AdWords Split-Testing For Copywriters

Like a lot of online copywriters, I often use Google AdWords to drive traffic to my website. You might do the same. However, if you’re not split-testing your adverts, you’re missing a trick.
But first things first: perhaps you’re unfamiliar with Google AdWords. Next time you do a Google search, check out the boxes on the right-hand side of the page. These are websites that use AdWords and that are paying for the privilege of being on page one of Google.
Each time someone clicks their advert and is taken through to their website, the advertiser incurs a charge. For the word ‘copywriting’, it’s currently nearly ?2.00 to secure a high-ranking position. Sobering? You bet.
Especially when you consider that your ads might be being clicked by your competitors.
So, AdWords is expensive. That’s why you have to maximise every penny that you spend. One of the best ways of doing this is by running split-tests on your adverts.
This is a lot less scientific than it sounds. All split-testing amounts to is running two or more adverts concurrently in the same group of ads. What you hope to achieve is to find which one performs better.
So, how do you go about it? Start by going into ‘Edit Settings’. Choose to rotate ads evenly, as opposed to Google’s default position of favouring the advert that performs better.
Next, you need to write two adverts or more for the same product or service. Let’s stick with two: it’s easier. Having chosen the even-rotation setting, Google will show each ad for precisely half the time.
Split-testing works best when you write two identical ads and change one of them very, very slightly. Try substituting ‘big savings’ for ‘huge savings’, for example.
Remember that the longer you give it, and the more ‘impressions’ your ad receives, the more accurate your results will be. Once you’ve gone a week, or whatever time you allotted to the task, pick the winning ad. This will be the one with the highest click through rate (CTR).
Thought your job was done? Oh no. Now it gets really exciting. It’s time to wheel out the next challenger. Again, make a small change – choose a new benefit or change a word or two – and run the ads for a similar period.
Bear in mind, though, that for Google to reset the statistics to zero on the winning advert, you’ll need to alter something. Perhaps take a letter out and then restore it. AdWords will detect this and start the new test at zero.