Our new blog series called “Tips” will feature actionable items that people can implement into their current campaigns to make them more effective whether Social, Search, or Paid. This week we will go over some punctuation and grammar guidelines that can both help and hurt you.

Here is a non-comprehensive list of the most common do’s and don’t s.

Don’ts

Google AdWords doesn’t allow ad text that uses gimmicky or unnecessary punctuation or symbols, like the following:

• Exclamation mark in the ad title.
• More than one exclamation mark in the ad text.
• Repeated punctuation or symbols.
• Symbols, numbers, and letters that don’t adhere to their true meaning.
• Bullet points.
• Google AdWords doesn’t allow ad text that uses excessive or gimmicky capitalization.

Below are examples of symbols Google doesn’t allow in ad text:

Do’s

Google Does allow the following exceptions though:

• Punctuation and symbols used as part of a company name or when they pertain to a certain industry or language standards.
• Asterisks used in the following cases: “5* Hotel,” “3* Restaurant,” or used to indicate that “conditions apply.”
• Numbers used in the following cases: 24/7, buy 1 get 1 free, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.
• Double dashes (–) and elipses (…).
• Ampersands can save a lot of space. Don’t use too many.

I have provided a general screenshot and made some notes so you can see how these can be used to your advantage.

I think it is very ironic that the ad that stands out the most using these punctuations and symbols effectively is not even a relevant ad for this particular search.

While I do not agree with all of the punctuation and grammar rules I do agree that with Google about their view of the user experience. And this is why these rules exist.

Happy Ad Creation!