In my last article I talked about finding keywords with high commercial intention and not just keywords with a high click-through rate (CTR). The best of both worlds would be a combination of a high CTR and a high commercial intention.
After finding a keyword with a good CTR and high level of commercial intention, the next thing you want to do is write a compelling PPC ad. After you write an ad, you want to try to improve it by running a split test on your ad copy. Only test one aspect of the ad at a time. For example, split test your headline of each ad and then run a split test on the offer or main body of each ad, doing both split tests separate from each other.
Here are some tips to writing a good PPC ad.
Always bold your keyword phrase. Use your headline to offer a solution or ask a question that will grab the attention of the reader. Ad an appealing promise that offers a solution to a problem that the searcher is looking for based on the keywords they’re using. Lastly, use a call-to-action phrase that compels the reader to act as this will increase your CTR.
How can you be sure that the split test has reached a meaningful result?
You’ll want to monitor your PPC campaign every day to see how it’s doing because you want results as quickly as possible. However, it’s hard to know which ad is the leader as both ads are likely to build up impressions and clicks at different times.
This is where having a tool that will allow you to see which ad is pulling in better results can be very beneficial. A nice free tool at Splittester.com comes in handy for this. Just enter your CTR stats for your ads in the fields provided and hit the “calculate” button. SplitTester.com will tell you which ad will be the winner over the long term. What’s great about Splittester.com is that it can give you pretty reliable results after each ad has racked up just a few clicks. You should be able to save several days of waiting for a convincing result.
Let’s say your winning ad is 20% or more ahead of the loser, and Splittester.com gives you an 80% or higher probability that it is the overall winner, you can be pretty sure that it will continue to produce better results. Make your winning ad your control ad and run another split test by writing a new ad to test against the control. This process is completed until you have what’s called a super ad.
The great thing about doing this is that you can get precise results and gradually achieve a better and better CTR for your ad campaign.
Now, if you’re keyword phrase is precisely targeted, and has a high commercial intention plus a high click through rate, and if your landing page rocks, you are in a very good position to start making a lot of money with PPC advertising. Of course, you need to think about how to improve the selling power of your landing page and I will discuss that in my next article on pay per click advertising.
Keywords: pay per click advertising, split-test, split-test tool
Summary: This article looks at how you can improve the results of your pay per click advertising by running a split-test, and how you can be sure that your split test has produced a clear winner.
