From the February 2009 issue of our newsletter, Let's Grow. For a FREE subscription, CLICK HERE. 

Find Your Customers’ Hot Buttons Fast

Most people think of Google AdWords (Google's pay- per-click advertising program) as a way to generate web traffic, and of course that's its main function. Another useful feature that many people aren't aware of is its testing capabilities.

Which Ads Work Best? The simplest testing option AdWords offers is copy testing. To run multiple ads simultaneously, just click on the Ad Variations tab for any keyword, and you'll find an option at the bottom to create an ad variation.

For any keyword, you can run as many ads simultaneously as you like. When testing, it's best to switch from Google's default, which shows the best-performing ads more often, to show ads evenly over time. You can do so by clicking on Edit Settings for the campaign you're working with, and scrolling down to the Scrolling and Serving section.

Test Scientifically. The limited characters available for headline and description don't give you a lot to work with, but try to change just one variable at a time. Test one headline against another and keep the description the same on both. Changing a single adjective in the description sometimes makes a surprising difference. Likewise, starting with an active verb often beats a straightforward description that conveys the same information.

AdWords then reports how often each ad was shown, the number of clicks each received, and if you're using their conversion tracking tool, how many sales each generated. Continued testing against a control helps you isolate the strongest variables. Combine winning elements, and you may boost responses significantly while determining which hot buttons to emphasize in your other advertising.

Which Landing Pages Works Best? Not only does Google allow you to test ads, but you can also test landing pages. You do so by using the method above to create two identical ads, specifying two different web pages as the destination URLs.

Even Better Web Page Testing. If you test two completely different web pages, you won't know what elements caused one to work better the other. To be more scientific about it, you can use Google's Website Optimizer feature that allows for multivariate testing. Here's how it works. Let's say you want to test 3 headlines, 2 photos and 2 different types of "buy now" buttons; that's 12 total combinations. Creating each one manually would be time-consuming, and testing them one by one would be a lengthy process.

With Website Optimizer, Google automatically creates all 12 combinations, tests them simultaneously and reports the results for each. You get scientific results much faster and more easily.

If budget tightening is making it tough for you to do much testing, have a look at Google AdWord's testing options. Despite its limitations, you can still learn a lot on a limited budget to help you make the most of all your advertising.