Identical keywords for different ad groups

[roodle]

Hi,

I'm a relative Adwords noob so please bear with me...

I have a small set of adgroups with identical keywords (2 phrases) for a very niche business. Each adgroup represents a different style of advert (e.g. interrogative, imperative...). Budget is capped daily. My aim is to compare and find out which styles work best. My question, which may be stupid, is, are my adgroups competing in any way with each other if they are using the same keyword phrases? Does my default/specified CPC for each adgroup/keyword affect how Google choses which ads to show from within my campaign? I'm confused so I just need to clarify this.

Thanks in advance.

[ogletree]

Google will only show one ad from your account for any given search. If you do that Google will decide which one to show it to. It would not be a very good test since Google will favor one ad and show it most the time. It would be best to set up 2 ads in the same ad group to get an even distribution. Google tends to like to spend money so the higher bid may be used.

[roodle]

Thanks for your reply. I have 3 or 4 ads in each adgroup. Although the style of ads in the same group is the same, each ad is subtly different from the others. So in effect I'm comparing ads within the same adgroup AND overall adgroup performance for all adgroups. The only common elements are the keywords. Is this not a valid experiment?

[SanDiego Art]

I don't think you'll necessarily be testing the performance between adgroups, b/c google will be choosing (based on their success metrics - not yours) which is "better" (makes them more money...) You will not get a true split of traffic between adgroups.

As already suggested, you should have the ads with the different styles in the SAME ad group. Testing mulitple ads that are very similar will not give you any real actionable results. You want to test the different sytles directly against one another. To do this, put them in the same ad group.

[roodle]

Thanks for your reply. Ok so if keywords are identical across adgroups and the Max CPC is also identical for all keywords (both search and content), Google must choose the "better" advert(s) in order to be more guaranteed a click(=they make money)? Surely with this setup the adgroup performance can be compared even though the individual ads yield the same results as if they were all in the same adgroup?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Hello roodle,

ogletree and SanDiego Art have both given you essentially the same answer - and it is advice with which I would also concur.

I'd say that what they have both described would be considered to be the best practice (and I agree that it offers you more control) - though there is really nothing to prevent you from trying it the way you've described. Perhaps just give it a shot.

I'd underline the fact that, either way, only one ad will ever show for a given query.

AWA