How to Increase the IQ of Your Google AdWords Ads

    Jun 24, 11:00 PM in Marketing

    Are your Google AdWords ads getting smarter? Are they getting better? Do you know?

    AdWords can be used in many different ways for many different purposes, but it is really the quickest, most direct way to generate targeted traffic to your website in 10 minutes or less.

    If you haven’t started using AdWords (the little advertisements you see along the right side of your screen when searching for anything in Google) yet, open an account and start digging around.

    To get started, just visit http://adwords.google.com

    The thing about AdWords and all pay-per-click ads is that you really need to do some studying to get the most return for your money. It’s not really in Google’s best interest to help you maximize the results of your ad campaigns.

    The smarter you are about that, the less money Google usually makes.

    Today, we’ll focus on a very important idea that will help you constantly improve your AdWords results over time.

    And that idea is split-testing.

    Split testing is an age old advertising technique where you send out two ads that are virtually identical except for one small difference.

    Maybe the two ads use different headlines. Maybe all that is different is the punctuation of the text. But the little differences can make a huge difference in response.

    Luckily, Google gives you a very simple way to figure that out.

    Here’s the basic routine for creating successful AdWords campaigns:

    1. For each set of keywords, create 2 ads. Make them almost identical, except for one thing.
    2. Let enough time pass until you get between 15 and 30 clicks.
    3. See which ad has a better response (click-through rate and conversion rate) and delete the loser.
    4. Write a new ad to see if you can beat the results of the winner.
    5. Test and repeat.

    Look at my example below. It’s an ad I run to market my Realtor® training services.

    It’s your typical AdWords ad. 25 characters on the first line. 35 characters on the next two lines. And then the website address.

    But this ad has a sister… And Google is quietly rotating the different ads each time someone types in the phrase “realtor training.”

    And here is a small snapshot of the results:

    You can see the first ad got a click-through-rate (CTR) of 2.27% while the second ad had a CTR of only 1.8%.

    What’s the difference?

    Just the second line of the ad. It seems that the idea of edging out your competition might be a bit more compelling than the relatively dry idea of using technology.

    I can’t say for sure, it’s just a hunch that requires more testing… But for now, we’ll stick with the winning ad, delete the loser and write a NEW ad that tries to beat the current reigning champion.

    Again, my new ad will be virtually identical to the old one, except for one difference. Maybe I will test a different headline.

    There are two things you need to do to be able to use this technique in your AdWords campaigns:

    1. Always write two ads for every group of keywords you create.

    2. Make sure Google is rotating your ads evenly.

    The first item is self-explanatory. You can’t split-test if you only have one ad, so always write two (or more) and vary them only very slightly.

    By default, Google is set to show a winning ad more often. By doing that, your good ads will appear more often than the bad ones.

    Google makes more money this way. By continuing to show bad ads, they lose revenue. If no one clicks, they don’t make a cent.

    While this is supposed to be helpful, it really skews your split testing results, so you need to change the option so that Google rotates your ads EVENLY.

    That way, you’ll be able to separate the winning ads from the losing ones based on real numbers.

    Just login to your AdWords account and find the option to “Edit Campaign Settings.”

    Scroll down near the bottom of the page to the Advanced Options and set the Ad Serving option to “Rotate: Show ads more evenly.”

    This will insure that you get accurate results and will help you constantly test and improve the effectiveness of all of your AdWords campaigns.

    Google gives you the tools you need to make all of your AdWords dollars accountable for results. All you have to do is use them. But Google isn’t going to remind you…