Google's Gift to E-mail Marketers – Rapid Copy Testing

By John Lawlor

The mantra of direct and e-mail marketing has long been “test, test, test.” But testing takes planning, time and money. While testing may not be as costly as running a campaign using an opt-in rental list that draws a low response, it is still costly. As e-mail response rates decline, the importance of testing increases.

             Mountain View, CA-based Google Inc., the leading innovator in the world of search engines, recently gave the direct marketing world a huge gift with its new AdWords Select program, which enables marketers to manage their own account with cost-per-click pricing. The AdWords Select program is the best thing to happen to e-mail marketing in the last five years!

            While this may sound like a paid endorsement for Google, it isn’t. The company has taken the concept of pay-per-click search results to a new level and, in the process, made copy- and concept-testing available to every e-mail marketer. In fact, Google’s AdWords Select program has opened the door to a new level of rapid, cost-effective copy testing.

            A successful e-mail campaign depends primarily on the words used and the list mailed to. While there are many factors that marketers can not control, assuming the mailing list is well chosen, the subject line is the most important factor that you can control. Pre-testing multiple variations of subject line copy within Google’s AdWords Select program can increase your response rates and lower some of the risks usually associated with more expensive opt-in rental campaigns.

Google’s ads can accommodate 95 characters -- that’s twice the width of most people’s e-mail client display. By using Google as a subject pre-testing vehicle, you will be able to quickly determine which words and phrases are most effective at attracting your target audience.

            There are a number of benefits of pre-testing multiple subject lines with Google’s AdWords Select:

• Quick Results: Within hours of setting up a series of test ads tied to specific keywords or keyphrases, you will see which subject lines generate the best results based on premium exposure on standard Google search results pages.
• Easy Changes: The AdWords Select interface makes changing copy effortless and those changes go into effect almost immediately.
• One-stop Reporting/Analysis: Google automatically provides most of the analysis you need to evaluate and adjust your pre-test. It displays current impressions, clicks and click-thru rate for each keyphrase and ad.
• Minimal Upfront Cost and No Minimum Commitment: There is a $5 upfront cost to establish each AdWords Select account. After that, you only pay for the clicks that your ads generate and only for as long as you wish to test the ad.
• Low Risk: Google lets you establish the maximum you are willing to pay per click on each ad, but only charges based on the current value of the keyphrase clicked. If your copy doesn’t generate a response, you have paid almost nothing. If the ad performs well, you can use it as a control to test other ads.

So what’s the bad news?

• While Google has created a product that benefits e-mail marketers, its primary business is delivering relevant search results to Internet users. It has a very strict set of editorial guidelines and its human “AdWords specialists” review each ad submitted. Learning to live within Google’s system seems a small price to pay for such a great testing environment.
• The company imposes several other restrictions that prohibit some common direct mail copy practices, like excessive punctuation, capitalized and repetitive words. Google forces you to focus on the words, not on the gimmicks. So save your sales copy for the e-mail campaign itself or, better yet, the sales site. Very few people have ever bought a product or service only from the subject line of an email message.
• The company won’t let you run non-performing ads very long. If your ad has dipped below its click-thru rate expectations on any keyphrase (between 0.5 percent and 1 percent) it will disable your ad or the under performing keyphrases until you make changes.

But is that really bad news? Google’s system put the focus on creating ad copy that gets a response from an interested audience. Isn’t that the purpose of using direct marketing in the first place?

And now for a little office fun.

Has anyone in your office ever second-guessed your copy, or suggested that their subject line would work better than the one that was used? Well, I’d like to suggest that you start a little friendly competition that allows two or more people to create their own Google AdWords Select ads and have a click-off right there in your office! Give the second-guessers a chance to prove themselves right. You never know, their “dumb” idea might generate your best response rate.

Google AdWords Select, I salute you. You may have injected new life into e-mail response rates.

© Copyright 2003 John Lawlor 561-750-8095
email: john @ johnlawlor.com .
Last update: 12/24/2003; 12:09:31 AM .