unique ads specific to the State and City follow these instructions:

1. Write the creative and use “XXXX” to signify the State and “YYYY” to signify the city.
2. Select Cells C1 through E10 >> CTRL + D
   1. This copies the creative down for each adgroup.
3. In Cell H1 write the following formula Result: “New York Cleaning Srvc.”
   1. =Substitute(C1,”XXXX”,A1)
   2. Result: “New York Cleaning Srvc.”
4. In Cell I1 write the following formula
   1. =D1
   2. Result: “Home, Office, or Vehicle.”
5. In Cell J1 write the following formula
   1. =Substitute(E1,”YYYY”,B1)
   2. Result: “Servicing the Manhattan area.”
6. Select Cells H1 through J10 >> CTRL + D
   1. This copies the formulas down for each adgroup.
7. Select Columns H,I,J >> Right Click >> Copy
8. Select Column C >> Right Click >> Paste Special >> Paste Values >> OK
   1. This converts the formulas you wrote to text.

Here is the result:

Positives: It may be hard to see the value in using this method to create ads for 10 adgroups, but when you have campaigns which work on Towns within Cities within States, you can have hundreds of Adgroups.  At that point you will see the value in creating ads in this method as this only takes a few minutes to complete.

Negatives: Once you create ads for all of your adgroups, you will find that you have exceeded the character limits in a few locations.  These will need to be manually adjusted to make them fit.  Try removing a period: “area.” To “area”, abbreviating a word: “North” to “N”, or rewrite the entire line of text.

ad creative, Adwords, Excel, geotargeting, local business center, Local Search, ppc advertising

Problem: A PPC account needs to be built ASAP and activated.
Method: You build your account in Excel or the AdWords editor as opposed to the AdWords Interface.
Difficulty: You have many ad groups and don’t have the time to custom write countless creatives.
Solution: Setup the architecture of your campaigns in such a way that you can easily leverage the power of Excel to do the dirty work. (more…)

ad creative, Adwords, Excel, Google, PPC