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Business owners are spending thousands of dollars each month on Google Adwords and few have tested the impact of different “landing page” designs on conversion.

The landing page is the first page where a consumer is taken when they click on your paid advertisement.

Conversion testing is CRITICAL for anyone using Google Adwords or any pay-per-click advertising solution.

If you could increase conversion by 5% on all your PPC traffic, what would that be worth to you each month? What about 10% or 15%?

Conversion Testing is The Holy Grail

The premise behind A/B testing is that you don’t know if your landing page is setup to achieve optimal conversion unless you test the design. Changes in the design can include colors, photos, videos, and physical page layout.

Small businesses have Pay-Per-Click budgets between $1,000 – $3,000 a month. Yet these same business owners have not created a series of tests to determine which landing page designs will produce the best results.

Many third-party PPC vendors do not offer individualized A/B testing since they claim to know which landing page design work best. If it was my money, I would want to see the test results from my local market.

Google provides a tool called Website Optimizer to give Adwords users TOOLS to test the impact of landing page designs. The problem with this tool is that it takes knowledge and time to setup and foresight on how to decide what to test. This is normally not an internal skill set inside a dealership.

The Automotive SEM Study, announced on December 27, 2010, will test landing page design on automotive dealership Adwords campaigns in a controlled environment. PCG Digital Marketing will share the results of the A/B testing so that everyone can benefit from the knowledge that is collected.

Google Website Optimizer

Google Website Optimizer has two modes: Simple A/B Testing and Multivariate Testing. Today I will focus on the easiest testing which is A/B testing.

One of the learning objectives in the Automotive SEM Study will be to take active users of Google Adwords and create a series of A/B or A/B/C testing on different landing pages to see which variations increase/decrease response rates.

The A/B testing in Google Website Optimizer is the “easiest” testing business owners can do because it requires you to create different landing pages for the test. Most website platforms will allow you to create pages on the fly, which could be these alternative landing pages. The more advanced forms of testing in Google Website Optimizer call “multivariate testing” will be discussed in a follow-up article.

The potential roadblock with Google Website Optimizer on some website platforms is that some vendors will limit “Java Code” can be placed on user generated website pages. As you can see from the diagram above, you need to place two pieces of code on the original page and then footer code on the alternative pages and the thank you page if someone submits a lead.

So What’s The Big Deal?

Well, the code that you have the place on these pages are simple; Google provide it. The problem is that some website platforms don’t allow you to insert Java Script code on website pages. If you are using open source microsites like WordPress, you have to make sure that WordPress doesn’t rewrite/format the code.

For the Automotive SEM Study we will be using open source WordPress websites and we will show you how to use a free plugin called “Hana Code Insert” to drop in the needed code to your testing pages. If you would like to use your PRIMARY website for the SEM A/B testing, ask your vendor if they support Google Website Optimizer code.

We will also be looking into other website testing platforms that may simplify the study member experience; details will follow when the study officially starts on February 15th. Industry veteran Larry Bruce has offered his PPC testing platform to study members, so we will look into the latest version of his software and see if it matches with our study goals.

What Can We Get From A/B Testing?

If you have a budget that is large enough to generate enough traffic to your landing pages, you can start to see the impact of design, colors, phone number ,forms, or ANY on page element on conversion. For many car dealers this topic may be new but their instincts will tell them that they have NOT testing their landing pages.

If you are spending money on Google Adwords, isn’t it time to start improving CONVERSION by testing different design layouts and call-to-action messages?

In the above example, Google will distribute clicks over all THREE pages and keep track of all statistics on these pages. You may find that Alternative B, which a lower down payment created higher conversion. Or you may find that Alternative A which featured the featured car with a lower monthly payment increased conversion. STOP GUESSING. START TESTING.

Understanding Google Adwords and PPC Testing Is Important

This is one of the many reasons why you should have your dealer peers register for the Automotive SEM Study. Isn’t it time that our industry raises the bar on automotive PPC spending and refine our campaigns to increase CONVERSION?

Sign-up at: http://www.automotivesemstudy.com

The eight week study is free to the first 100 dealership employees that register with a dealership email address.

A well-tuned Google Adwords (PPC) campaign is extremely effective in generating car sales leads. Pay per click advertising, when combined with a good landing page, can deliver an excellent ROI. Google display and banner ads, even when they are not clicked, can also increase brand awareness in your local market. If you are not using Google Adwords, you are making your competitors very happy.

During difficult economic times, everyone is evaluating their spending, so I thought I would comment on what I have observed in September and October managing dealer SEM campaigns. In the past month we have seen the most volatile sessions in the history of the stock market. We have seen great companies collapse and other tossed away like dirty rags. It’s a scary time for consumers and for car dealers. This fear is manifesting itself in consumer click behavior.

For car dealers, PPC beats the pants off a full page ad in a local paper. It has more quantifiable results than radio or TV. Many of my car dealer clients have pulled out of the typical Sunday ad section. The money spent on a full page newspaper ad in New Jersey may cost around $2,000 – $3,000 depending on the paper and the results are very hard to track. That same investment in PPC would yield traceable sales results and help to develop your Internet cost per new retail sale.

Economy is Changing CPC rates

In the past month, my automotive clients have actually seen an increase in their costs per click (CPC) and a decrease in conversion. Bids for popular keywords have risen about 20%. My guess is that more car dealers are shifting the ad spending to the Internet. It may also be that dealers are more desperate and throwing money at the Internet without a true digital marketing plan. The costs per click for some keywords are becoming absurd.

In this economy there are more window shoppers than buyers. The data that I am seeing would indicate that dealers should test specific PPC ads vs. more general PPC ads. Dealers should also test different messaging for used cars since used car sales are on the rise.  With CPC rates rising, its important that your ads don’t attract unqualified buyers.

For example, a Google ad that says “Ultimate BMW Car Sale” may generate a lot of clicks and costs but few leads. In this economy, I would suggest that you test a general ad with an ad that is more specific. A specific ad would be “08 BMW X5 $450/m”. The idea is that if someone could only afford a payment of $300 a month, they will not be clicking on your ad and wasting your money.  You can repeat this type of ad test for each model you sell and make sure that ad goes to a model specific landing page.

Free Offers Can Burn Cash

We manage the SEM campaign for an award winning Australian winery. Mollydooker winery tested a free shipping offer on Google this week and had to pull it after 2 days. The ad’s curb appeal was great and generated double the amount of clicks, but the offer resulted in very few purchases.

In this case, I think that people are cutting back on non-essentials. They “act” like they may buy but in the end they are just shopping.  In the Mollydooker example, I get the feeling that consumers are deciding to buy a few bottles of wine locally compared to buying a full case online. When things are great, people don’t mind stocking up on good wine. Today, when cash flow is tight, even free shipping is not enough to get their wallets open.

SEM is actually achieving excellent click rates in this crisis, but the ”offer” should be refined to compensate for the fact that there are more tire kickers surfing teh Internet than those who are ready to buy.  To run an effective Google PPC campaign there should be one standard operating procedure: test and test again. As long as you are testing your ads you will avoid spending good money on bad ideas.   Don’t start a PPC campaign and let it run unsupervised, it could be costing you more than you realize.