Today I began to think about the phrase “a/b testing”.  I know that split testing is most commonly used by PPC managers as a selling point for their services.  But in reality you could be a/b testing landing pages, ads, and even duplicate keywords amongst several campaigns.  I wonder how often a client hears that from their managers.

I realized that I have never even explained, or honestly, consciously defined it myself.  Most often I would tell clients that I do split testing in reference to Ad a/b testing.  However, this is just one tool in our box.  There are different strategies and practices that can also be likened to a/b splitting as well.  As a client, I would appreciated knowing what the ppc managers mean when they commit to split testing.

For example, often times I test similar landing pages and measure within analytics.  Other times I will find out how well a keyword performs in a new campaign or adgroup with different budgets, geo’s, etc.  I think I ought to begin describing to clients exactly when and why we would being the different types of a/b split testing .  Just a quick thought…