Google Ads is one of the most effective marketing tools ever made. You can target a specific audience and show them an ad for your product or service exactly at the moment they are looking for it.
And it’s all trackable! I can’t think of another type of marketing that provide that type of precision and accountability.
Getting ads approved by clients, however, is another thing. Paid search ads are text-based by nature. We have tried a wide variety of ways to get ad approvals from clients that have included various organizational layout structures in spreadsheets and powerpoint.
When clients see a spreadsheet, no matter how it’s organized, they often as a very logical question: how will these ads look when they are running on Google?
That led us to creating ads in full mock up form in applications like PowerPoint or Google Slides. This was an extra step that was a bit time consuming, but it helped clients make better sense of what they were seeing and approving. The extra time it took was worth it, as the feedback we got from clients was more useful and helped them understand what they were actually approving.
The Challenge of Responsive Ads
Creating mock ups of Google Ads was not a huge deal, until responsive ads came along. With each ad group we would typically have three expanded text ads. They were pretty easy to mock up, as I described above, as the ads are constructed from start to finish. We determine what headline goes in what position and the same with the descriptions. But that is changed with Google’s responsive search ads.
Responsive ads are a great, flexible and allow for lots of testing of variations. But one responsive text ad can create over 40,000 ad variations. It really creates a challenge when needing to create a few mock ups.
We wanted to be able to show any client a decent variety of ad variations, quickly. Sure, we could just mock up three, similar to before, but in this case we wanted the option to create more, but we wanted to be able to do it quickly. And if the client requested changes, again, we wanted to be able to produce mock ups fast, without slowing the process down.
The Creation of Our Google Ads Mockup Generator
Having a visual representation of responsive search ads is a must. Seeing how your ad will look when it’s running is vital to connecting your ideas to a finished product. Keeping in mind that a single responsive search ad can create over 40,000 ad variations, we wanted a tool that could generate variations quickly.
So, we built our own Google ad mockup generator specifically for responsive search ads. And after testing it, we decided to let anyone use it.
We are releasing our Google ads mockup generator for free to everyone.
Release version one is available now We are going to continue to develop it to make it more useful, by adding the ability to add your own brand URL, sitelinks, callouts, and more.
We think it’s easy to use. Fill out the fields (it will even count characters for you!) and hit the big button. The more you click it, the more mockups it will make. Just take screenshots and use them however you like!
You can find our Google Ad Preview tool right here!