Advice on Mutiple Ads with different CTR and CPC prices

[avalon37]

So I was asked to test using "blowout" in our ad titles and it did pretty well. So now for most ad groups I have 3 ad versions. It's a little confusing that I'd say only 50% of the time does the higest CTR ad version have the lowest CPC. Many times the highest CTR has the highest CPC. It gets me thinking, should I just run the ad version with the lowest CPC even if it has the lowest CTR? I mean yes you want clicks, but it's hard to swallow that the better the CTR the higher the CPC in roughly 1/2 my ad groups. Thoughts on how you handle this most appreciated. My concern is that with only 1 ad version my CPC might go up.

[poster_boy]

Hi avalon37 - Roughly how many keywords are in the group that you're referencing?

[avalon37]

Average ad group has around 20 keywords, but the top 3 keywords in the ad groups get about 90% of the clicks.

[poster_boy]

the top 3 keywords in the ad groups get about 90% of the clicks

And, are you splitting traffic evenly between each of your ads? Just trying to determine if there's a skew between the keywords that tend to serve for particular ads...

[eWhisper]

If you can measure conversion rate, profit per impression, or CPA by ad copy, that's where I'd start to examine which ad I'd like to run.

[avalon37]

I cannot measure conversion by ad copy currently. What I really want to know is it would make sense to only run the ad copy with the lowest CPC, but I suspect if I delete the other 2 or 3 ad copy versions, my lowest ad copy version CPC I'm guessing will go up right?

[netmeg]

I don't think anyone can tell you that for sure, you need to test it. Should get your answer pretty quickly.

[avalon37]

Thanks. Just wasn't if people had tested to see if having only one ad variation meant higher cpc prices; I'm tempted to test essentially the exact same ads (minor difference) to see if prices are more or less with multiple ads.

[eWhisper]

When looking at avg CPC by ad copy, also check average position.

It could be that your higher CPC ad copy has a higher average position, and thus why it's more expensive.

[avalon37]

That's a good point ewhisper - this looks like it's very hard to figure out. I guess I'll have to assume the Google system is right more often than not and when I have a higher CTR with higher CPC it must mean that average position was higher at those times. But I'm still interested in peoples' thoughts on deleting all ad copy versions that have lower CTR than the best ad?

[poster_boy]

But I'm still interested in peoples' thoughts on deleting all ad copy versions that have lower CTR than the best ad?

But, to eWhisper's earlier point - what if the lowest CTR or highest CPC ad is also your best profit driver?

There are enough factors that can skew the results that I would suggest gaining access to the conversion data per ad before making a decision that could be counter-productive. I would also suggest setting your ad serving to "Rotate" to avoid even further skews that Google's "Optimize" setting can introduce.

[eWhisper]

Just to make sure, are you using the AdWords conversion tracker? If so, you can use the ad performance report to measure conversions by ad copy (and at a minimum,see avg position by ad copy).