The success of your campaigns, whether you’re offering a product or service, ultimately comes down to how well you engage your audience on an emotional level.

Although we believe we as humans are largely rational creatures, the factors that guide the majority of the decisions we make are rooted in emotion.

Which is especially true when it comes to our purchases.

Think about the last time you saw ad whilst scrolling through your newsfeed that was so effective, you ended up clicking through the link, hitting the sales page, got up to grab your credit card and input your payment details to receive your goods.

Seeing something online that engages you enough to interrupt your trail of thought and guide you to take a specific action can only be that powerful if it includes one thing.

Great ad copy.

Of course, your ad creatives, audience targeting and offer are crucial in determining whether people will engage with your ad in the first place.

But it’s the story we tell that gets the sale.

So, to help you get started on creating some killer ad copy here are a few simple steps to turn any bland sales letter into a seductive and persuasive ad.

Know your avatar

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening my axe.” - Abraham Lincoln

Whether or not Mr Lincoln said those exact words is beside the point. It’s a great quote.

Better yet, it perfectly represents how all marketers should treat the ad writing process.

It’s all well and good taking the time to carefully cultivate highly targeted audiences and spend hours designing perfectly curated ad images, but when it comes to copy, most marketers treat this section as an after-thought.

What separates an amateur from a professional however is how much time you spend in your research phase - defining your customer avatar.

Once you have a clear idea of the desires, obstacles and pain points associated with your customer avatar you’ll have a plethora of angles to use in your copy.

Maybe you’ll test tugging at their pain points. Perhaps try pulling them in with pleasure points. Or maybe you’ll try to blend the two.

Whichever way, it’s crucial that you go into the writing process once you have a firm understanding of the audience you’re speaking to.

Flow, flow & flow.

“The sole purpose of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence”

You wouldn’t.

Speak.

In broken.

Sentences.

So why would you write that way?

That’s an exaggerated example of what bad copy flow tends to look like but the point is made clear.

The way you read an ad should flow just as easily as it would in a normal conversation.

It sounds simple in theory, but in practice, it’s much harder than that.

Something as small as having an extra syllable at the end of your sentence could be enough to throw off the flow in an entire section of your copy.

You need to make sure that when you read back your copy, it flows effortlessly from one sentence to the next, with each point connecting to the one after until you find yourself at the call to action.

If you’re successful at this then the viewer will read through your ads with ease, never stopping to think about objections because they won’t feel like they’re being sold to.

Here’s a tip: Get someone else to read over your copy and have them highlight any sections where they stopped or had to slow down because something didn’t make sense.

Change those sections to improve the flow and you’re on your way to some awesome copy!

Simplicity is king

Let’s face it, big words don’t impress anyone.

Whilst you might have fun using long-tail descriptions and fancy adjectives to describe your product - those big words are going over your reader’s head.

With the population of the UK alone having an average reading age of 9, you’re wasting your efforts trying to over-complicate what could be a simple description.

Stick to using shorter, easily digestible language when writing your ads and your audience will have an easier time getting through your copy.

People will be less likely to skim over your message and read more of your text, leading to an increased CTR in your campaigns.

That's it!

Of course, there’s always more that goes into the writing process for your ads, but using these 3 principles you’ll have a good starting point to be on your way to creating some high-converting ad copy in your campaigns!