Common A/B testing mistakes made by PPC Marketers and How to fix them?

Do thorough A/B tests still not produce the expected outcomes for your PPC campaigns? Paid-per-click (PPC) marketing can be effectively optimized with A/B testing, but it might be sensitive to frequent mistakes that reduce its effectiveness. PPC marketers frequently make A/B testing errors; we’ll look at some of these and offer workable fixes in this blog.

Insufficient Sample Size: 

One error is concluding test results too soon without gathering sufficient details. PPC advertisers could draw wrong conclusions from their restricted sample sizes. Make sure tests run long enough to get a statistically meaningful sample size to correct this. Use tools or calculators to calculate the necessary sample size based on desired effect sizes and confidence levels.

Rejecting Secondary Factors :

Important complexities can be missed when concentrating only on key metrics such as click-through rates (CTR) or conversion rates. Marketers risk missing out on important information about user preferences and behavior. Use secondary metrics like time on page, bounce rate, and engagement rate to address this. When these indicators are analyzed in addition to primary ones, performance may be fully understood and strategies can be improved for better outcomes.

Sometimes it is overkill to aim for a 95% statistical significance

It’s basically a standard procedure to aim for a 95% statistical significance level for different testing and research situations, including A/B testing. It can sometimes be excessive in the context of PPC marketing. Although achieving statistical significance is essential to guarantee the validity of test results, a 95% cutoff point may excessively lengthen testing periods and delay decision-making.

Aiming for a little lower significance level – 90%, for example – can frequently still provide useful insights and cut down on the time and expenses associated with testing. This method preserves accuracy while enabling marketers to make fast campaign modifications based on reliable data. To accomplish their campaign objectives, marketers can optimize their testing procedures and repeat more effectively by finding an appropriate compromise between statistical accuracy and practicality.

Furthermore, concentrating only on reaching a 95% statistical significance level may distract marketer’s attention from other important testing components, like result analysis and implementation of actionable insights. The practical importance of test results and their possible influence on campaign performance should be taken into account in addition to statistical significance. While avoiding the error of overanalyzing data, marketers can make well-informed decisions that lead to significant gains in their PPC strategy by giving practical relevance priority over exacting statistical thresholds.

Don’t let the need for statistical significance cause you to give up on testing too soon. It is important to find a balance between practical considerations and statistical significance, as the former gives you confidence in the validity of your results. Sometimes the procedure might be excessively delayed by waiting for a test to reach a 95% significance level. This can cause important optimizations to be ignored and key insights to be lost.

Keep testing; don’t let statistical significance stop you

Concentrate on the larger picture and goals of your testing project. Think about things like the size of the effects that have been seen, how they might affect important performance metrics, and the potential cost of putting off making judgements. Even if a test doesn’t meet the desired 95% threshold but still exhibits encouraging trends or significant gains, it could still be beneficial to make modifications and keep a careful eye on their effects.

In PPC marketing, the ultimate objective of A/B testing is to produce measurable changes in campaign performance instead of just reaching statistical significance. Through a realistic approach to testing and an open mind, marketers may successfully utilize insights to refine and optimize their tactics for superior outcomes.

Analyze the people you want to reach :

It is important to evaluate the audience you are targeting when running PPC advertising to make sure the proper audience is responding to your efforts. If you are advertising a high-end fashion brand, for example, it might be more effective to target wealthy people who have an interest in fashion publications and luxury goods instead of reaching out to everyone. On the other hand, it might be more successful to target middle-class families who are interested in budgeting or home renovation blogs if you’re promoting affordable household goods. You may customize your paid search advertising efforts to reach the most responsive population and optimize your return on investment by closely examining the demographics, interests, and online behaviors of your target audience.

With A/B testing, size is important :

Not every client or project has an important volume of platforms. 

However, a large audience is only necessary if you expect slow and gradual minor improvements. That’s why I don’t recommend running tests 

For a projected boost of just a few percentage points, what is the optimal audience size?

A/B has created a calculator for sample size. Although I have no connection with A/B, I think their tool is simpler to use. 

Examine your past data using these methods to determine whether your test may be improved to the point where its outcomes are dependable.

The customer journey is essential :

In PPC marketing, recognizing the client experience is just as important as choosing the correct audience to target. Imagine that someone interested finds your advertisement on social media, visits your website, and then decides not to buy anything. They eventually choose to buy after seeing a retargeting advertisement while visiting another website. In this case, you risk missing the effects of the first ad contact and remarketing efforts if you track conversions just based on the most recent contact.

Through the process of creating a customer journey map and applying multi-touch attribution models, you can acquire a deeper understanding of the different touchpoints that impact purchasing decisions. For instance, you can look at your customers’ conversion routes and determine which channels and interactions are important at each stage of their journey by using tools like Google Analytics.

Additionally, you may increase the effectiveness of your PPC advertising by connecting them with the customer journey through optimization. You can modify your bidding strategy or ad content, for example, if you discover that some keywords or ad creatives drive initial interest but others drive conversions. You may build a smooth experience that leads potential consumers from attention to conversion by optimizing for the entire client journey rather than just specific touchpoints. This will eventually maximize the effect and return on investment of your campaign.

Other typical errors in PPC A/B testing

• Failing to divide apart the sources of traffic.
• Branded search traffic is far more valuable than freezing non-retargeting Facebook Ads audiences, as PPC experts are well aware of.

Consider the case in which, due to a public relations campaign, company branded search engine traffic share increases in comparison to that of the cold Facebook Ads traffic share.

Sources to research before you take the test:

• 90% of traffic is often branded, according to SEO.
• sending emails and SMS
• Retargeting
• Paid search with a brand.

Unless you utilize brand limitations, check Performance Max with your complete Google Ads setup to get accurate results. When so, you should compare Performance Max with all other Google Ads, except sponsored Search and Shopping ads.

Not accounting for essential parts :

Once more, the majority of marketers are aware of the significant differences in performance between mobile and desktop platforms. So why did you combine data from your mobile and desktop A/B test?

• Competition has changed.
• There is a large range of CPMs.
• There are differences in product-market fit.
• Ensure that you “localize” your testing as much as you can.

Beware of A/B testing traps to improve PPC outcomes :

Basically A/B testing risks must be avoided if you want your PPC campaigns to perform better. Premature test conclusions or an excessive concentration on metrics such as click-through rates without taking into account secondary metrics or practical significance are two common traps. Through precise goal-setting, appropriate sample sizes, and a context-based interpretation of the findings.