When you advertise on the internet, you have to work with the limited space you are given. In addition, you have to stand out among the thousands of ads of your competitors. These things make entrepreneurs and marketers use tricks to make their advertisement score better.
Sometimes these tricks backfire
When we look at the guidelines of Google Ads (formerly Adwords) we see page after page of guidelines that your ad must meet. With so many requirements it is easy to make a mistake.
Also, ads regularly lose their power for reasons that have nothing to do with Google’s guidelines. They are minor flaws, such as forgotten punctuation. As a result, the ad is difficult to read or the text takes on a different meaning.
To make sure your online ads do score well, I’ll give you 8 language mistakes that will ruin your ad campaign. (So you DON’T have to make these mistakes yourself.)
Mistake #1: Using emojis
Oh, they’re so cute. And you can say so much with them. (1 emoji says more than 1000 words, as the old saying goes.) Emojis may not be the most elegant way to brighten up a text, but I, as a copywriter and online marketer, also like to use them. And there’s nothing wrong with that as long as the context is right. In a digital newsletter, a nice smiley here and there works wonderfully well!
However, you need to know the limits of emoji usage. And that limit lies in online advertising. Because you know who really hates emojis? Google Ads.
Don’t put emojis in your ads. This New York hotel sets the wrong example:
Google Ads emphasizes that using emojis in ads violates their terms of use. Stick to them!
Mistake #2: Spacing Errors
Or as some people would write: space errors.
The unfortunately common spacing error is an anglicism, or a property of English that has crept into Dutch but does not match the properties of our language. In a spacing error, a compound word such as ‘koelkastverkoper’ is written as two words (‘koelkastverkoper’).
There are websites that focus on detecting and combating spacing errors. Spatiegebruik.nl is one of them. On that site I came across this striking example: ‘kerstboom ballen haakjes’ should of course be ‘kerstboomballenhaakjes’:
Many people miss a spacing error, but those who do notice it get goosebumps. A spacing error is unprofessional and reduces the quality of your communication.
Avoid spacing errors, especially when you offer a service that has to do with communication. Spacing errors are bad enough when you sell Christmas tree ball hooks, but they are unforgivable when you make them as a marketing agency (or ‘marketing agency’). This marketing agency from Antwerp is an example of this:
Mistake #3: Mixing capital and lowercase letters too much
Where did this sudden trend of capitalizing How Telephone Number DB is 100 % Accurate and it collects the data using Humans : Our Phone Number Database have 24/7 Customerasia mobile number list support & will be online for you || You Need More Details??? Yes, You can increase your business with our database when you run campaign in same. Our databases come from quality or quantity allowed sites. random letters and words come from? I risk being dismissed as an old man in the retirement corner (I’m 33), but I get a headache from too much variation in upper and lower case. Fortunately, this phenomenon is mostly limited to memes and other informal communication on the World Wide Web. Nevertheless, I have seen it in online advertisements as well.
By the way, I’m not the only one who questions the strange use of capitalization and lowercase letters, as this screenshot from this internet meme shows:
However, I want to make it clear that a certain form of creative use of capitalization is not a problem in professional communication. In the marketing world, you have the concepts of title case and sentence case . (Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there are no Dutch words for them yet.) Sentences in title case and sentence case look like this:
This is a title in sentence case.
This is a Title in Title Case.
In sentence case you capitalize the first letter of the sentence (and of course also proper nouns), while in title case you capitalize most of the words in a sentence.
Title case is often used by marketers (including us at Motionmill) for the titles of online ads because they have a higher click-through rate. I’ll just say it: Google Ads has no problem with title case .
What Google Ads does have a problem with is excessive capitalization, such as:
This is A TITLE with LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS.
And Ads also doesn’t like too much variation between uppercase and lowercase letters:
THIS IS A NO GOOD TITLE.
So, control yourself when you decide to use capital letters at random places in your ads!
Error #4: Non-standard use of numbers and characters
Being creative is good, but avoid creative use of numbers and characters when writing texts for Google Ads. Google considers ads with unusual use of numbers and characters as low quality. And that will disqualify your ads.
So just write Cheap Shoes instead of € G*O*E*D*K*O*P*E € S*C*H*O*E*N*E*N € .
And apart from Google’s requirements: would you click on an ad written in such a way? I don’t think so.
Mistake #5: Bad Punctuation
Punctuation can sometimes be a matter of life and death. This is demonstrated by this now world-famous Facebook post, in which the text suggests that we should start eating children:
Just one comma after the word ‘eat’ would have made the message a lot more kid-friendly!
Incorrect punctuation can also cause problems in Google Ads advertisements:
The text will look hastily written and unprofessional.
The incorrect punctuation can lead to a misinterpretation of the text.
When writing your ad copy, make sure you create the most fitting sentence for the description boxes. If you can end your first description box with punctuation, your ad will qualify for a megaheadline. This will merge your headline and description box into one super long header. These types of ads usually have a higher click-through rate than ‘regular’ ads!
Mistake #6: Internet slang and fancy abbreviations
‘1000XXXS’, ‘sws’ and ‘WJW’ I wrote fifteen years ago on Hyves ( who still remembers it? ) to friends at high school. Nowadays I would just write out those sentences and words in full, so: ‘a thousand excuses’, ‘anyway’ and ‘what you want’. Nowadays I no longer communicate with sweaty teenagers, but with customers who have to make a purchase thanks to my advertising texts.
I still see it happen sometimes that there is internet language and abbreviations in advertising texts. This is completely unacceptable from a marketer’s point of view for three reasons:
Internet slang and fancy abbreviations come across as unprofessional.
They are not understood by everyone. They are often pr planning stages generational and often region-specific.
Google’s software detects this kind of language in ads and then rejects those ads. All your work for nothing!
So just write like an adult.
Mistake #7: Overuse of exclamation marks!!!!!!
Your customers may know that your ad is important, I admit that. What you need to avoid, however, is that your texts are overflowing with exclamation marks.
My colleague Ellen Blok gives a good example of what not to do in her blog about the use of exclamation marks :
Not only do these types of texts come across as shouty (which can then be interpreted as cheap and unprofessional), but our friend Google Ads also has a hard time with exclamation marks. In the titles of advertisements, they are not accepted at all and in the body of the text they are tolerated to a limited extent. (Don’t put more than 1 exclamation mark in your text is my advice!!!!!!)
Error number 8: Wrong spelling
If you read the Motionmill blog regularly, you may have noticed that we harp on correct spelling. We do this when we talk about all possible forms of communication: social media, newsletters, web texts, you name it. And we do this when it comes to advertising texts.
There are entrepreneurs (and to my shame, marketers) who agb directory believe that writing correctly is not that important when advertising online. They believe that if your offer is good enough, you don’t need to worry about anything else.
I say to that: nonsense. Do you think that every person who sees an ad is half illiterate? That no one who searches online for their next vacation, car or girlfriend knows how to spell?
Bad spelling simply weakens your message. Schrijvenonline.org published a nice blog a while back about the most common mistakes in advertising . Avoid these kinds of mistakes when creating ads. The world will be a better place — and so will your wallet!
Finally
Do you have additions for this list? Send them to me via the button at the bottom of this article. If I like your suggestion, I will add it to this blog.
Do you need help with advertising in Google?
Then that button is your friend. Search engine advertising (or SEA) is no easy task, especially if you want to apply it profitably. Motionmill is happy to help you set up and manage online campaigns for your company.
An initial conversation is always without obligation and free of charge. The coffee is ready for you.
