Test with confidence with the Experiments page

Official guide to Search & Display experiments in Google Ads.

Computer monitor with different graphs. To the right there is a laptop with an illustrated ad.

Running experiments can help you understand the impact of your changes and improve campaign performance. To make it even easier for you to test in your account, the Experiments page can help you create, manage, and optimize your experiments in one place.


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1. Set a clear hypothesis

Your hypothesis should reveal why you’re running the experiment and should be tied to your business goal.

Why: Your hypothesis will help you determine whether your experiment was successful or not. For example, your hypothesis may be that switching your bidding strategy to Target ROAS will drive a higher conversion value for your acquisition campaigns compared to Target CPA.


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2. Create your experiment

Test one variable at a time.

Why: Testing more than one variable at a time makes it difficult to identify which element drove the better outcome. For example, you might be trying to compare two different headlines for your responsive search ad, but if you also use two different bidding strategies, you won’t know whether it was the headline or the bidding strategy that contributed to the winning experiment.

Pick one or two metrics to gauge the success of your tests before a test begins.

Why: This will most often be the main goal for your account, such as total sales or cost per action. When it’s time to end a test, let that metric tell you the winner.

Avoid making changes to your base campaigns unless sync is on.

Why: When you make changes to a base campaign during an experiment, it becomes difficult to understand which of those changes impacted your original experiment.


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3. Analyze results and choose experiment winners

Implement what you’ve learned in your future campaigns.

Why: The most critical step of any experiment is updating your tactics based on what you’ve learned. You have the option to update an original campaign or convert to a new campaign. Updating an original campaign will port all changes over to your current campaign, which preserves that campaign’s history. Consider new campaigns if you’re testing a new campaign structure, or if you want to preserve findings from a learning period, update your original campaign.

Keep records of your experiments.

Why: As you continue testing in your account, prioritizing what to test will be easier if you keep records of tests you’ve performed in the past. Plus, standardizing insights from past experiments will help you tap into them for your next campaign, and track and benchmark the value of your efforts.

Case Study

Fiverr logo

Fiverr, a global online marketplace for freelance services, has tested the new Experiments page to easily manage multiple experiments. “Thanks to this feature we’re able to test various landing pages and ads, so we can improve our performance,” said Gabi Vatmakhter, Senior PPC Specialist at Fiverr.


Visit the Experiments page in Google Ads to get started.



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