I recently watched a webinar on the importance of split testing. Very convincing to say the least. The presenter talked about in one example how a 3 word change was basically worth millions for Dell. Take a look below at the screen shot courtesy of FutureNow.

Changing the Learn More Link —> Help Me Choose Link made a huge impact on the bottom line. The reasoning was since the customer was already in buy mode, people are not looking to learn anything. But helping them choose is what was needed.

Here are 5 simple things you can immediately start to test:

• Headlines
• Images
• Call to Action
• Landing Page Layout
• Copy

Ok just another rant on the importance of split testing, mainly for me
So are you doing it?

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Ok it’s Friday, here are some thoughts for you guys:

Ever heard of Jean Paul Sartre?

He was a French philosopher, other than that I don’t really know too much about him. Anyways, he believed that people become confused or uncertain when faced with too many choices. The more choices we have in front of us the more paralyzed we become by our own anxiety. “When we are faced with too many options a confused mind will do absolutely nothing!” Is this you?

When I started out in affiliate marketing, this was me. Even sometimes now, I have so many ideas in my mind or campaigns I want to test out, sometimes I can spend an entire day active but not productive. What has helped me is writing down a to do list every night, what I want to accomplish the next day. Nothing big, just small tasks I know I can most likely get done. Example: Make new landing page for X Ad group, setup outsourcing project for web content, upload remaining keywords to Y campaign, move Z campaign from adwords to Yahoo and MSN, etc…

Optimizing Your Headlines

I listened to a great webclinic put on by Marketing Experiments about the importance of headlines. If you struggle with headlines, this is a good intro in writing effective copy as well as a a good refresher course on how headlines can help or hurt your business. Here is the link.

Develop Your Own Niche

Chad over at CDF Networks made a good post, about how to use your skill of marketing and paid search to create your own niches. I’ve actually thought about this before, good to see someone actually putting it into action. This is something I’ll have to just write down on my future to do list! Check it out here.

US Economy Kaput?

I love to follow the equity and currency markets and read a handful of blogs about various financial topics. If you’re into this take a look at the following article Treason at the US Treasury about the takeover of Fannie and Freddie. Interesting read. Either way I hope you guys are protecting all those PPC profits you’re making I’m pretty pessimistic on the US economy & the dollar overall.

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Gagan over at Niche Affiliate Marketing, recently asked this question: “How long do you give keywords before you pause or delete it?” It’s a good question that every affiliate should have an answer for. If you never pause or delete non-performing keywords you could be losing lots of money.

Assuming your ad copy and lander are optimized, three things come to my mind when thinking about dropping keywords:

The Revenue Rule

A good rule of thumb that I follow is to wait until that keyword has accumulated about 2-3 times in cost what the payout would be. Example, if the payout is $30, then if a keyword racks up over $90 in clicks with no conversions. Time to cut it loose. Now if the keyword is in the top 3 positions or you really think the keyword has potential, you may want to lower the bid and wait it out. Dropping just a few positions can drastically cut the cost per click.

The Click Rule

I’ve read in other places waiting until you reach a certain number of clicks. Same concept as above. Waiting about 100-200 clicks will definitely get you some significant data. This is no exact science, but after 200 clicks most likely it’s not worth your time. This may also depend on what your target conversion is. If you’re assuming a 2% conversion, then 200 clicks is enough. But if you’re only counting on .5% conversions, then maybe not.

The Worthless Keyword Rule

Apart from above, you should be trimming your keyword lists every so often, especially in the beginning. 1-2 weeks after launching a campaign, go back over those keywords with 0 impressions and get rid of them. The same with getting lots of impressions with 0 clicks. Now that could be because your ad position is in 8,9,or 10 or maybe your ad copy is off. Raise your bids a little and double check your ad copy, but if still after 1 more week and no clicks my suggestion is to drop it.

I’m sure there are other ways of doing this, would love to hear your thoughts. To be honest, I always kind of do this on the fly and just eyeball it. It’s always good though to have some general rules

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Well it doesn’t surprise me in the poll most important factor in a PPC campaign that keywords was voted the most important.

Research came in second, which should tell you guys who are just starting out how important the research step is. What did surprise me was to not see bid/keyword management with more votes. I would rank that up there with the others.

Weakest Link?

Anyways, now that you see all the components of a campaign. Asking a different type of question is what is your weakest link?

Look at each component of the campaign as a part of a whole process:

In manufacturing, the production runs as smooth, fast, and efficient, as the slowest part of the whole process or the weakest link in the chain. Something I learned in B School

I think it is similar with a pay per click campaign. Your campaign is as strong as its weakest link.

Did you do the research and compile a solid list of keywords but drop the ball on the landing page? Your campaign will show that. Or maybe you spend all the time on your landing page and ad copy but fail to do any research?

Something to think about …

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Ok guys I wanted to do another poll that I thought would be interesting. What would you say is the most important factor in a successful PPC Campaign?

Please vote below:

Apart from the individual, everything should have been covered, but if I blatantly left something out, just let me know, and I’ll add it in there so vote!