Have you ever wondered how different variables might work for your campaigns? In Google Ads, you can actually create experiments to do A/B Testing with all sorts of variables. You can test different landing pages, ad copies, bidding strategies, keywords, keyword match types, and other variables to see which one will work better. With this easy step-by-step guide, you will quickly learn how to create experiments in Google Ads.
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In case you'd like to watch a video tutorial instead, you can find our 13-minute tutorial from XYZ Lab's Youtube Channel!
Topics Covered:
Step 1: Navigate to your Google Ads account and scroll down to Experiments > All Experiments
If you don't see the option for Experiments, make sure to select "view all campaigns" in your account.
Step 2: Click on the "+" symbol to create a new Experiment
Step 3: Select the type of Experiment you'd like to create
There are four options:
Optimize text ads: to A/B Test landing page
Video experiment: to A/B Test videos
Performance Max experiment: to measure the uplift of Performance Max campaigns
Custom experiment: customized experiments where you can make more than 1 change.
Our suggestion is to create a custom experiment.
Step 4: Select the Campaign type
In this example, we will be creating an experiment for Search campaigns.
Step 5: Name the Experiment
In this example, we will be running A/B Testing for two different bidding strategies, so we will name it Target CPA vs Max Conversions.
Step 6: Select the Base Campaign
The base campaign is the campaign that we'd like to experiment with.
Step 7: Click "Save and Continue"
Step 8: Make changes to the Experiment campaign and click "Apply"
The system will create a duplicate campaign that mirrors the base campaign to which we can make any changes. Click on the name of the campaign to make the changes that you like, such as keywords, bidding strategy, landing pages, and others.
In this example, we will change the bid strategy.
Step 9: Click on "Schedule"
Once you're done making the changes, click on Schedule.
Step 10: Determine the Experiment Goals
In this step, we will be determining what is our experiment goals, i.e. what are the metrics that we want to move. You can click on the dropdown on the left to select the metrics, and the dropdown on the right to select increase/decrease. In our example, we would like to see an increase in conversions and a decrease in cost per conversion.
Step 11: Determine the Experiment Split
Experiment split determines how you want to split the traffic and budget. For instance, if you set the split by 50-50, it means that one time the system will serve your original campaign and the next time it will serve your trial campaign. You can adjust the percentage as you see fit.
Under advanced options, you can split the experiment in two options:
Search-based: when somebody types in a keyword/phrase on Google, the first search will show the base campaign and the next search will show the trial campaign.
Cookie-based: every user will only see one version of the campaign. For example, if I type the same keywords multiple times on Google, I will only see only one version of the campaign.
In our case, we will use the search-based campaign as it is not imperative for us to have a user see a specific version of the campaign.
Step 12: Determine the Experiment Dates
You can set the experiment dates accordingly. Our suggestion would be to keep it as "None" as we want to keep running the experiment until we get some solid findings.
Step 13: Enable Sync
When the Enable sync is on, it means that any changes you make on the base campaign (the original campaign) will sync automatically to the trial campaign. If we keep it off, any changes we made on the base campaign will need to be applied manually to the trial campaign. Our suggestion is to keep this on.
Step 14: Click on "Create Experiment"
You can repeat the same steps to create other experiments. Once Google Ads has finished processing the experiment, it will appear alongside your original campaign. The experiment campaign will be indicated by the lab bottle symbol, as opposed to the original campaign with the search symbol.
Step 15: Analyze the Experiment results
Navigate to Experiments and click on the Experiment you'd like to see. The system will show you the Experiment Summary, along with the results according to the goals you have set. In our example, we will be able to see the cost per conversion and conversion data from the experiment campaign.
If the experiment works/doesn't work according to your expectations, then you can cancel the experiment or apply the experiment (once it has gained results). This is an example from a different experiment that is currently in progress, where you can see the results and apply or cancel the experiment accordingly.
Closing Thoughts on Creating Google Ads Experiments
As a final piece of advice, make sure your Google Ads experiments run for at least a couple of weeks for them to collect enough data. Once that's done, you can calculate the significance of the results and the differences. If you're happy with the result you can apply the experiment to make the changes to the base campaign!
Intresting post