Looking to take your results advertising on FB to the next level?
With sales and traffic surging for online businesses while physical businesses are still for the most part shut down, or running at a limited capacity, there’s never been a better time for doubling down on your paid ad efforts.
If you have any experience with running ads on Facebook, you know that A/B testing is critical to maximize your efforts.
They give you the ability to test multiple different elements to figure out what works the best for your audience and budget.
However, blindly going into A/B testing is practically the same as not running the tests at all…
Marketers fail when they’re not sure what they’re measuring with A/B tests, their audiences aren’t optimized, or their budget and time table isn’t efficient.
When you put all the right elements and research into A/B testing, not only will you be able to clearly see the winners of your ads, you’ll be increasing the effectiveness and reach of all ads going forward.
1. Test One Element At a Time
Facebook allows you test multiple different elements when running A/B tests for your ads.
What elements can you test?
Facebook currently supports the following elements:
- Target audience
- Delivery optimization
- Placements
- Creative
- Product sets
It’s key to only test each element at a time. For example, in one A/B test, the ads should be identical minus your call to action.
To truly test the effectiveness of each element, you’ll need to isolate it when you run ads.
2. Non-Over Lapping Audiences
This follows the same principle as the first point; making sure that elements you’re testing are isolated.
Therefore, when you’re testing two different ads against each other, you’ll need to make sure that the audiences aren’t overlapping.
If the same people are viewing the same ads, you won’t know for sure how well the ads are actually working.
To verify that the audiences aren’t overlapping, make simple changes like age, interest, or demographic targeting.
3. Budget/Timeframe
When you’re running A/B tests, you’re not following the same procedure as you would running a standard ad campaign.
You’ll need to make sure that the tests run for a minimum of 3 days to accurately depict how well they’re working.
Any less than three days, and Facebook won’t have enough data to present to you.
By setting your budget lower than normal ads, you’ll be able to test the different elements at a much lower cost to you.
Once you’ve determined the most effective ad sets from the winners of your A/B tests, you’ll be able to dump much more money into them and see greater results.
Conclusion
With A/B testing, you get out what you put in…
If your tests are rushed, without any real thought to your audiences, or what exactly you’re testing, you’ll end the test feeling just as confused as when you started.
However, when you have specific goals in mind each time you run your tests, and are able to understand and track the progress of them, your regular ad campaigns will benefit greatly.
There’s no limit to how many tests you run. Keep running them until you find the perfect ad, then see how you can optimize that even further!
operations & marketing. cofounder @hoo.be / @ImMakingADifference
