Excellent Ad Strength doesn't mean you've written an excellent ad

I recently helped a fellow PPC professional review the Google Ads for a doggy daycare business.

He'd put a lot of effort into coming up with Google's recommended 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. I can't remember the exact words but they were a mixture of features and trust signals.

The features were along the lines of:

• Different options from a single day to longer stays.
• Short-term care for things like holidays.
• Discounts for regular customers.
• A farm-based, free-range environment rather than cages or kennels.
• A low person-to-dog ratio.
• Daily pick-up and drop-off.

And the trust signals were something like:

• Around 15 years in business.
• Licensed and insured.
• Voted the best doggy daycare in a local poll.
• Hundreds of happy customer reviews.

His thinking was that pet owners needed to see both:

• that the service matched what they were looking for (the features),
• and that it was trustworthy (the trust signals).

The problem was that he hadn't pinned anything because if you pin ad copy Google gets grumpy and says your Ad Strength is poor.

If you're not familiar with the concept of pinning, it's when you tell Google only to use a headline or description in a particular spot in the ad. If you don't pin, Google can mix and match your headlines and descriptions to come up with what they think is the best ad.

Without pinning Google could produce an ad that was almost entirely features:

Daily Pick-Up & Drop-Off | Flexible Daycare Options | Discounts For Regulars

Or it could produce one that was almost entirely about trust:

15 Years In Business | Hundreds Of Happy Reviews | Licensed & Insured

But the most effective ad is probably going to be a mixture of confirming what the service is, a feature and a trust signal.

Maybe something like:

Farm-Based Doggy Daycare | Daily Pick-Up & Drop-Off | 15 Years In Business

One way to handle this would be to group headlines according to the job they're doing.

For example:

Headline position 1: What it is

Farm-Based Doggy Daycare
Free-Range Doggy Daycare
Flexible Doggy Daycare

Headline position 2: Feature or benefit

Daily Pick-Up & Drop-Off
From One Day To Longer Stays
Discounts For Regular Dogs

Headline position 3: Trust

15 Years In Business
Licensed & Insured
Hundreds Of Happy Reviews

Pin each group to its respective position so Google can still test different combinations but keep some structure.

A minor point. Headline 3 doesn't always show. Sometimes the ad shows only two headlines. That means if you'd given Headline 3 the job of building trust you'd be in trouble. I work around this by using Description 1 for the same job as Headline 3 and pinning it too.

In my mind this is a nice balance between keeping control of the messaging while allowing Google to test.

If the way I think resonates with you, I'd like to give you a free copy of my book Profitable Google Ads.

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