Experiments help you make informed decisions about how to configure your ad settings, and can help you increase your earnings. Running an experiment lets you compare one of your ad settings against a variation of that setting to discover which one performs better. This article provides answers to some frequently asked questions about experiments in AdSense.
Common questions about experiments in AdSense
- What are experiments?
- Which ad settings can I compare in experiments?
- How do I run an experiment?
- Will I have to change my ad code?
- How long will my experiment take to finish?
- How do I know if my experiment is complete?
- Do I have to choose the winner of an experiment?
- When do I choose a winner?
- Can I stop an experiment part way through?
What are experiments?
Experiments allow you to compare the performance of different ad settings. They work by splitting your site’s traffic between the two ad settings, so that their performance can be measured side by side. Experiments help you to make informed decisions about how to configure your ad settings, and can help you to increase your earnings.
Which ad settings can I compare in experiments?
The following ad settings are available for use in experiments:
- Auto ads: You can compare different Auto ads settings on your site.
Note: You can't run experiments on the following Auto ad settings:
- Blocking controls: The following ad blocking settings are available for experiments:
- General ad categories (including first level sub-categories)
- Sensitive ad categories
- Ad serving opt-outs
- Search styles: You can experiment with different search styles for your Search ads.
How do I run an experiment?
There are two ways to create experiments. You can either:
- Create your own experiment - you set up the experiment yourself by choosing the ad setting and creating the variation.
- Run an experiment from an opportunity on your "Optimization" page - we set up the experiment for you based on the settings change described in the opportunity.
Will I have to change my ad code?
No. You don’t need to make any changes to your ad code to run an experiment.
How long will my experiment take to finish?
You choose when to end your experiment. However, we recommend that you wait until your experiment is marked "Result ready" before you choose a setting as the winner. Depending on the volume of traffic to the settings that you're running the experiment on, this might take from several days to one or two months.
How do I know if my experiment is complete?
Your experiment is complete once it has gathered enough data—we'll let you know when that's the case.
Do I have to choose the winner of an experiment?
When you create an experiment, you can opt to let Google choose the winner for you. Google will automatically apply the winning setting after your experiment has finished. If you prefer not to select this option, then you'll need to choose the winner of the experiment yourself.
When do I choose a winner?
We recommend that you wait until your experiment is marked "Result ready" before you choose a setting as the winner.
Can I stop an experiment part way through?
Yes. You can end an experiment at any time by clicking Keep original on your Experiments" page. We’ll revert your settings back to the way they were before you started the experiment.
