Over the last few weeks, AdWords has been slowly rolling out campaign drafts and several of the accounts I manage now have that feature as an option. AdWords campaign drafts will enable you to test the impact of changes you are considering with a traffic split in experiment mode, so that you can easily view the impact on your data before fully committing to a change that could have a negative implication.

To locate drafts, click into one of your campaigns and you’ll see a new “Drafts” button next to the date range widget.

Click on the drop-down and choose to create a new draft.

Once you have named your draft, you’ll be taken to a mirror campaign mode, where you can make changes you’re looking to test just like you would in a regular campaign. For example, you may want to switch from manual bidding to Conversion Optimizer CPA bidding or you could test the impact of raising mobile bids.

Once you’ve edited your draft campaign, click on the “Apply” button on the top right of the screen next to the dates and choose the run this as an experiment.

Choose your experiment settings, including experiment split, which is the percentage of your campaign’s budget that’s allocated to your experiment.

You’ll be able to check in on this experiment and how it’s performing in your campaign management page by clicking on “All experiments” just above the shared library link on the bottom left.

Here’s a snapshot of what it looks like when you have an experiment in progress.

Not only can you see the differences between performances in your original campaign and experiment mode (indicated with up or down arrows), but Google also shows you if a difference is statistically significant or likely not due to chance.

If the changes you have been testing are having a positive impact, you can apply them and choose to either update your original campaign or create a new campaign.

Happy Testing!