3 Ad Copywriting Tips: See Why They Work in Real Examples - TurboTax

How to Write Great Copy: 3 Copywriting Tips

Many copywriters dream of creating viral or award-winning ads, but the most successful copy isn't about creativity for creativity's sake—it's about clarity, directness, and impact. The best ad copy puts the audience's needs first, speaking directly to their challenges and guiding them toward a solution.

1. Write for Your Audience, Not Yourself

Numerous copywriters aspire to create flawless ad copy that goes viral, wins awards, or sparks thoughtful debate in a Mad Men-style boardroom. Yet, the most effective copy is straightforward, succinct, and vividly descriptive. To help your client reach their sales goals and satisfy customer expectations, it’s crucial to view the project through their target audience’s eyes.

Understand and Address Your Audience's Needs

Since consumers are constantly flooded with advertisements, the only way to truly stand out is to address the real challenges they face and tailor your message to align with their objectives.

The headline instantly signals that Shopify Plus is designed for enterprises, while the description acknowledges core business challenges:

• Custom Design Your Online Store and Checkout Experience →Highlights the complexity of enterprise eCommerce and the need for customization.
• Get Up to 18% Higher Conversion Rates →Speaks to a key objective: improving performance and efficiency.
• Unlimited Bandwidth, Flexible Integrations, Unlimited Staff Accounts →Recognizes the need for scalability and operational flexibility.

Rather than just listing features, this ad aligns its message with enterprise-level priorities—ensuring it speaks directly to the user's needs.

2. Content Matters, but So Does Structure

Even the strongest message can fall flat if it’s lost in a messy, poorly structured ad. How you present your copy is just as important as the words you choose.

Lead with Your Strongest Copy

Audiences typically skim ads rather than reading them in full; Nielsen Norman Group reports that 79% of users scan new pages while only 16% read every detail.

Similarly, Penn State research found that over 75% of people share links on social media without even clicking on them. (Source: Penn State Study)

This behavior underlines the importance of showcasing your most compelling message at the very beginning. If your key selling point is buried later in the ad, it might go unnoticed. Whether you’re emphasizing a major benefit, a solution to a problem, or boosting credibility, leading with your best copy increases engagement and impact.

3. The Power of Word Choice

The right choice of words can imbue your ad with a personal, urgent, and engaging tone. The tone you set can be the difference between an ad that converts and one that is overlooked.

Use Words That Resonate with Your Audience

An effective way to grab attention is to speak in the language your audience uses. Reflecting their own phrases allows you to directly address their needs and make your copy feel more relatable.

Keyword research is a powerful tool for word mirroring. By analyzing the actual search terms used by people, you can identify common language patterns and naturally integrate them into your ads.

Here's how you can do it:

• Leverage Customer Data →Analyze customer reviews, feedback, and support inquiries to identify recurring phrases and concerns.
• Study Competitor Keywords →Find out what terms your competitors are using to attract traffic, and incorporate those insights into your own ad copy.

If you want to see what keywords your competitors are targeting, tools like Ahrefs, Similarweb, Inpages can help you analyze their traffic sources and identify high-performing keywords.

By using familiar words and phrases, you can make your message feel more authentic and relevant, increasing the chances of capturing your audience's attention and driving meaningful engagement.

TurboTax's Ad Copy: Tips in Action

We've covered key tips to keep in mind. Now, let's take a look at real examples from TurboTax to see how these tips are applied in actual Google paid ads.

1. Writing for the Audience, Not Yourself

The ad copy is finely tuned to address the real challenges of TurboTax’s audience by emphasizing accuracy, ease of use, and maximizing refunds—key concerns for users dealing with tax filing complexities. This aligns with the sub tip of writing for your audience rather than for yourself, ensuring that the ad speaks directly to the problems tax filers face and demonstrates how TurboTax can solve them, rather than just listing features.

2. Content Matters, but So Does Structure

The structure is strategically crafted, starting with a strong assurance of ease and accuracy. By leading with the most compelling benefit, the ad immediately captures attention and addresses the audience’s need for reliability—a technique supported by the sub tip on content structure. It then smoothly transitions into supporting details such as device versatility and expert support, culminating in a reassuring closing that reinforces trust and guides the reader toward action.

3. The Power of Word Choice

The copy makes effective use of dynamic, benefit-driven language with action verbs and personalization. Phrases like 'Guaranteed', '100% Accurate', and 'Every Dollar You Deserve' not only create a sense of urgency but also resonate with the audience's priorities. This approach mirrors the sub tip on employing powerful word choice, leveraging language that directly speaks to the audience’s needs and mirrors their own expressions, thereby enhancing relatability and impact.

1. Writing for the Audience, Not Yourself

This ad sharply targets cost-conscious users by directly addressing their core need for a hassle-free tax filing process. By emphasizing a 'free' filing benefit and presenting a strong qualification statistic (37% of taxpayers qualify), the copy effectively speaks to the audience’s direct challenges—ensuring they understand how TurboTax simplifies the tax filing process. This aligns with the sub tip to write for your audience rather than yourself, ensuring that the ad solves the user’s problem while highlighting how TurboTax’s user-friendly, AI-powered guidance meets their needs.

2. Content Matters, but So Does Structure

The ad copy is carefully structured to lead with its most compelling message: free filing eligibility is mentioned up front. This is immediately followed by a qualification statistic and a clear, action-driven call-to-action, which mirrors the advice to front-load strong copy. The organized, step-by-step presentation not only captures the audience’s attention quickly but also reassures them through a logical progression from benefit to qualification, finishing with a compelling closing statement that reinforces trust and encourages further engagement.

3. The Power of Word Choice

The language is direct, dynamic, and consumer-centric, featuring powerful action verbs like 'discover' and 'get' (implied in the call-to-action prompts) which create urgency. Keywords such as 'Free', 'Simple', and 'Confidence' are chosen strategically to resonate with the audience’s needs, using familiar phrases that echo the key selling points of TurboTax. The recurrent use of 'you' helps in mirroring the audience’s perspective, ensuring that the ad copy not only informs but also persuades by making the messaging feel personal and directly relevant.

Conclusion

Great ad copy isn't just about being clever—it's about understanding your audience, structuring your message effectively, and using the right words to drive action. The examples from TurboTax demonstrate how well-crafted copy can make an ad more engaging, easy to understand, and conversion-focused.

Key Takeaways:

• ✅Write for Your Audience

  Focus on their needs, not features. Align with their goals and search intent.

• ✅Structure Matters

  Lead with your strongest copy. Keep it short, scannable, and benefit-focused.

• ✅Use the Right Words

  Start with action verbs, personalize with "you", and keep language simple.

By applying these principles, you can craft ad copy that grabs attention, builds trust, and drives higher conversions—just like TurboTax.