I want to share a technique I have been using with regards to testing PPC ads to find the ads that work best for me. There are two reasons I wanted to write this post:
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I wanted to highlight the importance of testing the different elements within a PPC ad rather than the ad as a single entity
- As an extension of Rand’s post on using PPC to test keywords before targeting them in SEO, I think there is mileage in using PPC data to influence the content of Meta Descriptions which are often displayed as snippets or extracts in the Organic Search Results
When setting up a Google PPC campaign you need to go to the settings page in the Adwords interface and scroll down to Advanced settings, select “Ad delivery: Ad rotation, frequency capping”; then “Ad rotation – show more evenly”.
Now that you have set this up, your ads will be displayed evenly. If you have 4 ads they will be displayed roughly 25% of the time each. This means that over a period of time (hopefully at least a thousand impressions each) you are able to see which ads are performing better in terms of Click-Through-Rates and Conversions. You are now in a position to test your ads.
In Adwords each ad has 4 elements:
- Title
- Description Line 1
- Description Line 2
- Display URL
And each element within each ad influences Click-Through-Rate. Logically we need to test these elements against each other to create our winning ad.
If you use Blair Gorman’s (free) Taguchi-Based Ad Optimizer, you can test 3 of these variables against one another. As you can only test 3 of the variables you need to write two ads with one variable the same (i.e. the Display URL is the same for both ads), then follow the instructions at Adcomparator.com where you will create 4 adverts from the ad copy you have created.
After you have run the ads to get enough impressions, return to Adcomparator.com and pump in the CTRs. The programme will tell you the winning combination of elements. With this approach you can continue to refine the campaign and make improvements – it also teaches you some valuable lessons about what messages trigger a response from your customers.
With regards to SEO, you can use these “triggers” to help you write better Meta Descriptions. In many cases Google will display your Meta Description as a snippet or extract in the Organic Search Results. Be aware that if the keyword searched is not in the Meta Description and there is a more relevant string of text in the
content, there is a possibility Google will not use your Meta Description for the search results snippet.The Descriptive fields in a PPC ad allow 70 characters while your Meta Description allows 155 characters. To edit and rewrite your Meta Description, Bjørn Enki has created an excellent tool that allows you to preview how your snippet would look in the search results and therefore how eye-catching your proposed snippet is. Conventional wisdom states that bolded keywords are more eye-catching and get better click-through-rates.
In conclusion, PPC can be used not only for discovering which keywords you want to target but can also provide input on how to get the most out of them once you have the desired coverage. Having said this user intent can be different from paid and non-paid search, so do not take it as a given that a good PPC ad will make a good Meta Description.
About the author: Geoff Andrews is a lead generation consultant based in Manchester, UK.
