Maximize Your PPC Conversions with Effective A/B Testing

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be one of the most successful marketing tactics, but it can also be one of the more expensive parts of your campaign.

Testing your ads regularly helps you make sure that you are maximizing the number of conversions and getting the most from your PPC budget.

A/B testing your PPC ads is especially important as Google rolls out new features like AdWords Ad Extensions, which allow you to add more text to your ads.

Before you start testing, you need to understand why A/B testing is important and how it can help you maximize your PPC conversions.

What is A/B Testing?

Image Credit via VWO.com

If you are not familiar with A/B testing or not sure how it applies to PPC campaigns, here’s a brief overview. A/B testing allows you to test your advertising using a baseline sample that is compared to single-variable test samples. Basically, you have one ad that does not change and you test this ad against other ads which have slightly different variables. For instance, you might change the headline in one of the variant ads and keep the rest of the content the same.

The only way that A/B testing can work is if you keep all variables the same except one. That way, when you get the test results, you can determine which variable is affecting ad performance. If you have done other types of A/B testing for display ads, landing pages, or other types of content, you will be happy to learn that the process is much simpler for PPC ads because you are working with less variables.

What can you test?

Everything in your Professional AdWords agency creates as an ad  affects your visitors behavior can be tested.

Here are the most important elements to test:

1. Headlines
2. Sub headlines
3. Call to action (CTA) text
4. Landing page

The headline is the part of that shows up as a link in the search results.

It should be short (about 4-5 words is ideal), to the point, and includes your target keyword. You can use dynamic keyword insertion if your ad group contains more than 1 keyword.

The Sub headlines is similar to your page’s meta description tag in organic search results. It should include the benefits and features.

The call to action should entice the searchers to click on the ad.

The landing page is where the visitor will go after they click on your ad.

Here are some landing page tips:

• Include a catchy emotional headlines with your target keyword.
• Use messages that is consistent with your ad.
• Add a color image above the fold.
• Include social testimonials.
• Include a strong call to action.

PPC A/B Testing Best Practices

Once you are ready to get started, it is important that you follow some A/B testing best practices so that you are getting the information you need from the testing and using this information to make informed changes to your ads:

• Test early and often, and make sure you run tests long enough to collect enough accurate results.
• Test ad variations at the same time to minimize time-based factors that might change results.
• Only test one variable at a time so that you are able to pinpoint what is impacting test results.
• Look at the hard data you collect, and do not let your gut instincts inform what changes you make to future PPC ads.

Why You Should Test Each Element

1. Why you should test the headlines

All clicks and visits starts with a compelling headline. In order to gain a high quality score and not miss on important ad impressions, you need to test your ad headline for CTR.

How to test your ad headlines

Your headline can have a huge impact on your CTR because it’s the first thing searchers see.

Here are some tips:

• Use dynamic keyword insertion that will bold the keyword within the headline.
• Construct the headline in a form of a question.

2. Why you should test your sub headline

Your sub headline let’s you include the important benefits and features of your ad.

How to test your sub headlines

The sub headline is the second biggest impact on CTR.

Here are some tips:

• Test different benefit statements.
• Test different product features.

3. Why you should test your ad’s call to action (CTA)

The call to action tells your target audience what they should be doing once the click on your PPC ad.

Here are some tips:

• Use a strong command verb to start your CTA.
• Use words to provoke emotion or enthusiasm
• Give your audience a reason to take action

4. Why you should test your landing page

A low conversion rate is a direct result of poor landing page optimization. In order to increase it, you need to test different elements of a landing page.

Here are some tips:

• Test the wording, size, color, and location of your call to action buttons.
• Test the wording of the headline
• Test the color of the image
• Test the different social testimonials

How to A/B Test Your Ad Copy (Finally!)

First you need to identify which ad groups has the best chance for improvement.

Step 1: Formulate A Smart A/B Test Hypothesis

A test hypothesis consists of two elements:

1. A proposed solution
2. The result that you expect from the solution

Step 2: Conduct The Test

1. Create a second ad to compete against the original ad.
2. Select an ad element that you will be testing (ie. Headline).
3. Modify the headline based on the proposed solution from your hypothesis above.
4. Monitor your results.
5. Choose the winning ad, rinse, and repeat.

Optimize Other Marketing Strategies with A/B Testing (Bonus Tip)

Your PPC ad should drive traffic to either sell a product/service or capture their email and phone number to a marketing list so you can nurture the lead.

You can apply the split test strategy on all messages that goes out to your marketing list. For instance, SMS text messaging is a great way to mobilize your advertising as many consumers prefer text communications and this channel allows you to communicate with consumers instantly.

Because of it’s instant nature, marketers can use SMS messages to boost their email open rate and traffic to the landing page.

To find out which types of email and  mass text messaging communications your buyers respond best to, you can do an A/B test.

What are the elements of a perfect SMS message?

• Headline
• Introduction
• Promotion
• Call to action

After you send out your email newsletter, here’s how you can test the effectiveness of your SMS messages.

1. Test the headline to see which one is more engaging.
2. Test how you introduce yourself.
3. Test the different promotions.
4. Test your call to action.
5. Test when to send the SMS message after the initial email message.

Ready to get started? Please leave your comment below. I would love to read it.

Author Biography

Sophorn Chhay