Testing and Refreshing Ad Copy to Optimize PPC Campaigns

Gerard Tollefsen - September 16, 2008

I’m always surprised companies do not test or refresh their ad copy on a regular basis.  It is not enough to simply make changes to your ad copy during the holiday season or when you want to run a special promotion (10% Off for the Month of May!).  It is important to tailor your message during the holiday season, especially for online retailers who rely on holiday sales, and that message is probably different than the rest of the year, so it makes sense to have different ad copy running during the holidays.

In addition, you probably do not offer a special discount all year round, so a “10% Off” promotion dictates special ad copy as well.  However, testing and refreshing ad copy should be a continual process in search engine marketing.  It’s quite helpful that Google (and your target audience) provide the test platform you need to make the right decisions about choosing the most effective message.

At MoreVisibility, we create multiple ads for every campaign and rely on real time statistics to show which ad copy is effective and which is not.  Regardless of the time of year or the promotion you are running, you should create multiple ads for your campaigns and continually test their effectiveness.  Google makes this campaign optimization process very easy, because you can set your campaigns so the best performing ad is displayed more often while you rotate multiple ads. 

As you see that one ad is outperforming another, create new and fresh ad copy and replace the poor performers with these new ads.  Reset the Google settings in your campaign to rotate your ads equally so you can start to gather click-thru data on the new ads in addition to the best performing ad you kept active.  Once you have enough quantifiable data, change the settings in Google to optimize the ad delivery and see if any of the new ads become your new best performer.  By doing this testing and refreshing of ad copy, you can zero in on the best marketing message that will drive more traffic to your site and keep you focused on optimizing your campaigns.

The bottom line, do not rely on the time of year or a special promotion to dictate when you change your marketing message in your Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns.  The better option is to allow your potential customers to tell you what works and what doesn’t.  Continually adding and testing new ad copy will provide you with the best feedback a business can have: unsolicited customer feedback!