When it comes to creating compelling ads, there are two goals, which are inseperable. The first is to get your ad noticed and clicked on. The second is to have the people who click on the ad actually place an order. Achieving goal #1 is pointless - and even harmful - if you're not also achieving goal #2. It just means that you're spending money to get visitors who don't end up buying anything! So keep in mind that the goal is NOT just to get clicks... but to get orders from those clicks!

The #1 most important thing to remember when creating your ads is to make sure that all 3 of these things match each other:

1. The keyword phrase the searcher entered
2. The headline and content of your ad
3. The landing page on your site the ad links to

If #1 and #2 don't closely match each other, your ads will rarely get clicked on. And if #2 and #3 don't closely match each other, very few people who click on your ads (costing you money!) will place an order on your site.

This seems like a "DUH!" kind of concept, but we're constantly amazed to see people use the same exact ad for all of the search phrases they're doing PPC advertising for, even though the search phrases differ substantially. We're even more suprised to see people send all their visitors to their home page instead of a more relevant, more targeted page (such as a brand page, category page, or even a product page). Very rarely will you want to send visitors to your home page.

Let's suppose you sell several varieties (wooden dog houses, heated dog houses, igloo dog houses, etc.) and several brands (Apex, Elite, Olympus, etc.) of dog houses. You should NOT create a single ad targeting all of these different types and brands of dog houses and set the landing page to be your home page. Instead, you would want to create several different ad campaigns so that each individual ad can be targeted. For example, you might create an 'apex dog houses' ad campaign that specifically targets search phrases related to the Apex brand dog houses. The headline and body of your ad should say 'Apex Dog House(s)' in them. And the landing page for the ad should be your 'Apex' brand page (not your home page).

The above concept seems obvious, but think of how powerful it is. The shopper searches for 'apex dog house'. Your ad appears on the search results page, having the exact phrase 'Apex Dog House' in the headline of the ad and in the content of the ad. And when the shopper clicks on it, it takes them to a page on your site that has nothing but Apex dog houses on it. Talk about giving the customer exactly what they want! Not only will the shopper notice and click on your ad, but he or she is quite likely to place an order as well!

Besides this most important key that has been discussed in this article, there are many other things you can do to make your ads more compelling to potential customers. See the article entitled Ideas for Creating Compelling PPC Ads.