Make Your Advertising Work For You

In order for your advertising to perform optimally, that is for it to generate the awareness and sales you desire, it’s imperative that you create a system to test and track your results.  Tracking will tell you how your advertisement is performing and testing will tell you which specific variables, like your headline, work the best.  Here’s how to make advertising work for you.

Step One:  Find the right tools for the job.  Google analytics does a wonderful job of tracking website data.  Creating an advertising strategy whereby you can track the click through rates of specific advertisements will go a long way toward providing the information you need.

Additionally, if you’re using AdWords or other pay per click search engine advertising methods then they’ll provide the necessary data.

In order to tweak an ad for optimal results, many business owners use a system called Split Testing or multivariate testing. This method involves testing the results from two different variables in the same advertising campaign.  The results are tracked over a specified period of time   There are many software programs which will facilitate a complex multivariate testing strategy however, it can also be as simple as sending the viewers of each different advertisement to a unique webpage and tracking the results.

Step Two:  Decide what to test.  You can split test just about anything from the headline to the background color in your banner ad or your call to action.  The most useful items to test include:

* Keywords
* Graphics
* Copy
* Headlines
* Price points
* Photos
* Bonus offers
* Text links
* Calls to action

The most important thing to remember is to keep everything constant except the item you’re testing.  This means that if you’re testing to see if a particular keyword works better in a PPC campaign, the advertisement has to remain exactly the same for both keywords.

At this point you’ve chosen your ad type, you’ve chosen a location to advertise, you’ve written your ad and you’ve created ways to test the ad to analyze effectiveness.  You’re ready to start advertising and testing and tracking your results for maximum effectiveness and return on investment.