Most marketers on the web use PPC (pay-per-click) eventually within their marketing mix.  Sometimes they use it so effectively that they make enough in immediate sales to cover the cost of the advertising.  Some other businesses use these advertising campaigns with the primary objective of building their list of leads so that they may gradually build a relationship with the prospects that will eventually create some of them into customers.  Other marketers focus their PPC campaigns upon gathering research and planning data that will reap benefits for years to come.  Of course, none of these objectives need exclude the other.  

It is this last approach to pay-per-click that I want to address in this article.  Here are a few very useful tests that you can incorporate into your next PPC campaign.  I am already assuming that you have performed superb keyword research.

*  Tracking software, such as the free Google Analytics and may commercial packages, will provide you with the exact key phrase used by all of your visitors to get to your PPC landing pages.  Obviously, if you set up your campaign properly, you know which of the phrases that you bid on are bringing the visitors, however, unless you are using only exact match phrases, that does not alert you to the precise search terms entered by your traffic.  For example, bidding on a term such as “buy green lamp” set up as a broad match, would get traffic from people who searched for phrases such as “buy a used green lamp in Columbus or Dover,” “buy green lamp,” “buy a green lamp in need of repairs,” “buy expensive tiffany green lamp” and many more.  Clearly those visitors are looking for very different sorts of green lamps to buy.  Based upon the search phrases that your discover and the number of people you identify using them, you may want to create new permanent pages for your site stressing those phrases.  If you then optimize those pages for those phrases, you can eventually get organic traffic for those searches.  This effectively allows you to spread the cost of your pay-per-click campaign across many years.

*  Test your headings (headlines) on your PPC landing pages.  Set up two pages for the same ad group.  The pages should be identical in every other way except for the heading.  You might have a content management system or software that can alternate those.  If not, allow a number of clicks (maybe 100) to land on one version, then manually change the landing page to the other version.  Compare the conversion results from the two versions.  If there is a clear winner, keep it in the rotation and set up another test with a different alteration in the heading.

*  Conduct the same format test as with headlines, but test a different variable.  For example, you may want to test two different product images against each other.  Alternatively, you might want to test the impact of landing pages which have two different videos of product demonstrations.  

Make sure that on each of the content related tests you are only changing one variable.  If you alter both the image and the headline at the same time, for example, you will have difficulty determining which variable is responsible for any changes in the results or what the relative impact of each is compared to the other.  (Actually, if you have some statistical sophistication, you can set up a test in which you change multiple variables at once across multiple versions of the landing page.)

The bottom line of this article is simply that you should be using your pay-per click campaigns to attempt more than selling more products or services; you should also be collecting essential data.  PPC can be very costly, so stretch those dollars to accomplish as much as you possibly can.  Gather data, analyze it, and act decisively and immediately based upon your findings!

Most marketers on the web use PPC (pay-per-click) eventually within their broader marketing mix.  Sometimes they use it so effectively that they make enough in immediate sales to cover the cost of the advertising campaign.  Some other businesses use these advertising campaigns with the primary objective of building their list of leads so that they may gradually build a relationship with the prospects that will eventually create some of them into customers.  Other marketers focus their PPC campaigns upon gathering research and planning data that will reap benefits for years to come.  Of course, none of these objectives need exclude the other possibilities.  

I am writing this article to draw your attention to using pay-per-click as a research tool, although you should feel free to make a profit at the same time  (Of course this assumes that you already know how to conduct thorough keyword research prior to launching your advertising campaigns.

*  Using tracking data, reported by Google Analytics or your own software, identify the exact key phrases used by all of the visitors who come to your landing pages via PPC.  Obviously, if you set up your campaign properly, you know which of the phrases that you bid on are bringing the visitors, however, unless you are using only exact match phrases, that does not alert you to the precise search terms entered by your traffic.  For example, bidding on a term such as “buy green lamp” set up as a broad match, would get traffic from people who searched for phrases such as “buy a used green lamp in Columbus or Dover,” “buy green lamp,” “buy a green lamp in need of repairs,” “buy expensive tiffany green lamp” and many more.  Any traffic you receive would be looking to buy some sort of green lamp.  Based upon the search phrases that your discover and the number of people you identify using them, you may want to create new permanent pages for your site stressing those phrases.  If you then optimize those pages for those phrases, you can eventually get organic traffic for those searches.  This effectively allows you to spread the cost of your pay-per-click campaign across many years.

*  Create a couple landing pages at a time, in which only the headlines or headings differ.  You might have a content management system or software that can alternate those.  It’s also very easy to simply change the landing page to the different version within your ad after you have received a sufficient number of clicks to provide your with useful data—at least 100 clicks.  Look at the data you gather concerning the results of the two versions according to whatever metric you are using (e.g. sales or leads).  If there is a clear winner, keep it in the rotation and set up another test with a different alteration in the heading.

*  Next, use the same test format as with the heading tests to vary a totally different content variable.  You may want to test listing benefits followed by features versus having the features list come before the benefits.  Or you could test one page with an image and another that has a short video display.  

As you perform the tests on the content of your landing pages, be certain that you do not change more than one variable at a time.  Do not change both the headline and the image at the same time, or it will be difficult for you to determine which variable it is that makes the difference in your conversion results or the relative impact of each.  (Actually, if you have some statistical sophistication, you can set up a test in which you change multiple variables at once across multiple versions of the landing page.)

The bottom line of this article is simply that you should be using your pay-per click campaigns to be about more than selling more products; you should also be collecting essential data.  Get as much out of the money that you are spending as you can.  Test, analyze and use the data!