The biggest mistake you can make with your home services company’s ad copy is picking one message and running with it. In doing so, you may see positive results, but you’re depriving yourself from knowing if other messages would yield more favorable outcomes. In paid search, you’re paying every time someone clicks on your ad, so the last thing you want is to rack up tons of clicks that don’t result in leads. Just by simply testing multiple variations of ad copy and comparing results, you’ll be able to find your most effective messages and save yourself money and time.

Why Is This Important?

Better ads drive more business and reduce costs per lead. Unfortunately, one message will only retain its effectiveness for so long. Because of this, you must continually test your copy to ensure you’re getting the most out of your paid search efforts.

An example would look like this: 

In this case, variant 2 is the more effective option. Without testing the copy, this company would've missed an opportunity to double its conversion rate.

What Do You Test?

In short, you should test everything. Your paid search ads are comprised of a headline, two content lines, a display URL and a destination URL. In some cases, drastic changes are needed to make a difference. In others, small tweaks can yield positive results. Regardless of how big or small your alterations are, always be aware that your changes can affect your quality score, so edit wisely.

Since mobile accounts for 29 percent of search queries, according to comScore, it’s wise that you test your ad copy on this medium as well. Mobile users have different browsing behaviors, so the copy you target to desktop users may not be as effective.

Advanced Testing

Other than changing the text or the links of your ad copy, you can also dynamically insert text into the ad. For instance, in the above example, we dynamically inserted expiration dates (e.g. “Installation Sale Ending 12/11”). AdWords also allows for inserting keywords, sales information, product types and an hour/day countdown.

Making Permanent Changes

When making permanent changes to a campaign you need to be sure the alterations you’re making are based off mature data that is statistically significant. Be cautious when removing ads; once they’re removed there’s no going back. Keep in mind that the data you base decisions off of needs to come from a large enough sample size. If the sample is too small, the results may not be accurate enough to make an informed decision.

Paid search is an effective lead generation tool that can cost you more than it benefits you if not managed properly. As a leader in home services internet marketing services and software, Spectrum offers the tools and expertise to help transform your paid search efforts from floundering to efficient.