Create URGENCY in Paid Search

In today’s environment, it is essential to get the attention of your audience within a few seconds and to deliver your message to them quickly, or you risk wasting your marketing investment. Indeed, if a sense of urgency is properly conveyed, it can be a powerful way to increase conversions.
However, this technique has sometimes been overused, so it is essential to provide a compelling and legitimate reason for consumers to buy, while making sure to maintain a great customer experience throughout. Customer experience is more crucial than ever: in the 2015 Digital Trends Report, it was voted the number one priority for marketers over the next 5 years.
In this article, I will share my best practices to generate some urgency in your search campaigns, from ad copies to landing pages, that will not only improve search user experience, but also the performance of your search campaigns.

Create urgency in ad copies

Creating a sense of urgency can be very easy with the use of the right wording. In the second line of the description of your ad copies, include expressions like “Limited time offer”, “Offer ends soon”, “Don’t delay”, or “Hurryup”.
You can also consider using a countdown in ad copies, which works particularly well but requires more advanced techniques. As you can see below in the second description line, this feature automatically updates ad creative with a countdown in days and hours for a sale, limited offer, or event. This is similar to what some marketers use in their email campaigns, and is a very efficient way to boost Click Through rate and Conversion rate. Have a look at this simple step-step guide to add a countdown in ad copies or this more advanced tutorial.

Create urgency in Sitelinks

Through enhanced Sitelinks (see below), you can include a description of the offer (character limit is equal to ad copies), but you cannot include a timer yet. However, things like “Hurry up” are allowed, and placing these words strategically within your calls to action can significantly increase the performance of your ads, especially for cross selling, events ending soon, or other awareness programs. See the AdWords guide to creating enhanced Sitelinks.

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Create urgency in the landing page

Finally, if you have the urgency messaging in the ad copies, it is essential to ensure that you follow this through to the landing page – on the marquee, next to the product description, on the online store etc. This will allow you to maintain the urgency and relevancy of your ads through to the on-site experience. Worst-case scenario would be to just have the end date in the T&Cs – make sure you don’t only do that!

What about you, do you often use a sense of urgency in your marketing campaigns? What are your best tips to do so? Do not hesitate to share your ideas in the comments, and feel free to continue the conversation on Twitter @gblecon.