Google's Ad Customizer Tool - The Key To Great PPC Headlines

In a bid to improve quality scores, and keyword-to-ad copy alignment, many PPC managers embed keywords inside their ad headlines. In doing this, they end up deploying very similar headlines with their competitors.

When this happens repeatedly, we start seeing a lot of ads and ad results that look like this.

In the image above, we see the same headline for every single ad. Nothing really stands out.

When everyone is using the same keyword as their main headline, this can create performance-limiting consequences for all advertisers involved?

Here's another example

Here is yet another example of repetitive headlines in the SERPs

One of the main drawbacks of headline similarity is that over time the emotional marketing value of the ad copy will decay.

When this happens, there will be steady declines in CTR ( a major component of quality score) which results in fewer clicks, fewer conversions, and a progressively higher CPC for all the advertisers.

One way to solve this problem is to initiate a competitor audit in order to find the points of copy overlap which you can then break out from. The problem with this approach is that it is?

• Time-consuming especially when you have lots of campaigns or accounts to manage
• It is creatively exerting to conduct ad audits and come up with unique headlines that possess conversion potential.
• It involves lots of periodic editing of ad copy which forces your ads into Google's 4+ hourly reviews which could limit campaign performance

The solution to all these is the use of Google Ad customizers. If you want to differentiate yourself from the competition and create ads that no one can replicate, you should read on. This article will explore ad customizers in practical detail

How to setup ad customizers

You can set up ad customizers by creating a feed within the business data section in Google ads. Here are the steps

1) Log in to Google ads and Go up to your tools and settings

2) Then under the setup column click on business data

3) When business data opens up, click the blue plus icon

4) Click the “Ad customizers for text ads” option within the menu provided

5) Download your ad customizer template as a CSV file.

When you download the CSV and then you open it you're going to see this exact template

Though this looks like a really concrete template keep, in mind that this is just a guide and not a rigid layout. Your own CSV does not need to have every column you can see above.

In the template instructions, Google says that you can remove target columns if you don't need them, and then, of course, you can replace whatever sample elements you have with your own actual product or information data.

There are custom attributes which can be also called your column headers and they can be updated to whatever attributes are available to your business or your campaign goals.

These are just examples that google is showing you of what you can do with the ad customizer template. For example, here is an ad customizer template that is used to drive eCommerce sales for an agency-level client

Right in this initial feed template, we have added custom columns such as?

• Inventory count
• Amount of products sold over the last 7 days
• Start Price
• Sales Price
• Percent off
• Target campaign and Ad group

With this setup, we can now use any of these column-level attributes above to pull the information from this data feed and use it to customize descriptions and headlines within our search ads.?

NB: You can ad customizer attributes from data feeds of various types including FTP, HTTPS, SMTP & Google sheets.?

The advantage of the HTTPS and FTP option is that it allows for an up-to-date feed since google pulls the data periodically from the website. With a Google sheets data feed, you will have to manually update the data to keep it fresh and relevant

Using Ad Customizers In Search Ads

Now that the feed is ready, all we have to do is to embed feed-hosted information into our headlines to make them unique and amplify their conversion potential. To do this you will need to type in the curly brackets “{“ within the headline or description fields as seen below

Above we can see the different column headers or attributes that we originally created in our CSV template. We can see the model of the inventory, sold last seven days, start price, sales price, and then the calculated percent off.

Here is an example of a headline that was built out by using just the sales price and the percent off attributes

So in this case, we are not showcasing only the accurate price but a better price that's going to make us stand out versus everybody else who also sells this same shoe.

Practical Use Cases For Ad customizers

1) Building Urgency

We can also use ad customizers to dynamically build and update urgency messaging into ad copy as seen in the example below

In this ad example by pulling in my inventory numbers we can show potential customers that the shoe that they were looking for might not be around much longer because we only have a limited inventory left.

If you have a really popular product or if this is around the holidays and you just want to

try to build some urgency and really get some quick sales ad customizers are a great way to build that FOMO effect.

2) Conveying Social Proof

We can also use ad customizers to build social proof into our headlines as seen below

In the headline text above, we have pulled in the number of products sold over the last 7 days. This creates a herd mentality effect which amplifies social proof and increases the likelihood that people are going to follow the bandwagon to your advantage.?

3) Displaying Your Pricing Advantages

We can also use ad customizers to display the best prices which can then be blended with countdown customizers to amplify the conversion potential that’s latent in your headline. Here is an example

In the above, the start price attribute within the feed is $85 but since the sales price is now $44.99, this creates a psychological situation where the searcher feels like they are getting a good deal in the present moment.?

Conclusion

The uploadable ad customizer template found under the business data section gives advertisers an almost endless combination of different headlines they can test

Unless your competition is actually seeing your ad customizer feeds there's no way they're going to know what elements you can pull within your search Ads. This could be the decisive advantage that turns your campaigns around.