• Include your keywords in your ad
• Include geographic information
• Clarify your business type
• Specify shipping area
• Specify your expectations
• Top five things to avoid
• Ad testing

Include your keywords in your ad

To make this easy for you, Yahoo! Search Marketing offers the Insert Keyword feature. This feature can enable you to save time and help increase the relevance and click-through rate of your ads by using the keyword token to dynamically insert the keyword that matches a searcher's query into your ad's title and/or description when it is displayed. In order to include your keywords in your ad, learn more about Insert Keyword.

Example listing for keyword: car detailing

Include geographic information

Even if you are using geo-targeting, it’s a good idea to include your geographic location or service area in your ads. This will make your ads more attractive to the right audience, and will help prevent unwanted clicks.

Example listing for keyword: Mexican food

Clarify your business type

Many businesses advertising in the search listings are online stores. Since you don't sell products on your site, be sure you attract customers looking for your type of business.

Example listing for keyword: Custom t-shirts

Specify shipping area

Don’t waste your ad spend on users who click through to your site, only to discover they’re outside your delivery area. Put this key information up front in your ad.

Example listing for keyword: dress shirt

Specify your expectations

If you expect customers to call or visit your physical location, mention it in the description. This will help attract the appropriate customers. Bear in mind that you are not allowed to include a telephone number or address in your ad.

Example listing for keyword: Santa Monica real estate

Top five things to avoid

1. Superlatives (“best,” “lowest,” “hottest”) and exaggerated language. It comes across as less trustworthy than clear, factual language.
2. Inaccurate claims. If you get users to your site under false pretenses, they will be annoyed and will lose confidence in your business.
3. Language and product presentation that are too “salesy.”
4. Language that is too “salesy.”
5. Ampersands (&) and numbers in place of words (“buy 2 get 1 free”). They look junky.
6. Titles and descriptions that are too generic. Even if it’s tempting to have one creative per thousand keywords, the ad will be perceived as less relevant and will result in a lower click-through rate and a weaker conversion rate.

Ad testing

Within an ad group, you can test multiple versions of your ad to determine which message works best. The various versions of your ad will be randomly displayed in the Sponsored Search listings for the keywords in the ad group. The test will generate a quality index score that reveals which ad generates the highest response.

The example below shows two ads to test for one ad group, which contains several related keywords.

Keywords:

• Pizza
• Home delivery
• Home service
• Pizza delivery

It’s important to make sure the ads you test remain relevant to all the keywords in an ad group. Therefore, we recommend you set up ad groups that share key similarities, such as product type and shipping options.

Learn more about ad groups and ad testing.