Maximizing Google Adwords: Increase your CTR with Scientific Testing

Age : 45 Joined : 08 Mar 2008 Posts : 1850

A Scientific Direct Marketing Approach to Improving your CTR:
The ability to run multiple creatives at the same time makes it easy to try different ideas and see which results in the highest CTR. Using this strategy, you should be able to substantially increase your clickthrough rate over time.

1. Start-Up Set up a new ad group, and start out with three completely different creatives. Let your imagination run wild. This is the time for creativity and exploration. Try completely different customer appeals, different benefits, different headlines, etc.

You can use our free CTR Validity Checker to determine whether or not they have run long enough. Attaining a level of statistical validity means that your creatives will continue to perform at a similar level in the future. Ultimately, one will emerge as the clear winner. If there is not a clear winner, let your group run for longer. Eventually, you should see a winner.

2. Improve the winner Now you should delete all the creatives except the best performer. When you begin this step, you should only have one creative in this ad group. Now create three different variations on the winner. Make small changes, things like word choice, abbreviations, etc. Also, create a fourth creative that is still different from the rest.

3. Watch for the Winner Run these new variations until there is a clear best performer. Again, use our free CTR Validity tool. The 3 variations will likely be pretty close, but maybe not! Sometimes a small change can have a big impact. Check what your fourth ad did. Better? If it did better, go back to step two, and use this creative. Worse? Move on to step four.

4. Continual Testing Congratulations! You have a control! The control is the element of a test that you have done in the past, and that you know works. Take your top performing variation from step three and create three ads, which are all the same. Now create a new fourth ad which is different. It could be a small amount different, or a completely new direction. This one is your test. Your proven control should display approximately 75% of the time, and your test 25%. In three weeks, review your results, making sure to use the CTR validity tool. If the control still shows the best CTR, change your test ad. If your test is better, go back to step 2, using your test.