Obtaining the Best CPC Rates with Adwords
We are going to discuss one of the most important techniques for getting the lowest CPC that you can. If you get nothing else out of this whole series but this one thing, you will be miles ahead of the game as compared to a lot of people who are using Google Adwords.
The way you get your CPC lowered is to get ads that perform well. In other words, an ad that gets 10 clicks for 100 impressions is going to have a lower CPC than an ad that only gets 1 click for 100 impressions. Why? Well, it seems that Google likes to reword ads that perform well. They feel that if an ad is getting many clicks that it must be a highly relevant ad. Relevant ads get lower costs. So, the question is, how do we use this knowledge to our benefit?
Ad Split Testing
The simple way is to do what we call split testing. This is where you write 2 different ads for the same product and rotate them. Over time, one of the ads is going to outperform the other. When this happens, the ad that is doing better is going to have a lower CPC. However, the ad that isn't doing as well might actually end up with a higher CPC.
Kill the ad that isn't performing well. Replace the non performing ad with the well performing ad and make changes you think will increase CPC. Run both the original and the enchanced one as before to do a split test. If the new ad does better than the old ad, kill the old ad. Rinse and repeat until you reach the CPC that you are looking for. Eventually you will reach a point where both ads are performing exactly the same. When this happens, you can either let both ads run or kill one of them.
This requires a daily watch over your ads. It's a lot of work, but if you keep after it, the results will be more than worth the effort.
How Long to Split Test Ads
Now, how long do you want to do this testing for? I would do this for at least 50 clicks. At 10 cents per click you're only talking about spending $5. Even on a tight budget, this shouldn't break you. It's basically a day of running your ads on a $5 a day budget.
Split testing is something that you absolutely have to do if you're going to have any success with your Adwords campaign.
Landing Page and Adwords Headline
The last thing I want to leave you with is the headline of your ad and headline of your landing page MUST match.
Why? Well, without going into a lot of psychological mumbo jumbo, let's just say that if a person sees a subject that says “Natural Acne Cure” on your Adwords ad, click on it and then see “Natural Acne Cure” as the header of your landing page, they are going to think, and they do this in a split second, that they are in the right place and will most likely read what's there.
If they DON'T match, they will most likely leave.
This one tip is the whole ball game. Remember it.