Creating Urgency In Ad Copy: Successful Implementation of the Countdown to Sale Script

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January 20, 2015

Sales and psychology go hand in hand. If a sense of urgency is properly executed it can be a powerful way to increase conversions. Unfortunately, consumers tend to become resistant to this tactic as it is overused in many sales channels. Fortunately, in the pay-per-click industry searchers are not used to seeing well executed urgency applied to ads. In the past there to fully execute urgency an advertisers would have had to update ad copy daily, or even hourly. Clearly updating ad copy hourly would be extreme and impossible for advertisers.

Today we can use Adwords Ad Customizers to our advantage. Ad Customizers have been available since August of 2014. They are a method to dynamically change the text in an ad using parameters. One of the best uses of the Ad Customizer feature comes in the form of the countdown script. Using the countdown script an advertiser can show the remaining days until a sale expires. This is an advanced Adwords tactic that successfully creates urgency and additionally stands out in comparison to the other advertisers on the page.

Steps to creating the countdown script:

Step 1: Click into the ‘Scripts Section’ in Adwords under Bulk Operations

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Step 2: Click the red button to add a new script

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Step 3: Paste the source code into the interface. The source code can be found on the Google Developers site.

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Step 4: Update the variables in green above and authorize the script. You can update multiple ad groups if you separate each ad group name with a comma.

Step 5: Run the script on a schedule (hourly or daily is recommended depending on the countdown you want to use)

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Step 6: Lastly, create ads that reference the script using the countdown parameters.

This enables a default add to run as well as the countdown script. The functionality of the parameters is similar to dynamic keyword insertion.

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Creating urgency and time sensitive sales is a compelling way to increase conversions in Adwords accounts. As mentioned earlier, in many sales channels this tactic has been overused. In the pay-per-click channel the technology to apply immediacy to a sale is a relatively new feature. This feature is certainly one that has not widely applied to date. Dive into the platform and experiment and inspire the conversion today.

 

About the author:
Sarah Stemen is an account manager at, Hanapin Marketing and a blogger at PPC Hero. She has been working in digital marketing for 7 years, and has her MBA. She came to Hanapin Marketing after working primarily on the client side within the insurance and financial services industry. Sarah worked for large well known brands such as BMW Financial Services and Nationwide Insurance, but she loves the variety and excitement of agency life.

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