Creating an AdSense Split Test in WordPress

After you’ve installed AmpedSense, you’re ready to start AB testing! Get excited – you’re going to increase your AdSense revenue and know you’ve got the best possible AdSense setup!

1. Determine Your Test Plan

Think about your testing strategy. Do you want to test the size of your ads? Which sizes? Or do you first want to test the type of ads – banner or text? Or something else? You will eventually be able to test all different attributes of your ads, but it’s best to come up with an AdSense testing plan so your first test doesn’t have 32 combinations running (the more combinations, the longer it takes for your test to complete!).

2. Decide the Traffic Segment of your Test

Do you want these ads to be shown on all pages and posts of your site, or perhaps just your index page? Do you want this to run on all devices, or maybe just your mobile traffic. Define how you want to seperate the traffic on your site by setting up some segments first.

3. Create Your Test

Ad recipes are ads (or sets of ads) that you test against other recipes to see which recipe gives you the most revenue. You will have multiple recipes running whenever you are testing. Let’s pretend for your first test you decide to test the size of your ads. We’ll create multiple recipes with the same settings, except the ad size will be different. In the AmpedSense admin, click ‘Create new recipe’ under the segment you want this to run in.

create1

Choose the first size you’re going to test, for example: 300 x 250 Medium Rectangle. Set the ad type, where you want it to display, and name it. If you want to see how it looks before you save it, hit the ‘Preview’ link.

create

Before you can save it, you must let Google know about this ad, by creating a custom channel. After you’ve named your ad, a channel name will be generated for you in the gray box. Click on the link to go to Google AdSense and paste the name of the channel as what was specified. Once the new channel has been created, go back to your AmpedSense admin and finish creating the ad by clicking ‘Create Ad Recipe’.

createchannel

You’ll be able to see your new ad listed in the table. Go ahead and click on one of the preview links so you can see a sample of your new ad in action!

Now repeat the same process except change the ad size. Keep all other values the same, and give it a different name. Keep going for as many ad sizes you want to try!

4. You’re Done!

That’s it! Your ads are now running and you can start to see stats in about 30 minutes (Google delays the reporting a bit).

Monitor your test over the next few days to see how your ad recipes are performing in your AB test. It may take as few as a couple hours to determine a winner, or as long as a few weeks depending on how much traffic you get. Examine the CTR, RPM, and earnings and you’ll be able to see which ad setup is the most profitable for you. If you are having a hard time, use your favorite split test calculator.

Once you’re happy with the results of a split test and ready to pick a winner, simply delete the loser ads in rotation and all your traffic will see the winning configuration. Let the money roll in!

create

Video Tutorial

Watch this video for a demonstration of the steps above:

8 thoughts on “Creating an AdSense Split Test in WordPress

  1. Hi ampedsense,

    is there another post that explain split test in great detail ?

    i already tried it on my site, but i still feel confused..

    • Hi Yudha – I understand, setting up any new plugin can be confusing. Have you watched the video on this page? It’s a little outdated (actually the process is easier than the video suggests), but should get you there. What part was confusing you?

    • Hi Abdirizak – There has been some uncertainty as to whether stickied ads are allowed according to the Google guidelines. For that reason, AmpedSense does not offer a ‘sticky’ position where ads are docked to the window.

  2. Hi ampedsense,
    I’ve created an entry for Tablets & Phones, created the channel on Adsense Google page with the name generated, but error comes up on ampedsense: “Couldn’t find channel – please add New Custom Channel named “XXX”. Click when done
    Can you help, please.
    Thanks

    • Hi Maria – Hmm…sounds like you did everything right – can you double check that you authenticated with the same AdSense account that has the new channels added to it?

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