Google AdWords Can Deliver Easy, Inexpensive Market Testing

by Bonnie Boots

You've surely heard at least a hundred times that the 3 most important things to do when selling anything on the internet are test, test, test all your marketing materials.

And you've surely thought--just as often--yeah, right. That's easy for the big guys. Not so easy for me.

I've found a way to make it easy.

It turns out there's a very easy, very inexpensive testing tool built into Google. It's called "AdWords."

Wait a minute. Isn't AdWords the Google program that lets businesses pay to put ad links on the right-hand side of every page of search results?

That's right. And most likely you've never thought of it as anything except a way to advertise. But if you look at it from another perspective, you'll find that it can be a very easy and inexpensive way for small businesses to test and fine tune their marketing material.

I was in business before the internet came along, and I do business on the internet now. One of the most magical aspects of doing business now, something I still marvel at daily, is the ability to use web analytics to determine what works and what doesn't work in marketing.

I've worked on a fair number of "real world" advertising campaigns, everything from writing direct mail to producing television commercials. And in all those ad campaigns, I could only guess at how effective my work was.

I'd ask the business owner how many new faces they'd seen in their establishment. They'd say, "Well, quite a few. It must be the ad." But we never really knew if it was the ad or not. Just as we never really knew how many new people the ad brought in, whether or not they made a purchase, whether or not they ever came back.

But with web analytics, programs that track who comes and goes from a web page and what they do while they're there, all is revealed.

If you're doing big business on the internet, you already know this. But if you're a small business, someone marketing one or two ebooks you've written, or struggling to make a few affiliate sales, then testing your marketing materials may seem beyond your means.

I struggled with this when I got started on the web. I had the tools for testing, such as scripts that rotate sales pages and software that compiles data on the number of visitors, the number of sales and so on.

What I didn't have was much traffic. And without significant traffic, your data determines nothing.

Let's say, for instance, that you want to test the effectiveness of three different versions of your sales page by rotating them. Each time a visitor enters your site, they see one of those three versions. By determining which version sells the most, you can fine-tune your marketing.

But let's say that after a month you've sold three books-one from each version of the sales page. Your testing is meaningless, because you don't have enough traffic to give you statistically viable data.

And you probably don't want to spend time and money driving traffic to a new site until you know you've got a workhorse of a sales page in place.

So what's a small business to do? I suggest trying Google AdWords.

I've been experimenting with Google AdWords as a testing tool and discovered that I can use it to fine tune a sales page, very quickly and for very few dollars.

I started testing this idea with a product that would not sell to my established lists. That means I'll have to start from scratch to find the target market for this product and discover what will convince them to come to my sales page.

Ordinarily I'd go through an involved process of testing various keywords and sales pages. But this time I picked, from a list of potential keywords one keyword that is very finely targeted. In fact, only the hardcore of my target market would know this word.

Then I created one sales page I thought would appeal to that hardcore target. But this sales page didn't try to sell anything. Instead, it offered a free report on the topic.

And last, I set up a Google AdWords account and prepaid $10 to run a typical 3-line link ad, with that ad being shown only to people searching for my obscure keyword.

Ordinarily a page of search results from Google has 7, 8, 9 or more link ads showing on the right hand side of the page. But because the keyword I chose was so obscure, no other advertiser was paying to use it. That meant anyone Goggling for that keyword saw only one ad on the right-hand side of the page of search results--mine.

I waited 24 hours, knowing full well that everyone searching for the keyword would be exposed to my ad. At the end of that time, I went to my AdWord account and checked the statistics. 1000 people had searched for my keyword. 8 of them had actually clicked on my ad. For that, Google charged my prepaid account $2.50.

Of the 8 people that went to my sales page from that ad, none registered for the free report, so I immediately rewrote the sales page. I also rewrote my AdWords link ad. All this took about 25 minutes.

24 hours later I checked the statistics in my Adwords account again. Another 1000 people had searched for my keyword. All of them had seen my ad, and my ad only, on the right-hand side of their search results page. Even with that huge advantage, only 8 people had clicked on my ad and gone to my sales page. Again, Google charged me $2.50. And again, none of the visitors registered for the free report.

I once again rewrote my Google AdWords ad, rewrote my sales page and changed the graphics. I let the ad run another 24 hours. This time I had some response, and my Google AdWords prepaid account was down another $2.50.

Based on the response, I fine-tuned the sales page a bit more and let it run until the last $2.50 in my AdWords account (which had been prepaid with $10, remember) ran out.

Over 48 hours, I spent $10 to have my ad shown to 4000 people. By writing and rewriting my AdWords ad I was able to discover the words that would actually make my target audience take action.

The headline, as any great copywriter will tell you, is the most important part of any sales page. It's so important that there are copywriters who charge $5000 and up for JUST a headline--one that will make people take action.

I was able to discover mine for just $10!

If you've hesitated to use Google AdWords, either for testing or for flat-out advertising, shed all fears. It's easy to set up a Google AdWords account (this costs a one-time fee of $5) and everything is entirely under your control.

When setting up your account, they'll ask for some basic information--name, address and website URL-and the credit card you want to use for your account.

They ask you to choose a minimum amount you want to spend on advertising every month. The lowest figure is $50 a month. Don't be afraid to designate that, because once inside your account you can choose to spend any amount you want, even as little as $10, simply by pre-paying for your advertising.

ALWAYS prepay until you become an experienced user.

Then you choose a keyword and write your ad. The amount Google charges you each time they run your ad is based on the competition for your keyword. That amount can change quickly and without notice, so it's safest to prepay whatever amount you're willing to spend on testing.

In my local area, I would pay $30 to run a 3-line ad in a very small shopping guide that has a circulation of 10,000. Those 10,000 would not all be interested in my topic. In fact, it's likely very few of them would be.

It's also not likely many of them would notice my little 3-line ad among the competition--pages and pages of nearly identical ads. And once the ad was in print, I wouldn't be able to change it in any way.

All in all, I wouldn't learn a single thing by placing that ad. I'd get no information of any kind to use to improve my performance.

But by spending $10 on Google AdWords, I got my ad shown--with no competition at all--to 4000 people keenly interested in my topic, and I got to play with the wording of my ad until it started getting a response. That, in itself, helped me discover what the most effective headline for my sales page will be.

And that, my friends, is why you should consider Google AdWords as much for testing as for advertising!
 

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