Despite all the talk in the industry about analytics, development of long tail keywords, ROAS (Return on Ad Spend – an almost useless metric) and Google’s latest algo change … The most important element, outside your web site’s ability to convert visitors, is THE AD.

The ad you show is your one chance to get the click. Unless someone continues to search on keywords you are bidding on, you only have the one chance to make the impression. And most ads I see are poorly written with no thought given to proper Sales Techniques, like calls to action and attention grabbing headlines or copy.

Just because you have a number of characters to use within the ad copy, does not mean that you need to use as many as possible. In the same way that a web site’s layout needs to use whitespace to draw one’s attention to particular elements, your ads have to reflect the same design concepts.

Pay per click ads must also tightly target the intended visitor. If you do not market to the value shopper, do not write copy to attract visitors with discount or sales offerings. It’s better to have a lower CTR (click through rate) and to have higher conversions on the web site. I have never seen a time when increasing clicks with widely targeted ads were able to offset the expense versus the sales or leads that were generated.

So … if your ads suck, then learn some sales copy techniques, improve your sales numbers, lower your PPC’s expense ratios and become profitable again!

Secret: Despite what some people say, using {KeyWord} insert in the ad’s title works way more often than not for most online ad campaigns.

I suppose Yahoo has a leg up, because you can at least do a spreadsheet download, make your changes, and reload. MSN has little or no account level override management ability. It seems most things are at the adgroup level, which is a real pain when you want to make an adjustment across the board, and only have over 50 adgroups to work your way through, one at a time. Ask anyone that manages PPC accounts, and most would say without hesitation that Google is absolutely the easiest and best. So why does everyone reinvent the wheel?

At least Ask.com didn’t try – they chose to license LookSmart’s ancient technology, and are paying the price for it.