What has your ad copy done for you lately? Improving creative is often an overlooked optimization strategy in PPC campaigns. Paying attention to keyword bids and average position often takes the place of focusing on the creative side of things. The reasons are simple enough: It’s much easier to adjust bid prices and tweak ad group settings than it is to come up with relevant, click-eating ad copy. This sometimes results in paid search listings that look like they were written by a monkey on a typewriter. 

Paid search is a unique form of advertising because it allows you to run controlled tests to determine the effectiveness of different styles of ad copy. Rather than going through specific ad copy recommendations, I thought it’d be helpful to share my thoughts on ad copy testing. For an overview on basic "ad copy writing" tips, check this Microsoft adCenter best practice document.

The key to ad copy testing is to devise several creative variations and set them up in a way such that you can compare their performance side by side. Always remember to be deliberate about exactly what you want to test. For starters, you might want to test the effectiveness of the ad copy "theme". Create one ad that relies heavily on brand terms, one ad that includes an offer like "free shipping" or "discounted prices", and one ad that utilizes a call-to-action like "Browse our online catalog." By comparing these different strategies across the same set of keywords, you can start learning which ad "theme" draws a searcher to click on your ads.

You can also run tests that focus on more specific differences in ad creative. Create two identical sets of ad copy, but have one with a general display URL and one with a specific display URL  (http://www.fourthcoffee.com vs. http://www.fourthcoffee.com/decaf). Testing small details like display URL modifications may seem trivial, but you’d be surprised how CTR may differ between the two ads. Now that we’ve learned a little about different tests, let’s focus on how to setup ad copy tests in your adCenter search marketing campaigns. By following the steps below, you can set your campaigns up for success.

  1. Start a new ad group from scratch, so that existing performance history does not impact ad delivery
  2. Create several ads, each with a distinctive feel
  3. Upload a proven keyword list. You want enough traffic volume so that one ad begins to differentiate itself as the highest performer
  4. Microsoft adCenter currently optimizes ad copy rotation, so it will automatically show the highest performing ad more frequently
  5. Repeat across more ad groups. Remember, it’s rare that a single piece of ad copy is going to be the highest performer across all ad groups. 


Ad copy testing takes discipline and patience. But if you take the time to setup your tests, you can systematically differentiate the effectiveness of your ad copy and continuously improve your account performance. So go out and Test, Test, Test!