Google AdWords™ for Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 17. The Ten (Or So) Most Serious AdWords Beginner's Mistakes

In This Chapter

• Split-testing snafus

• Campaign calamities

• Ad agonies

• Keyword, er . . . problems

AdWords can have a steep learning curve, as well as an expensive one. In this chapter, I quickly run through the most common and expensive mistakes I've seen as an AdWords consultant and fixer.

Neglecting to Split-Test Your Ads

Even the world's best marketers are wrong more often than they're right. If you run a single ad, the chances of that ad being the best of all the possible ads in the universe are laughably small. When you compare two very different ads head to head, one of them will almost always be better than the other — more compelling, more attractive, or more in tune with the innermost desires of your market.

When you've run the test long enough to have statistically significant data, you gracefully retire (or unceremoniously fire, whichever you prefer) the losing ad and put up another challenger. You continue the process, directing the survival of the fittest ad until you find the one unbeatable control that maximizes your business goals.

In the old pre-Internet days, split-testing was complicated and expensive, a high-level business process reserved for huge companies with giant mainframe computers and millions of dollars on the line. Now, Google AdWords makes split-testing as easy as sending e-mail; when I see advertisers neglecting this fundamental improvement strategy, I feel like the mom telling her kid to eat ...