Imagine being able to leap from position #4 on Google AdWords sponsored links to position #2 without spending more. I am continually surprised by the number of big budget advertisers that don’t put the keywords they’re advertising on in the actual ad.

In the example above, for the search terms “Cheap Flights Hawaii,” Expedia, perhaps the largest paid search advertiser in the travel category in the U.S., has used a generic ad while Cheapflights has used an ad with the exact keywords in the header. Using this strategy, Cheapflights is in the #2 position, while Expedia is in the #4 position. Expedia is likely paying 30-50% more per click for a lower position. Even worse, Expedia’s click through rate is probably 25-30% lower by only having related but not the exact keywords in the ad.

Granted, when you’re running campaigns with thousands of keywords, it’s a lot of work to copywrite and test the thousands of ads you need need to build. It’s a ton of work to set up dozens of campaigns and thousands of ad groups for small sets of “like” keywords. Still, if you don’t put keywords your going after directly into your ad, you’re missing out on one of the big secrets of paid search marketing.

Why put keywords in your ads? Three reasons:

1. Ads without keywords have a much lower click-through rate. We’ve seen gains of as much as 200% in CTR from simply inserting the relevant keywords into a company’s generic ad.

2. Ads without keywords get up to 50% lower position on the page. One of the major components of the algorithm determining Google’s quality score for an ad is the keyword relevance of that ad. On AdWords, not having your keyword in your ad results in a low quality score, relegating that ad a 50% lower position on the page, that could take you from position #2 to position #4.

3. Ads without keywords cost up to 10x more per click. Besides a low quality score, relegating your ad to a lower position on the page, even in a non-competitive category, lazy advertisers who write ads without relevant keywords in them, are forced to spend up to 10 times the price per click of ads with relevant keywords, just to get their ad on the page.

If you’re an advertiser and your SEM guy wants to cut corners and use a one ad fits all approach, get a new SEM guy. If your building campaigns yourself, and you haven’t discovered the power of putting keywords in your ads, try it. You’ll be shocked by the results.