Ad Copy Testing in Google Advertising: The Ultimate Guide

Ad copy testing is an essential part of any Google Ads advertising campaign. It involves creating multiple versions of your ad copy and testing them against each other to determine which one drives the most clicks and conversions at the lowest cost.

Optimizing your ad copy can lead to reduced cost-per-click, higher click-through rates, increased conversion rates, and overall better campaign performance. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of ad copy testing and how to leverage it to boost the effectiveness of your Google Ads campaigns.

Why Ad Copy Testing Is Important

Here are some of the key reasons why ad copy testing should be an integral part of your PPC strategy:

• Ad copy testing helps identify high-performing ad copy that resonates best with your target audience. This allows you to improve click-through rates.
• Ad copy testing weeds out low-performing ad copies that fail to capture user attention. This saves you money by avoiding bad ads.
• It enables testing of different marketing messages, calls-to-action, and keywords to optimize engagement. Based on that, you may even revamp your website design.
• Ad copy testing helps split test ad elements like headlines, descriptions, display URLs etc. to find the best combinations.
• Regular testing keeps your PPC ads fresh and tailored to evolving consumer preferences.

How To Conduct Ad Copy Tests

Follow these steps to conduct effective ad copy testing Google ads through split testing.

1. Choose What to Test

First, identify elements of your ads that you want to test, including headlines, descriptions, and calls-to-action. Focus on testing one element at a time.

 2. Create Ad Variations

Create a minimum of two to three ad variations for the element you want to test. Make sure to change only that element and keep everything else constant.

3. Set Up An A/B Test

Set up a new or use an existing campaign for testing. Create two to three ad groups and assign a different ad variation to each ad group. Make sure the targeting settings are the same.

4. Let The Test Run

Let the test run for a couple of weeks until each variation has at least 100 clicks for statistical significance. Three to four weeks is ideal to account for trends.

5. Analyze Results

After sufficient data is available, analyze important metrics like CTR, conversions, and CPA for each variation and identify the best performer(s).

6. Implement The Winners

Pause/remove poor performing variations and give majority traffic share to the winning ad variation(s) with the highest CTR/conversion rates.

7. Ongoing Testing

Consistency tests the winning variation against new challengers. Also, test these across different match types and devices.

Best Practices for Ad Copy Testing

Follow these best practices to get better outcomes from your tests:

• Test one ad element at a time like headline or description only
• Make minor but distinct changes between variations
• Use eye-catching elements like emojis, counters, brackets etc.
• Ensure sufficient volume of 100+ clicks per variation
• Check stats for each network, device and auction type
• Test against different match types like broad, phrase, exact etc.
• Evaluate metrics beyond CTR like CPA, ROAS, Quality Score etc.
• Focus on most profitable campaigns and high search queries first

Ad Copy Testing Methods

The main methods of conducting ad copy tests in Google Ads are:

• A/B Testing: Testing just two ad variations against each other is A/B split testing. This reveals the better option directly.
• Multivariate Testing: Testing three or more ad variations simultaneously to find the best combination of elements that drive maximum clicks/conversions.
• Rotational Testing: Showing multiple ad variations sequentially in evenly distributed ratios to evaluate performance.
• Device Bid Modifier Testing: Running A/B tests separately for mobile and desktop devices to see device-specific performance.
• Landing Page Testing: Testing ad copy by pairing it with different landing pages.

Tools For Ad Copy Testing

While manual split testing is possible in Google Ads, these paid and free tools can simplify your efforts:

1. Google Experiments
2. Optimizely
3. Adalysis
4. Unbounce
5. Qubit

Make ad copy testing central to your Google Ads account optimization. Consistently create and test new ad variations to exponentially boost your PPC campaign results.