Google Ads campaign experiment guide

Google Ads campaign experiment guide


Whether you work for a ppc management company or you are looking after your Google Ads account yourself, this guide will walk you through how to set up a campaign experiment yourself.


What are Google Ads experiments?

Google Ads has an option within PPC advertising campaigns to create an experimental campaign. This options allows you to try out certain theories that you may have about your campaign without completely tanking and killing your campaigns, wasting not only your precious advertising budget but also losing potential leads/sales – double jeopardy!


When/why would you use them?

Have you noticed that one landing page is performing better than another or a new page might perform better altogether? You may also have noticed mobile devices are outperforming the other devices? Or you may want to try an automated bid before fully committing to it to see how it performs first? There are many reasons why you may want to create an experiment! Using this guide, you will be able to create your own experiment testing the parameters that matter for your business.


How to create an experiment

The good news is that experiments are easy to set up and they are not only for ppc management company experts. First you need to select the drafts and experiments heading in the menu on the left-hand side of the screen and then click campaign drafts from the sub menu. This will take you to a screen with a list of past experiments, if you have not created any before it will display that you currently have no drafts. To create a new draft, select either the blue cross in the left-hand corner or the blue cross in the middle of the screen if this is your first draft (see below).


ppc management company

Name your experiment, adding a description is a good idea especially if you have a few tests. Try to avoid just naming it test, again if you have more than one it may make finding your campaigns and experiments confusing.


You will then be taken back to the familiar campaign view, in the top left you should see the draft status and it should display Drafted, it is now that you make the changes to the campaign that you would like to test i.e. in this example we are testing a CPA bid, I would then change the bidding strategy in settings as normal and then select apply.


ppc management company

Select Run an experiment and click Apply.


Next Google will ask you to name the experiment and select the date range that you would like your experiment to run for. It’s best to give your experiment a fair amount of time, a fortnight at the very least. You can always end the campaign early if you are unhappy with the results. Next you will need to choose the experiment split. This option allows you to set the amount of the original campaigns budget you would like to use for the experiment. I generally go for a 50/50 split as it keeps thing simple, but you can split it however you choose.


The final option is whether to choose a search based or cookie based experiment. Search based will get you faster results but a user could see both the experiment and the original so the results may not be as accurate. If you have a lot of traffic you should use the cookie based option, as a user will ONLY see the experiment OR the original campaign meaning the results will be more accurate.


And that’s it! Your experiment is live and running! As you can see experiments are not just for ppc management company experts and remember you can stop the experiment at any time, alternatively if you are happy with the results you can apply the changes at any point too.

Google Ad Creative Tips

Ad Copy For Better CTR & Conversion Rates

Ad copy is an often overlooked part of your ppc strategy. As a pay per click company in the UK, myWebhero constantly test ad creatives & have learnt a few tips over the years.

Good ad copy has the power to drive more clicks through superior CTRs, lower costs through improved Quality Scores & better conversions by framing the proposition in the customer’s mind before they’ve even visited the website.

Here we’ll share some of our top ppc agency tips for ad creative that helps you stand out on the SERP, get the click & boost your conversion rate.


Numbers

ppc-company-uk-search-result-mywebhero

The first tip is to draw the eye to the ad. Numbers are a great way of doing this and you can apply it to your meta titles too for added SEO impact. Peoples eyes are naturally drawn to numbers & they are even more visible if you have the only ad containing them.

You can use numbers such as prices, No 1 status, customers served, product lines in stock… and so on.


Symbols & Emojis

Similarly, you can use symbols (and in some cases emojis) to draw the eye in a similar way. Take a look at this example of one of our ads.

Currency symbols work well, as to copyright & Registered Trademarks. On some rare occassions, you can even sneak in some emojis!


Pricing & Qualifying

As well as drawing the eye, pricing can help qualify customers in or out of your service / product. There’s little point paying for a click from someone who cannot afford it!

Adding a price helps people frame your product & know whether it’s within their range. Yes, you can use a price extension, but putting a price in the headline makes it front & centre, unavoidable.

There are other ways to qualify people in or out, using works such as expensive or luxury etc. help you set your stall out and avoid unnecessary clicks.


Dare To Be Different

There’s little point just making up the numbers on the SERP. You need to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Quite often you’ll see bland & repetitve ad copy from your competitors, this is your chance to shine.


Keywords & Natural Structure

The perceived wisdom in writing ad copy is to include the exact keyword in the headline. This can lead to some pretty clunky & repetitive ads.

Yes, you should make sure that the ad is relevant & immediately recognisable as the searcher scans the SERP, but that doesn’t mean blanket use of the keyword.

Remember that somebody is searching for an answer to their problem. If you ad can address & answer that problem, then you’re going to see some pretty hefty CTRs.

Writing in plain English for the searcher, rather than the engine will always be preferable!

Call To Action

Finally, don’t forget to add a call to action to your ad. This plants the seed in the visitors mind of what you expect them to do when they visit the website.

Classic examples are; Sign Up, Buy Now, Browse For.., Download – you get the idea!


Our Services

Well, thanks for reading this far, here are some links to our services if you want to checkout how we help clients achieve extraordinary results through their PPC campaigns.

PPC Management Services Ecommerce PPC Services Multilingual PPC services