How to Split Test Your Adwords Ads

One of the most common mistakes a newbie to Google AdWords makes is not split testing their ads. Split testing is simply running more than one ad at a time for a given ad group. The purpose doing this is to determine the ad that performs better according to a given metric.

How do you set up a proper split test?

The first thing you have to do before you run a split test is to go into the "Edit Settings" part of your campaign and select the option to rotate ads evenly. The default option when you create a new campaign is for Google to automatically optimize for the better performing ad. That option can lead to skewed results as the different ads in your test may not have been displayed enough times to make a valid decision as to which ad is the winner.

Create a minimum of two different ads

The next step is to create at least two different ads for the ad group. Some folks like to test more ads at a given time and that is fine. If you have selected the option to rotate the ads evenly, the if you have two ads each ad will be shown 50% of the time. If you have four different ads, each one will be shown 25% of the time.

Make small changes

If you want to test two different ads, create two identical ads and then change one of them slightly. It could be a different word used in the title or in the body of the ad. It could also be including or excluding the price of the item you are promoting. You could also mention different benefits of your product or service. There are many variations that you can test for.

It is important to allow for a certain number of impressions or clicks before you decide on the winner. For example, you can set the decision threshold at 50 clicks per ad or 500 impressions per ad. In general, the higher the decision threshold, the more accurate your test will be.

Decide on the winner

Once you have reached the decision threshold, it is time to pick the winner. You can make a decision on which ad wins by picking the one with the highest click through ratio (CTR) or if you are tracking conversions by metrics such as cost per conversion.

The next thing to do is to create a new "challenger" ad to try to beat the winner. The tip is to be sure to reset the statistics for the winning ad before you start the next split test. The way to do this is to edit the winning ad, make a small change such as removing a character from the ad and then restoring the change. Once AdWords detects that the ad has changed, it will reset the CTR to zero so that you can start the new split test afresh.

By continuously split testing your ads, you will find that you can incrementally improve the performance of your ad campaign and generate higher returns for your ad budget.