Ad testing is the key to long term success in paid search and everyone, including seasoned paid search marketers, should be doing it as part of their search marketing strategy. After years of reading the top experts blogs and articles, attending conferences with each of the major search engine search marketing representatives present, it is clear that Quality Score is about click through rate. Anyone who tells you differently is lying to you and making excuses for their poor performance.
Don’t get me wrong, landing page optimization does play a significant part in the overall search marketing strategy as it is needed to maximize ROI but without high CTR from your ads the best landing page in the world can not work and plays a very low part (if any) to help you lower your cost per click.
So how does the small business owner, who is just getting started in pay per click marketing, start ad testing? I think it is about starting small and working your way into it. There is such a big upside to testing your ad copy there really is no reason why any business does not embrace it. Here are some basics:
- Run multiple ads against a group of search keywords – Google AdWords and the other top networks all allow you to run many variations of ads against a group of keyword phrases. This helps give you a statistically valid testing platform that gives you great indication on your key metrics like CTR and CPA.
- Just say no to optimized settings – Yes, CTR is very important to your Google Quality Score but having the network optimize your ads may cost you more in the long run.
- You can not optimize for time – We live in a credit society and we all want it now without waiting. Testing on any level takes time and patience. To get a sense of the math of statistical significance, try this handy tool on Vertster. I like it as it is strictly for CTR of ad testing. Testing boils down to statistics 101 and statistical confidence levels let your tests run long enough so that the results mean something for the long haul.
- Quality Score trumps all – Google AdWords and the other networks are a business. They report to shareholders and Board of Directors but at the end of the day it is an algorithm that needs to be optimized for. CTR is a huge part of this algorithm and you need to keep your CTRs at their maximum especially on high impression keywords. Also note that Quality Score has a very short memory, around 90 days to be exact. So what good or bad you have done to optimize CTR can be hurt or helped within the next 90 days. So you might be asking yourself “how do you test yet keep CTR high?” I think you have to commit to ad testing to some degree and let Quality Score be what it is going to be.
- Successful ad testing gives you volume times two – The higher the CTR the more clicks you receive per month. Nothing you did not already know but keeping overall conversion rate the same on your landing page net you more conversions for your business. Now after time you Quality Score will increase, raising your ad position, and that can lead to even more clicks and conversions!
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