Pay per click advertising is always a work in progress. Testing remains the underlying task for every online advertising firm from start to finish. Improvement to any process or campaign can be judged solely from the ability to evolve, which in turn is a product of concrete changes determined via testing. Testing is the pivotal aspect to a PPC campaign, thus, the testing process must be thoroughly understood to truly create a successful PPC campaign.
While every search marketing company knows what to do, mistakes to be avoided are often overlooked. Here are five common errors with PPC testing strategies-
- No testing plans
Strange as it may sound, many PPC amateurs choose keywords at random, create an advert and then sit back. It is very unlikely that this approach to search engine marketing would succeed. Apart from using keyword choosing tools to choose the right mix of keywords, ad variations must be used. For each keyword chosen, at least two ads should be created and then split tested for performance. When the conversion rate metrics are available, choose the best performing one from the lot. - Incorrect metrics used in testing
While your budget may impose restrictions on spending, the ROI (return-on-investment) is never really clear if measured in terms of click-throughs. It may be possible to gauge overall results for PPC, but fine tuning the choosing of ads and keywords by individual success is essential. A conversion tracking tool will help you to measure success or failure by using metrics like cost per lead (CPL) for leads and return on ad spend (ROAS) for sales. After all, optimization can only take place if you know where you have to tweak the process. - Excessive testing – beyond the budget
Testing produces statistics that must be quantitatively significant to truly be considered complete. However, many an internet marketing company has made the error of testing too much for their budget. Budgeting correctly for proven ad or keywords versus new content must provide you with the right amount of data to optimize for the next cycle (ie. daily, weekly or monthly). - Excessive testing – gauging performance
One important point to remember is that your ROI is lowered with every ad tested. Although your tests gauge performance of new keywords and ad copy, not only do they eat into your budget but they also possibly reduce overall return temporarily. Testing can have a major impact on the ROAS, especially when testing many ads at the same time. - Not compensating for performance decrease
As mentioned before, ROI decreases with each new test. If a new ad is a significantly poorer performer than the one it is tested against, this can decrease the overall return dramatically. To counter this, a strategy of duplicating the original ad and running a three-way split can help reduce negative impact. This means a little more work for the PPC Campaign Management firm in terms of performance measurements, but it can help retain the strong ROI of the paid search advertising campaign.