Setting up paid ads is a simple process.

But, getting clicks is another thing.

Successful ad campaigns take a lot of trial and error. Therefore, to save you some time, we've put together some of our best actionable tips on how you can get more clicks across more platforms.

Ready to start getting more paid ad clicks? 

1. Google Shopping Ads

When you’re creating promotions for Google Shopping ads, be sure you’re advertising your best products. 

After you decide which products to advertise, add a message or special offer that’s completely unique to your store. This is the perfect place to advertise a percentage discount or a free gift with purchase.

When someone clicks the message under your product listing ad, they’ll see that offer. By adding a discount or free gift offer, you’re more likely to get more clicks because you’ll stand out against the competitors bidding against you.

Sales are also simple ways to distinguish your ads from the numerous other offers.

Below, you can see two Sun Hats with sale prices:

They still may not be the cheapest offerings, but don't underestimate the fact that: People. Like. Good. Deals.

Customers are much more willing to spend a little bit more because they think what they're getting is twice the quality.

Here's another offer that's calling out Free & Fast shipping. 

These promotional badges are eye-catching and make your products stand out from the competition.

Before you launch your ad campaign, make sure you review what type of promotions are allowed.

2. Google Search Text Ads

These types of ads are the Google ads that most people think of. They're listed at the top of any Google search and are text only (no images).

Although much has changed about Google Ads over the years, this type is still effective today and worth using.

The best way to increase the number of clicks on this type of ad is by using your copywriting skills to write a great ad and sell the click.

Think about the type of person you really want to target.

• What question are you answering for them and who is asking the question?
• What will motivate them to buy from you?
• Where does your product shine?

Example:

Here is a Google Search Text ad for Evo.com that shows up when you search "buy wakeboard."

Evo is positioning their ad to collect clicks from searchers that want an inexpensive item. In this way, they'll collect more clicks from the right people. 

If Evo was concerned with paying less on their paid ad campaigns and getting more valuable clicks, they would be showing this ad for search queries that reference "cheap wakeboards" or "inexpensive wakeboards."

But, they have likely done the research and decided that it works for them to show this ad for this search query. This strategy works best for "cheap" offerings because most potential customers like to spend less money.

A company that makes higher-quality Wakeboards should focus on using keywords that include terms like "Premium." They'd also want to consider whether or not they want to bid on a generic keyword like "buy wakeboards."

If you follow this strategy, you'll get more clicks from people that are interested in buying more expensive Wakeboards. These are the exact customers that you're trying to sell to anyway.

We teach high-ticket dropshipping here at Drop Ship Lifestyle, which involves selling expensive items like this. Our philosophy revolves around the idea that you don't need to get ALL the traffic you can get, you just need to get the RIGHT traffic.

So don't worry if you aren't capturing all of the economy shoppers. You need to work on connecting with YOUR customers.

Give Yourself the Opportunity to Stand Out

Include details about your service that clearly layout:

• Free shipping
• Same-day shipping
• One-year warranty
• Price match policy
• Expert support available
• 30-day money back guarantee

Whatever your offer is, that’s what you need to include in your ad so people have a reason to click it instead of your competitor’s. 

Sitelink Extensions

The other piece to successful Google Text ads are sitelink extensions.

These are clickable links that will be listed under your ad. They're a great way to share more options for enticing people to click your ad.  

Remember, you want to use unique features of your online store and share what your buyers will want to see. 

Below is the ad that appears when you Google "Cabela's fishing reels." This is a branded search term so Google is showing the most extensive ad for Cabela's possible, assuming you probably want to visit their website. 

This is important for anyone bidding on your own branded keywords (and you should be bidding on your own keywords).

Doing this will push your competitors further down the page, and give potential customers more options for browsing your site.

If you search a non-branded query, such as just "fishing reels," you'll receive a result like the one below. 

Here you can see that the sitelink extensions are shorter and smaller beneath the ad ("Spinning Reels," "Saltwater Reels," etc.).

But they're still effective for giving potential customers options for navigating to your site. 

It's a great way to serve your ads for a broad term while also giving customers an option to see an exact match for what they're looking for.

For instance, someone looking for a saltwater fishing reel may just search "fishing reels." Then, when they see a sitelink extension that clearly calls out what they really were looking for, they're much more likely to click it.

When we do this ourselves at Drop Ship Lifestyle, we see very high click-through-rates on those ads. So be sure you’re using Sitelink extensions to get the most out of Google Search Text ads.

3. Facebook Ads

Facebook ads can be amazing and they can be huge duds. They're generally great for retargeting though.

The best way to increase your click through rate on Facebook ads is to simply add an arrow in your ads. You just need to have an arrow that points toward the button you want people to click. 

Here's an example from one of our ads.

See how the arrow pulls your eyes to the Call-to-action? It makes it really clear where you want people to click. 

It also is a visual disruption when you're scrolling through your feed. Therefore, you're more likely to stop scrolling and look at the ad.

4. Instagram Story Ads

If you know Instagram, you know that Instagram Stories are really all people look at now.

They show you images or videos up to 15 seconds long.

They can be effective placements for paid ads. Also, Facebook owns Instagram so you can easily set up Instagram Story ads within your Facebook ad account. 

Remember that you only get 15 seconds, so you need to tell people what you’re offering immediately.

You also need to remind anyone seeing your ad to swipe up so they’ll follow the link to view your product or visit your website. This is easy to do by adding a text overlay or image overlay that simply says, “Swipe Up!”

Here are some examples from our Instagram:

If you’re concerned about fitting your entire message within a 15 second ad, you can actually create carousel ads in your Facebook ad account and use them on the Instagram Story ads platform. 

The way this works is it will allow you to upload either multiple photos or videos back to back, so you can have three or four different 15 second clips in a row. Someone watching your ad will watch each one in succession. 

If you do choose to use carousel ads, be sure to have a “Swipe Up” link on each image or video in the carousel. 

5. YouTube Ads

YouTube ads can be quite effective, especially pre-roll ads. These are the ads that you’ll see when you start to watch a video on YouTube and an ad plays first. It usually gives you the option to skip the rest of the ad in 5 seconds. 

In order to motivate people to actually click on this type of ad, you need to make it really obvious that the viewer can click the ad.

Many advertisers don't think about this, but it's just how people work. You need to make sure that they know what they should do if they're interested in your service.

Either verbally say in the ad to click and point where you’d like the viewer to click, or have an animation or button that points the viewer in the direction of where to click.

You also have to take into consideration the type of device that the viewer may be on.

When you’re watching a YouTube pre-roll ad on a desktop, the clickable button is on the bottom left of the screen. In your video ad you should tell the viewer to click the bottom of the screen. 

When you’re watching a YouTube pre-roll ad on a mobile device, the link for your website will be on the top right. So in your ad you want to instruct anyone watching to click the top of the screen.

How Do I Make Sure I'm Showing the Right Ad on the Right Device?

The best way to make sure you get the right ad and link placement for both types of devices is to make two separate video ads.

One for mobile viewers and one for desktop viewers.

When you are ready to launch these ads, just target one campaign for mobile users and one for desktop only.

This way they don’t get mixed up and you don’t risk telling people to click the wrong spot in your ad, which just comes across sloppy.

6. A Tip For Every Type Of Ad Platform

There are some paid ad best practices that apply to every single ad platform. Whether you’re using Google Search Text ads, Facebook ads, YouTube pre-roll ads, Instagram Story ads, or Google Shopping ads, make sure you follow this last tip to improve your click-through and conversion rates.

Target and Segment Accurately

Adding an arrow or telling people to click your ad link may just get you more clicks on your ads. 

But at the end of the day, you need to make sure your ads are segmented across your different customer profiles and demographics. This will make the biggest difference over time.

Have you ever had an ad served to you that claimed it could actually solve a problem you were experiencing? 

It's a totally different experience from most of the ads we're bombarded with every day. 

You actually start to pay attention to the ad. You're happy to click through to their website and get started.

Figure out who you're trying to reach with each campaign and tailor the experience for them. 

• Are they prospective customers? Are they return customers? 
• What age group are they in? What is their gender? 
• What has worked for this customer profile in the past?

Ask yourself these questions and prepare your ads and landing pages for them.

Otherwise, you could be doing everything else right and still waste money on ads that don’t get clicks or conversions.

Wrapping Up Easy Ways to Get More Clicks on Paid Ads

If you combine all the other tips in this blog post with precise targeting, you’re going to see your ad clicks increase dramatically.

This will lead to more sales, more revenue, and even cheaper clicks because your ad platforms will realize you have what people want to buy.

If you want to learn more about how to build pay per click ad campaigns that work, check out this blog post that will help you stretch your ad budget using negative keywords.