Google yesterday announced its latest tool for its AdWords Advertising Platform, AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE), which allows simultaneous split testing within AdWords.
Until recently within the AdWords system the only way to carry out a controlled split test was with before and after split testing and then comparing data once your experiment had finished which to be truly effective needs to be done over several weeks. The other disadvantage with this method of split testing is that running larger scale testing could potentially have an adverse effect on your campaign as such you may never carry out the experiment due to the risk of dips in your KPI’s such as leads.
ACE’s ability to allow simultaneous split testing, allows you to test changes such a new adverts alongside existing adverts, increased or decreased CPC or even entire campaigns and monitor them against the control for that AdGroup.
For example if you want to test a higher CPC for your best performing keyword against your current CPC , you simply set two CPC bids, a control (your current CPC) and your experimental bid. The AdWords campaign will now use both bids in a spit percentage of your choosing for example 50/50. The experiment can be set to carried out over a set time period although Google recommend a minimum of 2 weeks.
The power from this tool comes from the ability to reduce the risk in experiments which may have a large impact on a campaigns performance, such as testing new AdGroups or the addition of new high traffic driving keywords. Risk can be reduced by adjusting the split between the control and the experiment to different percentage splits such as 80/20 (Control/Experiment), meaning for example every 800 impression your control receives, the experiment would receive just 200 limiting the risk for a fall in leads.
ACE is primarily managed from the settings tab for campaigns within AdWords, and this is where you control start/finish dates, experiment names and adjust the percentage split between test and experiment as show below:
Google AdWords Campaign Experiments settings
The final gem in this tool comes from how it tracks the effect of changes. With the use of simple upward and downward indicator arrows next to the metric you are testing you can at a glance determine the effectiveness of changes and if they are in Google’s words ‘statistically significant’ irrespective of outside factors such as seasonality. Once you have determined if the change had a positive or negative effect, you can choose to ‘Accept the changes’ to apply them permanently to the campaign or ‘Delete the changes’, speeding up the process to roll out changes across the campaign.
In the below example you can see how a increase in CPC bid has result in a minor increase keyword position, as show by the experiment indicator arrow:
Google AdWords Campaign Experiments monitoring
In a nut shell Google ACE allows a more effective and faster way to carry out split testing and more importantly an easier way to monitor the effects of your experiments.
For more information on Google Ace or to discuss your SEO and PPC campaigns why not get in touch with Motionlab’s specialist team of SEO and PPC experts based in Preston. If you are looking for a Web Design Company Preston and would like your company to benefit from an enhanced presence on the major search engines, please call us on 01772 865050 or email theteam@motionlab.co.uk.
Google’s Little Blue Arrow and AdWords
Friday, October 8th, 2010In the last few weeks, various search professionals have been blogging and tweeting about Google’s ‘little blue arrow’ and speculating as to the effect of it.
If you are not already aware of it, the ‘little blue arrow’ is a small arrow (see image below) that starts by pointing out the 1st result within Google SERP’s. Its purpose is to allow the navigation of all paid and organic search results via the keyboard arrows. The enter/return key is also used to ‘select/click’ the AdWords advert or organic result it points to. Additionally, an extended hold or a ‘double tab’ press of the enter key, post typing search, will select the first result and direct the user to that page.
Given that the first result is often a paid AdWords advert, the ‘extended press/double tap’ effect appears from our stats to be resulting in increased clicks. The obvious downside to this effect is that unnecessary clicks are being driven by the sites. This results in a higher bounce rate which will also affect your CPC due to a potentially lower Quality Score, costing the advertiser more in the process.
Below is an example from one of our client’s whose bounce rate (stable for many months) has suddenly shot up as a result of the ‘little blue arrow’.
Now some may argue that the simple remedy to this is to not bid for position one. While this may be ‘best practice’ for the industry as often positions 3-5 result in the best ROI from paid search, it is not always suitable. Take for example brand protection where your competitors are always bidding on your brand name or verticals where traffic is low so a high position is more suitable or necessary.
Whether the keyboard navigation of Google SERP’s turns out to be purely a testing phase for Google which will be improved or a permanent feature is still to be seen, but what is clear is that the ‘extended press/double tap’ has a negative effect for advertisers. The potential of more high priced clicks (whether relevant or irrelevant) which are too tempting for Google to resist will prove the most worrying prospect for PPC professionals. Although if this feature does take affect it could conversely result in a devaluing of CPC bid’s for the number 1 position for paid adverts in AdWords.
Whether or not Google keeps this feature in its current format, it is clear that if Google continues to roll out features such as these we may have to start thinking differently about the number one position within paid search.
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