3 important search ad tactics

Where people actually look in your search ads

Most advertisers get this completely wrong. They spend hours perfecting their description lines while ignoring what actually matters. Nielsen Norman Group's research (backed by countless eye tracking studies) shows people don't read search ads—they scan them.

Your prospects laser focus on headline 1 and headline 2, then bounce around the search results page like a pinball. That's it. Everything else gets minimal attention.

This changes everything about how you should approach ad testing. Put your strongest value propositions in those headlines. If you're testing new messaging, start there. The description lines matter far less than you think.

Why you should lead with bad news

This sounds backwards, but it works. I've tested this approach for 11 years, and it improves performance about 80% of the time.

The goal isn't to get every click possible. It's to get the right clicks from people who will actually convert. You want to filter out unqualified traffic before you pay for it.

Take pricing. If your product costs $500 and someone's budget is $200, wouldn't you rather they find out from your ad instead of your landing page? Yes, your click-through rate drops when you mention price upfront. But your conversion rate goes up, and your cost per acquisition goes down.

The same logic applies to delivery times. If you take 2 weeks to ship while competitors take 3 days, test mentioning that timeline in your ad. The people who still click despite knowing about the delay are much more likely to stick around and buy.

Keep your copy simple

Headlines have to be short, so there's not much room for creativity there. Description lines are where you can expand on your message, but don't get fancy just because you have more space.

The biggest advertisers hire professional copywriters for search ads. Most of us don't have that luxury. If you're writing your own copy (like most PPC managers), focus on clarity over cleverness.

Use tools like Readable to check how complex your writing is. The Flesch-Kincaid readability score will tell you if your copy is too hard to understand. Simple language converts better than sophisticated language, especially in search ads where people are scanning quickly.

The bottom line: stop overthinking description lines and start optimizing your headlines. Test your deal-breakers upfront. Keep everything simple. Your conversion rates will thank you.