About how many days should you run a pay per click ad test to know if your campaign is working or not?

[Dick Whitman]

I'm considering running both PPC Google Ad Words and small ads on Facebook. How many days should I run ad for to get a good read on whether or not they're working?

Thanks

[Jason]

Rather than thinking in terms of days, I would suggest you think in terms of impressions and clicks. 1000 clicks is usually enough to form a solid opinion on a particular landing page, but if you're test budget isn't big enough for 1,000 test clicks, then 300 clicks would be my minimum.

Of course, 300 clicks for one specific landing page and one specific ad would be best. When you start to include multiple ads, it's harder to make a judgment about what's working and what isn't.

The same goes for Facebook really, but I would suggest focusing on AdWords first. The ROI is usually very good on AdWords, but I've had only minimal success with FB.

[Joy]

You should run your PPC test campaign for at least 7 days. Some products sell better in the weekdays and some over the weekends. It might be premature to base your decisions on 1-2 days' worth of data.

For the entire test budget, I like to use 2 times the commission payout to test. Say if commission is $35, I will take $70 spread over 7 days, ie. a daily budget of $10.

A daily budget of $10 may seem small, but you get to collect conclusive data over a week rather than to blow your entire $70 in one day.

Based on a ballpark figure of 1% conversion rate, you may take 100 clicks to get your first sale.

Once a campaign has proven to breakeven or gets some sales, you can start to increase your budget.

I advertise a lot on Adwords and Yahoo Search as it's easier to convert people who are consciously searching for information.