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Google AdWords Tip: Sometimes it pays off to be lazy

September 20th, 2006 by Mike Read more about Articles

Sometimes when I run out of ideas of new AdWords copy to try or when I am really busy or just feel lazy, I go back to the little stuff. The big surprise, however, is that these tiny tests can sometimes lead to the biggest improvements in my Google AdWords account.
Let me share a simple and easy test that I ran last week. The only change that I made was to “capitalize” parts of my URL and to test whether capitalizing “A Min” would be a good or a bad idea?

The results?

to_blog_a_min.jpg

Take a very close look at the above ads. You will probably miss what is different on your first try. Look again. The first thing that you will notice is that the ad copy is identical. We only tested two different changes:

1) Split testing of the URL: “www.SilvaUltraMindSystem.com” vs. “www.silvaultramindsystem.com”
2) Split testing of “A Min” vs. “a min”

The shocker is that both of these made a big difference but not in a consistent or predictable way. The best version turned our to be a hybrid (capitalizing the URL and not capitalizing “a min.”). In the end, this hybrid had the second best CTR (almost identical to the #1 version) but a 50% higher conversion rate than the #1 version.

What is the lesson here? Try lots of things and never ever stop testing. You will be surprised at how little steps can make a huge difference in your results.

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About the Author

Mike Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

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One Response to “Google AdWords Tip: Sometimes it pays off to be lazy”

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