Improving Ad Quality, Part II

Finding the right message for your customers with Ad Testing

It’s hard to argue that Tiger Woods is pretty darn good at what he does. But even he is not perfect. Imagine if he were allowed to hit four balls each time and then choose the shot that worked the best. Scary good.

We’re giving you that opportunity with our new ad testing feature In concept, it’s like giving Tiger multiple shots from which to choose the best lie. Ad Testing is a “must do” if you are really trying to improve the quality of your ads.

Implementing ad testing is simple: For each ad group you submit multiple ads (you can submit up to 20), make sure Ad Optimization is on and then let the system do the work for you.

But to really take control of this and find long-term value, it is important to understand two things:

How it works—how does the system determine which ad is performing better and then what does it do, and
What you should test

How it Works
Ad testing works as soon as there is more than one creative in an ad group. If you submit multiple ads within an ad group, you have two choices with respect to the frequency in which those ads are displayed. If you set Ad Optimization to “off,” the ads will be displayed in relatively equal distribution, depending on a number of factors.

Alternatively, if you set Ad Optimization to “on”, the system will begin by showing the ads in relatively equal distribution, but, as it learns which ad performs better from a click-through-rate (CTR) normalized by position perspective, it will begin to show that ad more frequently.

How quickly will the system react? Well, that depends on the number of searches that your keywords receive. In general, the more impressions you receive, the more robust the data should become, and the system may really start to make some decisions.
It is important to note, however, that normalized CTR performance is based on how an ad performs across the entire set of keywords in that ad group. Ad testing will not actually pair up ads to keywords. Instead, the system looks to see which ad performs best across all keywords combined.

What to Test
Beyond making sure that your ads comply with our editorial guidelines, you’re pretty free to test what you want. To get the most long-term value out of this feature, let me offer some advice:

The 3 C’s: There is a common marketing framework called the 3 C’s: Customer, Competition and Company (you). Use this idea to think about what it is that differentiates you from your competitors and makes you more relevant to your customers. You may have an idea of what this is, but this is your opportunity to test different offers, different language and different sequences of words that best attract the right customers for you.

Focus: Don’t try to test everything at once. Concentrate on specific characteristics of your ads and test those characteristics. If you try to bite off too much at one time, it will be very difficult to really understand which aspects of your ads drove the success or failure. It’s probably best to limit yourself to two to five ads at any one point so that you can track what is happening easily and get results across your ads more rapidly.

Iterate: Don’t treat ad testing as a one-time effort. After all, the marketplaces in which you compete are dynamic. The special offers you provide your customers probably change, and your competitors are certainly trying new things all the time. Once you begin to understand which offer works best, start working on the language you’re using to communicate that offer.

Isolate: There are likely a small handful of keywords that drive a majority of the value you achieve from your search marketing efforts. Isolate these for a time in their own ad groups so that you can test specifically on these important markets. This makes sure that your ads’ performance is really based on these keywords, rather than being influenced by the ads’ performance with other less-important keywords.

Ad testing can be key to helping you make your ads more relevant, which can improve your ads’ ranking and your success. While I can’t promise that you’ll be the next Tiger Woods, if you take advantage of this feature you will likely start to see improvements in your ads’ performance.

Read Part I of this series.

Visit Help for more »

—Michael Egan, Sr. Director, Content Solutions

Posted by Administrator

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30 Comments Add your own

1. Romain Romagnan | February 12th, 2007 at 7:48 am

Ad testing is a great feature.
It is really helpful when you want a achieve a high CTR. I usually test around 4 ads and delete them to keep the best after few weeks.

SEO company http://www.whitehatmedia.com
2. AccuraCast PPC Manager | February 12th, 2007 at 12:51 pm

This feature is a very welcome one!

We have offered split testing services for our advertising programmes for the longest time.

Before introduction of this feature, split testing on Yahoo! used to be a long and rather tedious process, but now it looks like it will be much easier and hence prompt us to offer better quality advertising to our clients.
3. Search Daily News »&hellip | February 12th, 2007 at 12:54 pm

[...] The system works in the exact same way as the Google AdWords ad split testing system works. Advertisers can insert multiple creatives for their keyword groups. If ad optimisation is turned off, the Yahoo! system will show both creatives more or less evenly. If optimisation is turned on, the ad with the higher clickthrough rate will start showing more and more frequently over time. Visit the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog for a detailed explaination on ad testing. [...]
4. Isaac | February 14th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

CTR optimization is great, especially from Yahoo’s perspective where clicks = revenue. What I (as a potential customer) am more concerned with is the ability to easily track and optimize ads for conversion rate. Does the new system offer any possibilities for tracking conversion?
5. Administrator | February 15th, 2007 at 10:12 am

Isaac,

For conversion info, check out these two resources in our Help section:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/l/us/yahoo/ysm/sps/start/overview_analytics.html

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ysm/sps/migration/cc_changes.html

- M2
6. Chris | February 20th, 2007 at 1:34 pm

Having the ability to test CTR is a good start. However Yahoo should be providing advertisers with conversion data for each ad: conversion rate, cost/conversion, etc. CTR is nearly useless when trying to determine the ROI of seperate ads. A higher CTR will lead to more site visitors and more $$ for Yahoo. However, if that ad is bringing a lot of unqualified visitors to your landing page, it is not helping.
7. robert | March 18th, 2007 at 9:12 am

hi all. nice blog. its very ineresting article.
8. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | April 30th, 2007 at 11:38 am

[...] That’s one of the things a comedian says when he or she’s got a tough crowd and isn’t getting any laughs, along with “These are the jokes, people, “Is this a nightclub or a rest home?” “Is this an audience or an oil painting?” and, as the late, great Rodney Dangerfield used to say, “Come on, try to keep up! Let’s keep this thing moving!” Ad Testing may be no laughing matter. But it is, in fact, always on unless you turn it off yourself, in case you didn’t know. We’ve written about our Ad Testing feature before, offering up tips on how to make the best use of it. In addition to our previous post and the useful material in the Help section, we offer a new interactive Ad Testing tutorial. [...]
9. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | August 22nd, 2007 at 8:58 am

[...] are some helpful hints on ad testing. There’s also some useful info in the help section, and a “How Ad Testing Works” [...]
10. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | August 30th, 2007 at 10:29 am

[...] You’ll also notice that once you create a new ad you’ll be prompted to create another one. Creating a second (or third or forth) ad activates ad testing, which lets you compare how ads in a specific ad group are performing against one another in order to help you improve your quality index score. To learn more about ad testing and ad optimization, refer to our previous post. [...]
11. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | September 5th, 2007 at 4:55 pm

[...] check out this past post, which details more about how ad testing [...]
12. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | January 2nd, 2008 at 12:32 pm

[...] Improving Ad Quality, Part II [...]
13. Australian Online Adverti&hellip | January 9th, 2008 at 10:07 pm

[...] Michael Egan, our senior director of content solutions, wrote a whole series about it (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV). Heck, we even elected a VP of Network Quality and opened a Network Quality [...]
14. Australian Online Adverti&hellip | January 9th, 2008 at 10:07 pm

[...] Michael Egan, our senior director of content solutions, wrote a whole series about it (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV). Heck, we even elected a VP of Network Quality and opened a Network Quality [...]
15. Australian Online Adverti&hellip | January 9th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

[...] Improving Ad Quality, Part II [...]
16. Australian Online Adverti&hellip | January 9th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

[...] Improving Ad Quality, Part II [...]
17. Pete | January 24th, 2008 at 7:53 am

Ad testing is great feature if utilised correctly
18. Jim | January 24th, 2008 at 7:55 am

CTR is crucial when trying to work out ROI

Jim http://www.bulgariasfinest.com
19. Nik | January 24th, 2008 at 7:57 am

I have been a fan of ad testing for a long time
20. Nik | January 24th, 2008 at 7:58 am

I will continue to use it to work out my ROI
21. Nik | January 24th, 2008 at 7:58 am

Nik

http://www.diversehampers.co.uk
22. Jorge | January 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am

I have not used it yet, but I intend to

Jorge

http://www.salgadoinvestigations.com
23. Brad | January 24th, 2008 at 8:01 am

Jorge I would highly recommend it mate

Brad
http://www.4networking.biz
24. craig | March 2nd, 2008 at 9:38 am

This is a great blog full of useful information

Many thanks
Craig
http://www.theprintedbagshop.co.uk
25. Alan | March 15th, 2008 at 5:15 am

You are right Craig it is very useful resource, improving ROI is the key to a successful online business.

Alan
http://www.acornrecruitmentsw.co.uk
26. GINA IOW | May 2nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Click-through-rate (CTR) testing helped me a lot when setting up my PPC camapign.

Gina
Isle of Wight Accomodation
27. Mike | August 30th, 2008 at 2:44 am

Great article. I’ve learned alot about Ad testing and how it works. Should be quite helpful in the near future for us.
28. Pathetic | September 2nd, 2008 at 10:13 pm

NIce article. I laugh at all the idiots posting useless comments here with links to their shyte websites trying to get “link juice” oblivious to what a nofollow attribute on an anchor is used for.
29. Gordo | October 22nd, 2008 at 3:47 pm

Thanks for the article on Ad Testing. Was not aware of all that is involved.
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