Say “Yes” to Ad Copy Tests

Perfection is nearly impossible to achieve. We often strive to be perfect in various ways but the harsh reality is that perfection is very elusive to put it lightly. 

The realm of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing is really no different. The perfect ad experience simply doesn’t exist. 

However, that doesn’t mean developing an excellent experience for prospective patients isn’t possible. On the contrary! Devising really great ads to go along with relevant keywords and a good landing page experience is very doable. It does, however, require some ongoing trial and error. 

In this post I’ll cover how ad copy testing can help bridge the gap between ineffective ad copy and perfection. 

Why Ad Copy Testing is a Necessity 

Wouldn’t it be great if you could write a single, perfect, ad for every keyword theme you cover? Yeah, that sounds delightful but entirely unrealistic. 

No single ad is perfect. Without testing different variations of copy and varying calls to action it’s impossible to know what’s working well and what isn’t. Moreover, without testing, there’s no definitive way to ensure your ad copy is resonating with your target audience. 

How Many Ads Per Ad Group are Needed? 

After realizing the need to test different ads against each other it’s important to understand how many ads you need in each ad group. 

To take a step back, an ad group represents a single sub-theme of a Campaign. If the theme of a given campaign is the services a practice offers, a sub-theme could be one of the offered services, like cosmetic dentistry. 

Google Ads recommends three ads per ad group, which is a good number to run with. Having three ads per ad group allows you to test different key elements of each standard search ad. That includes trying out different headlines, changing the competitive advantage or selling point mentioned in the ad, and testing varying calls to action. 

By shifting each of these elements you’ll have differing ads that can be run simultaneously. 

Getting a Good Sampling of Data

Once you have multiple ads within a given ad group, you’ll set up the ad rotation, which can be done on a campaign level or an individual ad group level. The two rotation types supported by Google Ads (Bing is the same but they use different names) at this point are “Optimize: Prefer best performing ads” and “Do not optimize: Rotate ads indefinitely.”

You can ignore the warning for now – I recommend starting out with the “Do not optimize….” option. This choice will ensure that all ads get equal attention which, importantly, will help to build a good amount of data. Once it’s obvious which ads are working and which are not then it’s okay to select the option that prefers the best performing ads. 

Also, once a good subset of data is available, it’s advisable to pause the lesser performing ads and create new ads to test against the better-performing ones. Doing so will ensure that you’re constantly working towards improving your practice’s overall ad performance. 

 

To recap, testing ad copy in a volume of three ads per ad group will help ensure that you’re continuously working towards the creation of the perfect ad experience for each keyword type you’re targeting. The more effective your ads become over time the more prospective patients you’ll drive to your practice’s website and there may also be a decline in cost as efficiency improves due to positive growth in Quality Score.  

That’s it. You’re now ready to get started on some new ad copy! If you have any questions with the creation and launch of multiple ads per ad group or your practice is interested in having Sesame manage your PPC presence please reach out to us. 

 

—Michael Fitterer, Sr. Marketing Manager II, Sesame Communications