Best Practices: When Should Ad Creative Be Refreshed?

Wondering what everyone's opinion is on refreshing copywriting for Ads

[SEMakesmewonder]

Hi, I was just wondering if you all had any insight on what best practices are for refreshing ad creative for SEM text ads. When is an ad 'stale?' What, if any, are the indicators?

Thanks for any help!

[buckworks]

The most important thing is to make sure you're not running ads about out-of-date things.

<hangs head in shame> I had the experience not long ago of discovering some forgotten text ads that were still inviting people to check out the hot new widgets for 2009 ... even though the 2010 widgets had been out for two or three months already. </shame>

Keep an eye out for time-related issues like that. Other than that, though, a good ad won't really go stale unless the same people are seeing it over and over too often.

It's wise to be testing new creative fairly regularly, and simply having new ads in your rotation will help to keep things fresh. However, don't delete old ads until you're confident that the new ones are performing better.

[smallcompany]

...and don't mess up much with those that make your keywords get 10/10.

[ekimmerce]

May I also add that you should take a look at the language your competitors are using. It is all too easy to write an ad and find out that it looks no different to your competition. Are they using prices? do they mention offers? free P&P?

Differentiate yourself, make your ads stand out, eyeballs will naturally draw to the one that stands out the most.