A/B Split Testing with Ads Machine

A/B Testing, the most common form of multivariate testing, is an extremely powerful strategy for increasing the effectiveness of a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising effort.

As an introduction, if you are new to the concept, A/B Testing is a method of advertising testing in which you test two different ad text elements (ad variations) for the same keyword to see which performs better. Once you find out which one is most effective in increasing the Click-Through and Conversion Rate you run the test again with a new ad text that replaces the poorly performing one, and continue like so in a continuous cycle.

There are many strategies and techniques on how to actually apply this theory, for example a very helpful article on how to efficiently use A/B Testing is outlined in one of Garry’s excellent post: Simple A/B Testing for Pay Per Click Ad Text Elements.
In the post, Garry outlines a simple check-list you should keep in mind when you are testing your ad text elements:

Keep a control ad, one ad that is kept unchanged for each and every test. Make sure you choose “rotate ads” so that each ad gets equal billing. After writing ads, make sure all of them are actually running (you might get disapproved ads after submission to your search engine) Before declaring a “winner” run a statistical significance test to determine error.

He also suggests a few elements in you text ads that you should manipulate at each iteration of the A/B Test:

“(BRAND) Official Site” versus Keyword-only headlines Price listed in the ad versus prices on the landing page only Free shipping or not (depending on your product) Superlatives like “best” or “cheapest” are golden, if you can get exceptions for them (proof you are the best) “www.” versus not having “www.” before your domain name Directories after your display URL versus not having directories Using “Free” anywhere in your ad versus no mention Dynamic keyword insertion

A/B Testing with Ads Machine

You hopefully understand how important continuous ad text testing is for a successful advertising campaign, that is why we, at Affinica, designed Ads Machine with A/B Testing in mind. In fact, when you create a new campaign using Ads Machine you have the ability of specifying two ad texts, viewing them side-by-side.
You can also load previously saved ad variation and make a few tweaks if you wish, or use the built in token replacement system to experiment with complex ad variations.

In the next post I will show you how to leverage the power of Ads Machine’s token replacement system to create ad variations with a higher Click-through and Conversion Rate.

Creating and Managing Keyword Lists

When it comes to online advertisement and especially pay-per-click (PPC) advertisement, one of the most important elements for a successful campaign is creating and managing keyword lists. The list of keywords is the cornerstone of any successful PPC marketing campaign, so choosing the correct keywords and building the right lists can make or break your online marketing efforts. Today I would like to concentrate on some strategies to develop your initial PPC keyword list and how Ads Machine can help you in the process.

Broad vs. Deep Keyword Lists

Your choice of keywords will determine the quality and quantity of visitors that will see and eventually click on your paid advertisements. Unfortunately there is a very common mistake that stops a lot of marketers dead in their tracks: choosing a deep keyword list rather than a broad one.

This concept is explained brilliantly by Amit Mehta in his post Keyword Research: Go Deep or Going Wide First?, I’ll summarize it so you can follow along.

A broad keyword list is one that has lots of related and lateral keywords, and not just variations of one root keyword, while a deep keyword list is one that specializes from a few root keywords and tends to be too specific. Below are examples of both:

Broad Keyword List

Deep Keyword List

delete adware delete backdoor delete browser hijacker delete cookie delete Dialer delete keylogger delete malware delete spyware delete toolbar delete trojan delete w32 delete worm destroy adware destroy backdoor destroy browser hijacker destroy cookie destroy Dialer destroy keylogger destroy malware destroy spyware destroy toolbar destroy trojan destroy w32 destroy worm find adware find backdoor find browser hijacker find cookie find Dialer find keylogger find malware find spyware find toolbar find trojan find w32 find worm remove adware remove backdoor remove browser hijacker remove cookie remove Dialer remove keylogger remove malware remove spyware remove toolbar remove trojan remove w32 remove worm

anti spyware anti spyware free anti spyware software antivirus spyware best free spyware remover best spyware download free spyware download spyware blaster free anti spyware free kazaa spyware remover free removal of spyware free spyware download free spyware downloads free spyware protection free spyware removal free spyware removal programs free spyware removal software free spyware remover free spyware scan mcafee anti spyware microsoft anti spyware remove spyware spyware blaster spyware blocker spyware cleaner spyware detector spyware doctor spyware download spyware programs spyware protection spyware removal spyware remover spyware scan spyware software spyware terminator spyware virus protection totally free spyware removal

As you can see, the above terms are all specializations of root word ’spyware’. The main problem with the deep approach is that it makes market demand testing a lot harder. In fact, the excessive specialization allows only finding which keywords that derives from the root keyword(s) work well, but it leaves a whole spectrum of keywords untested. This leads to risky campaigns and, on the long run, lower Return on Investment (ROI).

On the other hand, if you start out with a broad approach you can test a lot more combinations simply because you are using less specific keywords with no particular root. This is excellent because it lets you assess the market and find out which keywords and search terms people are really using. After you have found the keywords that work for your market niche, you can go deep and specialize them into more detailed key phrases.

Using Ads Machine to Create and Manage Broad Keyword Lists

Now that we understand why broad keyword lists are better than deep keyword lists, let’s see how Ads Machine simplifies your life when you go about creating your list.

As an example, we will try to recreate the previous list, but first we have to dissect it and understand its parts. If you look closely, you can see that the deep keyword list can be made by combining two shorter lists: the first is a list of verbs, the send a list of nouns. This is a key principle that you should always keep in mind when working with keyword lists. In fact, most of the time you will reuse one of the lists for multiple campaigns (for example you could create a list with all the ways of saying “Buy”).

Let’s look at how this works in Ads Machine.

If you wish to follow along, please download the free version of Ads Machine. You don’t have to purchase one of the premium versions to leverage this feature.

1. The first thing you have to do is create a new Ads Machine Campaign by clicking on the “NEW” button.
2. Now click on the “Keywords” tab located just below the Ads Machine logo. Don’t worry about filling up the “Campaign” tab; you won’t need it if you just want to work on your keywords.
3. Type (or paste) in the “First List” text area the following list:

delete destroy find remove

1. In the “Second List” text area we will insert the following words:

adware backdoor browser hijacker cookie Dialer keylogger malware spyware toolbar trojan w32 worm

1. You can swap the position of the lists, save them for later reuse or load new ones. The lists are saved as simple text files, so you can edit them in your favorite word processor (I like to use Notepad).
2. Now, when you generate the campaign, Ads Machine will combine the two lists to create the same exact list that is shown above.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, Ads Machine allows you to manage complex lists easily and, more importantly, lets your reuse lists of keywords that you commonly use.

In the next post I will show you how to use Ads Machine to continuously improve your ads Click Through and Conversion Rate with the “A/B Split Testing” technique.

Where Ads Machine takes place

In March, here at Affinica, we start to design the Ads Machine “product” trying to answer questions like:

• What features would people like to have?
• What are people looking for?
• How much would they like to pay for all of this?
• What are missing features in competitors’ products?
• …

After a lot of brainstorming sessions, we are landed to the final product draft. I want tell you something about Ads Machine features and pricing model, the two areas where we worked on more deeply.

Ads Machine features

It’s not useful spend lots of words about what Ads Machine is or isn’t, let’s go to point. In only one software you can have:

• Built-in keyword lists.
• Misspellings generation using 3 different algorithms.
• Advertisements automatic generation starting from 3 different keyword lists.
• Generated advertisements ready for Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.
• Landing Pages automatic generation using built-in or your own templates.

There are some other characteristics that we have “hard-coded” inside of Ads Machine:

• Simple and easy to use.
• Useful for newbie and experts.
• Multiplatform, it’s able to be ran on Windows or Macintosh, thanks to Adobe® AIR™.

And now the most interesting thing: our freemium on-demand pricing model.

On demand, starting from free (I mean, 0.00 $)

In order to be able to provide this type of pricing model, we have chosen some point around which you tuned user profiles and plans.

Free

Nothing other has to be said, the name speaks clear. This plan allows you to taste the Ads Machine abilities, excluding the most wanted features, such as the Misspellings generator and the Landing Pages automatic generator. This is intended for large audiences of people who want try the experience to get money with Internet Marketing. The motto is “Get it and use it for free!”

Black & White

For a bunch of bucks, the Black & White plan let you generate advertisements and High Quality score landing pages starting from built-in or your own keyword lists. You can repeat the process 20 times, than you will be downgrade to the free plan. I think it’s very useful for who want get experience into the Internet Marketing for 30 days. Perhaps during a challenge.

Technicolor

This plan is the evolution of the previous one and gives you the ability to get real money with the Internet Marketing. It allows 50 advertisements and landing pages generations, giving you the possibility to try and test your advertisements and re-generate them a lot more times.

High Definition

This is the Top edition of our software. For less than US $250 you will have a completely featured license with unlimited advertisements and landing pages generations. It’s very useful for people with high experience and confidence with Internet Marketing, or for people want learn and test what they are able to do.

That’s all. Ads Machine is waiting for you!

Ads Machine is About to Take Off

We are pleased to announce that Ads Machine is released. We are waiting for the ClickBank product approval and then we will publish the executables and it will be available for download right away for both Mac and PC users.

Just so you know, Ads Machine is a powerful tool that lets you generate complex and profitable PPC advertisement campaigns (and thousands of landing pages if you wish) in a matter of minutes. We offer it using a freemium model, so you can use it for free just by visiting the download page, or find out more about the Key Features and Benefits that make Ads Machine unique.

Stay tuned for more posts on how to use Ads Machine and also a few “behind the scenes” posts that led us, Affinica, to develop this software.

Ready to launch (quite)

Here in Affinica we are [quite] ready to launch our brand new project, Ads Machine.

Ads Machine is a desktop software for Mac & PC that aids in the automated generation of advertisement campaigns for Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter; in addition, it’s able to generate thousands of templated landing pages (using our pre-made templates or you own). It’s a must-have for people who want earn money with Internet Marketing in a simple and effective way.

In a couple of day (July 24th) we will officially launch the first version. Hope to see you!