Have you been wondering whether your campaign would perform better if you were using a different bid strategy? You can easily test your theory using Google Ads Experiments. 

Today, we will discuss the experiments feature in Google Ads and how to utilize it.

Experiments allow you to test different campaign and ad settings so you can learn what settings help you drive better and more efficient results. You can test different bid strategies, ad copy, different landing pages, location/targeting settings, match types, and more.

The most common use cases for running experiments on Search are:

  1. Testing broad match types in your campaigns.
  2. Testing which bid strategy gets you the best results.
  3. Testing which landing page performs better for your campaigns.

Why run experiments?

Experiments let you split the traffic on your test and control campaign equally. You can specify the duration of the experiment, and if your theory doesn’t work out, you can simply end your experiment at any time. You can compare the result of your control and test campaign and if the test campaign is successful, you can apply those changes to your experiment.

How to run experiments?

If you are a veteran Google Ads user, you might remember the ‘Drafts and Experiments’ tab on the left side. Before Google Ads updated how experiments are set up, you had to set up a draft campaign and then publish it. However, that has changed.

Now, there are 3 different types of experiments:

  1. Ad variations
  2. Custom experiments for Search and Display
  3. Video experiments

Ad variation

Ad variations are used to test Search ads. If you want to test out a different landing page or different ad copy then this experiment option should be used.

Custom experiments for Search and Display

This experiment type allows you to test different campaign settings in your Search and Display campaigns. For example, if you want to test a different bid strategy or if you want to change audience targeting settings, this is the option you will want to use.

Video Experiments

This experiment type is used to test which video ads perform better.

How to set up experiments?

We will discuss how to set up Ad variations and Search experiments because these two types are the most commonly used.

On the left tab of Google Ads, look up ‘Experiments’. You will find ‘Ad Variations’ under the option. Click on the + sign to create a new experiment:

Now select which campaign’s ads you want to conduct your experiment with. In the option of ‘Filter Ads’, choose whichever part of the ad you want to edit. For example, if you are looking to test a new landing page then pick Final URL and add the ‘control’ URL.

Click on continue, then in the box where you see the ‘Find and replace’ option, choose ‘Update URLs’. Then input the URL that you want to test out.

After that, click on Continue, name your Experiment, and set up a start and end date. Also pick the Experiment split which is the percentage of your campaign’s budget that will be allocated to this test.

Click on ‘Create Variation’ and you are done.

Setting up a Search campaign experiment

In the left tab, click on ‘Custom experiments’ under ‘Experiments’. Then click on ‘Custom experiment’ again. Choose ‘Search’ as your campaign type.

Next, name your experiment (and if you want to, set a description). Then, select the campaign that you want to experiment on.

You will be taken to a UI that looks like any other campaign. Go to ‘Settings’ and change the bid strategy (or whatever other change you wanted to make, like adding broad match keywords).

After you are done making your changes, click on Schedule.

Next, choose what the goals are for your experiment. 

My goals in this screenshot are to increase my conversions and decrease my CPA. You can choose other conversion metrics or traffic-based metrics.

Set the experiment split and in ‘Advanced options’ pick whether you want your experiment to be Search-based on Cookie-based. Cookie-based is the recommended option as it lets you show the same ad to one user as opposed to randomly showing the same user ads from either your control or test campaign.

Set your start and end dates then choose whether you want to enable sync or not. This option ensures that whatever changes you make to your control campaign also get synced to the test. If you add negative keywords or make changes to targeting/bidding etc, turning this option on will apply these changes to both versions. It is recommended that you keep this option on.

Once you are done, click on Schedule and your experiment has been set up.

What to do after launching your experiment?

Keep an eye on the results to make sure your experiment is running successfully. If you go to the ‘Experiments’ tab, you can find the results on that page. You will be able to see the numbers of both, your control and test campaign, and the difference between the numbers. You will also be able to see whether the difference is statistically significant or if the values are random.

If you click on your test, you will be able to look at further details, including the results at different time ranges. If you find the results of the experiment campaign better then you can ‘Apply’ it. If the results are poor, click on ‘End’ experiment to discard it.

That’s it, your first experiment is ready to go. We recommend running your experiment for a full month before you decide whether to apply it or end it.

Let us know whether you have any questions or comments.