AD VALUE Tony Fagan, Director of Research at Google, answers the six quant questions every CMO should be asking in order to maximise their return on search advertising. W o r d s b y T o n y Fa g a n ILLUS T RA T IONS B Y A D A M H AY E S
Welcome to the age of experiments. At Google, we believe that online advertising is a more measurable medium than television, radio and print. How can we be sure? Because we look at the stats. Business is about trial and error, but with statistics comes a method to make the process work better. With the data generated from search, click-through and conversion rates, we’re able to address and improve ad campaigns on the fly. The process is called ‘test-and-learn’ and it’s the gold standard for calculating
whether something caused something else. In marketing, we call them ‘A/B tests’. The idea is simple: test A versus B to see which one works better. That gives us the ‘incremental’ improvement – the difference between doing something and not doing it. We can use these experiments to address six commonly asked questions about running search ad campaigns on Google. The answers will give you an insight into how to make online advertising work efficiently for your organisation.
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