5 PPC Testing Myths & Mistakes: How To Avoid Them!

Columnist Mona Elesseily has run a lot of landing page tests over the course of her career -- and seen a lot of these mistakes repeated over and over again.

Tons of new ads are created each year worldwide, so how do you know yours will make the grade? The answer is to test, measuring your ad copy/design against possible alternatives to determine which iteration produces the best results.
But there are lots of myths and mistakes being made when it comes to testing PPC ad copy and design. This article will bust some of those PPC myths/mistakes and help you improve your overall PPC revenue. If you’re super smart, you’ll also incorporate winning test data into other aspects of your online marketing like SEO, website copy, Facebook advertising and more.
You can be a winner at PPC advertising if you take heed and avoid the pitfalls of A/B testing below.

Myth #1: You Should Test Everything All The Time!

It’s true that you should do lots of testing – but it’s very important to take your time and develop a testing plan!
Many folks feel the need to get a running start and to test every element they can come up with, and this is exacerbated by the availability of inexpensive testing tools. Their mantra is “Start testing right away!” or “Test everything all the time!”
My advice is slow down and plan out your testing. The goal is to really consider what you’re testing and why you’re running a test. Here are some examples of what I track for each test (I do this in an Excel spreadsheet):

1. Testing Goal. What is the goal of this particular test? An example might be to determine the most valuable free shipping threshold offer.
2. Testing Execution. What elements am I going to test to achieve my testing goal? For the free shipping example, you might test alternative threshold values and the messaging of the free shipping offer.
3. Technical Level Of Execution. How much technical work will this test require? The folks responsible for the landing page can directly make comments on this part of the spreadsheet.
4. Creative Level Of Execution. How much creative work will this test require? The folks responsible for the creative could add suggestions here.
5. Test Executed? This lets folks know the test was deployed.
6. Test Evaluation. What were the results of the test? How did the test version fare against the baseline? Following our example above, you might note that there was an increase in conversion rate with no negative impact on shipping costs.
7. Iterated Upon? We’ll talk more specifically about iteration later in this article.

Without a plan, you may be able to periodically hit the “testing ball” out of the proverbial park, but your testing efforts will not be forward-moving and iterative. Another big mistake is that companies don’t keep track of their tests and often run the same tests. A solid testing protocol or system prevents this.

Myth #2: A Large Majority Of Tests Kill It!

The sad reality is that most people spin their wheels when it comes to testing, and the deck is stacked against them from the get-go.
Based on my own research and experience, I would say that tests are more likely to fail — that is, have no meaningful impact at all, positive or negative. Furthermore, of the small minority of tests that do have a notable result, about half will negatively impact the bottom line!
To add more salt to the wound, very few tests with a positive impact really “knock it out of the park.” The deck is stacked against testers that don’t know what they’re doing!
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