Basic Method: Multiple Ads

Recall that an ad group is a collection of ads shown to a specific traffic source, whether keyword- or placement- or audience-based. In Chapter 2, we show you how to create your first ad within an ad group. Now you can create challenger ads within the same ad group and let your prospects tell you which ones are most effective.

Creating a challenger ad

Creating your second ad is even easier than creating your first:

  1. Navigate to the Ad Group you want to split-test.
  2. Click the Ads sub-tab to display the ads in your ad group.
  3. Click the New Ad button just below the statistics chart.
  4. Choose Text Ad from the drop-down list.

    An ad template with the copy from one of your existing ads appears onscreen, as shown in Figure 14-2.

  5. Type over the existing copy and URL with your challenger ad's copy and URL.
  6. Click the Save Ad button.
  7. Repeat for as many ads as you want to test.

If your traffic volume is low, you may want to limit your tests to two or three ads at a time. If your ad group generates lots of impressions, you can run more ads simultaneously (up to ten variations).

Optimize for CTR or conversions

After you install conversion tracking (see Chapter 6), you can compare the profitability of your ads. Until then, the only thing you can compare is the CTR. If you can track conversions, you must select the appropriate campaign-level setting:

  1. From the Campaigns tab, click the Settings tab.
  2. Click the name of the campaign whose settings you want to edit.
  3. Scroll down ...

Get Google AdWords™ For Dummies®, 3rd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.