Here’s what the old and new adverts look like:
The results of our experiment
As soon as I had the chance, I set up experiments to see how much longer ad copy would affect the results
. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I could only focus on a few campaigns. Here, I’ll look at 3 generic, 1 brand and 1 competitor-targeted campaign. It’s been a month now, so let’s take a look at the initial results:
Brand results
Results of campaigns targeting competitors
With these two campaigns, you can see that longer ad texts have
actually been beneficial so far
. The CTR has risen significantly and the CPC has fallen, meaning the ads are getting more clicks for less money.
For the brand campaign, I attribute this to the fact that the ad, with all available extensions, takes up almost the entire top section of the results. What’s more, longer ad texts stand out more
than standard organic results, and none of the competitors are advertising for this brand. 🙂
In the case of the campaign targeting competitors, on the other hand, this can be attributed to the fact that their PPC specialists haven’t yet had time to adapt to the new options, making our ads much more prominent. It simply says: “Click on me
!” However, it is only a matter of time before they get their bearings and these results change again, either approaching the results of the general campaigns mentioned above or, as is often the case with campaigns targeting competitors, the results will be even worse than those of general campaigns.
General campaign results – Experiment 1:
General campaign results, Experiment 2:
General campaign results, Experiment 3:
The situation is currently different for general campaigns. Why? Competition is to blame.
Only a limited number of accounts are targeting the previous brand and competitor campaigns; these either have no competition or the competition hasn’t had time to prepare. This is not the case with general phrases. In these sectors, there are already accounts that have implemented expanded ads. Furthermore, when we take into account the quality score – whether for keywords or ad copy – this significantly affects the results.
With these general campaigns, you may notice that the variations are not yet particularly significant, so I won’t draw any conclusions just yet. I’ll share those with you once there is more data.
Should you expand your ads or not?
What should you take to heart for now? For brand campaigns, there’s nothing better you can do than update your ads as soon as possible.
For competitive campaigns, on the other hand, take advantage of this opportunity whilst other PPC specialists are falling behind. You have a unique chance to capitalise on this situation. God knows when it will happen again.
For general campaigns, don’t expect any significant improvement in results
, but you certainly won’t do them any significant harm.
Look forward to the next results analysis soon.