You know how it goes… testing, testing, testing.  That’s really all that marketers do for a living.  In my case, much of my testing deals with pay per click advertising.  Well, the latest adventure in PPC was focused on determining the value of being in the top box for paid search.  Typically, in order to get into the top box, you need to be bidding for the #1 or #2 spot (although sometimes you can get there as #3).

At any rate, I decided to take one of the more trafficked search terms in the billiards industry, pool cues, and bid it up.  In order to get into that top box, I had to increase my bid by about 25%.  And what were the results you ask?

• Traffic from that term increased by 166%
• CTR actually dropped by 16%
• Conversion dropped by 18%

So what happened here?  Essentially I paid 25% more on a cost per click basis and saw zero improvements from a conversion standpoint.  In fact, my CPA jumped quite a bit due to the fact that I was paying more per click and converting at a lower rate.

This is pretty much what I expected to happen, but you’ve always got to test.  As for reasons why, the answer is pretty clear – tire kickers.  When you have high traffic keywords, you are logically going to attract more visits that are not ready to buy.  They click, they look around and they leave.  These visits are useful from a branding perspective and could turn into assists at a later date, but the conversion rate on these terms is traditionally pretty awful as compared to long tail.

At any rate, we’re happily settled back into our lower paid position (typically floating between #4 and #6) for this high traffic term.  We won’t get as much traffic, but we’ll still get plenty of exposure at a far lower cost.

After running a 4 day test, here are the results:

Highest Conversion:

From a conversion standpoint, this ad outperformed the runner up converter by a rate of 6 to 1.  I was a bit surprised by this, as we’ve been running this ad for quite some time, so I figured there would be a degree of burnout.

Best Click Through:

This ad generated a click through rate that was 27% higher than the second best performer, but the conversion was far below expectations.  To a certain degree, this isn’t surprising, as the ad is written to drive clicks.  The issue though is deciding what the actual value of those clicks are.  If you have a bunch of clicks and they don’t convert, is the traffic worth getting?

The “Top 10″ style ad copy is just tire kicker central.  You’ll get people who are ready to buy, but more often than not, you’re going to get clickers who are more interested in seeing what the Top 10 are than actually looking to buy one of those cues.

As a result of the test, we’ll be maximizing exposure for our “perfect pool cue” ad.  In addition, we’ll be trying additional copy tests with other more targeted keyword campaigns to see if we can further improve our performance.

Let me just say that I love my job.  I’ve always been drawn to the small company/entrepreneurial type jobs.  The comradery, the freedom, the ability to do something and actually see it have an impact on the company are all huge parts of why I do this.  Plus, Beer Fridays.  The downside though is I don’t get to spend nearly enough time testing.  Testing ads, testing layouts, testing button changes, you get the idea.

When you work for a small company, there is a degree of squeaky wheel syndrome.  The issues that are squeaking the loudest get the most attention.  The ones that squeak the loudest aren’t necessarily the most important, but they do manage to jump to the top of the priority list and get the most attention.  Now that we’re finally rolling into the slow season (yes, pool does in fact have a distinct selling season), I’m getting back to testing.

The first test I’m running is on our Google Adwords campaign.  And no, this isn’t the first Adwords test I’ve ever run.  It’s just the first I’ve had time to run in a while.  Anyway, I’m going to look at five different ads.  Each has a somewhat different tone and hook.

I set my account to run these ads with equal distribution so in theory, each should get ample opportunity to prove itself.  These just started rolling this morning and given the niche nature of the billiards industry, it will take a few days to get a large enough sample size to make some judgments on results.

Gut feeling? The “Top 10″ ad is going to get the highest click through rate and the “Let PoolDawg Guide You” will get the highest conversion rate.  We shall see…