In a competitive, ever-changing marketplace, the process of testing and optimisation is essential for advertisers wanting to stay ahead of the curve.

There are numerous ad assets available, and almost endless combinations of creative that could be deployed – continual testing is vital to keep pace with a dynamic marketplace and ensure the most effective ad format and messaging is being used to compel audiences to take action.

Creating a robust optimisation strategy is key, as is building in routine and ongoing review and testing processes.

This report describes the tools and strategies advertisers need for testing and optimising paid search campaigns to ensure success. It covers:

  • Bid management systems: Used by many businesses, from large organisations paying for thousands of clicks per month to smaller companies that use pay per click as a key revenue driver, what are the advantages and disadvantages to these platforms, and how are they best deployed?
  • Ad assets: Google is continuously innovating in this area, rolling out new ad formats for advertisers to use in their campaigns. What are the different asset types available, and how are these best applied?
  • Testing and optimising creative: Search patterns and user behaviour are constantly changing, and so iterative testing and optimisation is key. How should advertisers approach the process?
  • Landing page strategy: The ability to convert search traffic depends on the strength of the landing page, conversely, quality landing pages make ads more competitive. What 12 key guidelines should advertisers follow to maximise the effectiveness of their landing pages?
  • Web analytics: Web analytics give insight to the second half of the search journey – how can advertisers feed results from web analytics back into search strategy?

This report is part of Econsultancy’s Paid Search Best Practice Bundle and has been created with the help and insight of expert paid search practitioners to help marketers succeed in their paid search strategy.