Ideas To Test In Your AdWords Ads

If you want improve your campaigns performance, it's important you split test your ads.  This means running at least two ads at once.

You want to run more than one ad for two reasons:

1.  It takes into account changes in traffic quality.  If you only have one ad running at a time, then you have no idea if another ad did better or worse because of changes in traffic quality.  One reason quality may vary is because a certain keyword drives more of your traffic than before.  There also might be seasonal changes.

2.  It takes time for editors to approve ads and for Google to gain trust in an ad.  If you delete your only ad, then you may wait days for your ads to run on the search or content network.

Of course, you may already be familiar with split testing.  But, you don't do it as much as you should because you're not sure what you should test.

This is why in this post, we'll give you some quick ideas to test in your ads:

• Formatting.  A common formatting test is upper versus lower-case first letters of each word.

• Short versus long ads.  You might use all of the ad space and run it against an ad that only has two to five words in the ad description. 

• Different action verbs.  You might test, "Rocket your results" versus "Explode your results."

• Location information.  You might say, "Covering New York City" or let searchers know specifically in your ad that you serve their area.  

• Shipping information.  You might emphasize that your shipping is fast, free, or low-cost. 

• Pricing information.  You might test including the price of your product in your ad, even in your headline.  Two reasons for testing this might be to qualify searchers.  Those that click on your ad know it's a paid service.  You may help eliminate those who can't afford it.  You also might want to do this because your price is much cheaper than competitors.

• Including keywords in your ads.    You might experiment with the amount of times you include the keyword in your ad.  For instance, you might have it just once or three times.

• Punctuation.   You might test with and without commas or periods.

• Adjectives.  There are times when it's important to describe what you're offering and how it differs from the rest.  Test different ways to describe your product or service.  For instance, you may have a web hosting service and you call it "Cheap web hosting."  You might test that against "Bargain web hosting."  

• Display URLs.   You might test "YourDomain.com versus "www.YourDomain.com" or you might test "YourDomain.com" versus "YourDomain.com/Keword"

• Questions versus statements.  For instance, you might test "Are you fed-up with dieting?" versus "Kiss Diets Good-Bye Forever."

• Features versus benefits.  You might advertise a web hosting service by saying, "50 GB storage, 5 GB bandwidth, only $5 a month," which tells all of the features of your service.  Or, you might advertise it by saying, "Save hundreds a year with everything you need for only $5 a month."  In this example, you emphasize that the consumer saves money, which is a benefit.

A great place to start testing might be with headlines, as this is the largest and top part of your ad.  Another strategy is to see how you can tie-in your ad with your landing page.  For instance, you may offer a free trial on your landing page.  So, your ad would emphasize this fact.  Guide the expectations of searchers at the beginning.

Comments

[Web hosting service]

Ads are a key factor in promoting your site.I strongly believe misplaced ads can harm you big time.