Many people are busy creating the right content for social media. Think of advertisements and organic posts! It is extremely important to test regularly to ensure that you reach your target audience as effectively as possible with the right alignment of text & images. It must be a golden combination that delivers the most optimal results, such as more traffic, leads, and/or conversions. But what do you look at and how can you test your ads?
Why test ads?
Why is testing so important? Testing is not only essential when you are just starting with advertising on social media, but also when you have been doing it for years. By testing different aspects within campaigns, ad sets, and ad materials, you learn more about your target audience and can better respond to their intent to convert. This also applies to the content of your ad. What can you test within a single ad?
- Text: which tone-of-voice appeals best to your target audience? Use of emoticons or not?
- Images: Does a photo work better than a video or vice versa?
- Headlines: Which headline generates more traffic and conversions?
- A Call-to-action or information about your product/service
- Buttons: Which button yields a higher click-through rate or conversions?
- 'more information' or 'download'?
- Landing page: Do you want to land directly on a product page or is a category page better?
- Ad type: Are my costs per result lower with a static image or with a carousel?
In this way, you can test different aspects of an ad to find out flawlessly how you can better approach your target audience. Small adjustments can lead to greater results, but know well what you want to test and what you want to achieve. There is no straight line to success. Sometimes you miss the mark, but with testing, you ensure that you know how to improve and achieve good results.
Test your ad types
There are several types of ads you can work with, namely static image, carousel, or collection ads. Very interesting to know which ad type works best and where you achieve the most optimal results. A test has been set up with a carousel and collection ad.
From this test, version A came out with the most optimal results. In addition to reaching more people, the following results came from this test:
- 300% more additions to cart
- With 46% reduced in cost per result
- 44% more purchases
During such a test, you can find out that a different ad type yields better results and that you can get more out of your ad. These are small adjustments you can apply to your ads.
Atmosphere versus product photos
How can you ensure that you get more traffic to the website? You can test the ads by using different images while keeping the rest of the ads the same, such as text, buttons, and headlines. The expectation may be that atmospheric images work better than product photos or vice versa. By setting this up in the form of an A/B test, you can find out which version achieves the most optimal results! See below:
Looking at CTR, both are already well above Facebook's average, namely ± 1.5%. This shows that it is possible to exceed Facebook's CTR average and achieve optimal results with the best image!
Testing texts
There are multiple ways you can test a text. Think, for example, of a text with emoticons versus without emoticons. Or as in this example, the difference in USPs and testing which ad delivers the most optimal result. This test was in the conversion campaign and the goal was to achieve purchases, but with which ad do we generate more purchases? Below you see what was tested and remember, it is different for everyone, but it is a nice example to show what a small adjustment can do.
The first sentence is the same, but the second sentence is slightly different. What did we learn from this test? Version B performed best and achieved the following:
- 91.2% more additions to cart than version A
- 5.7% higher CTR than version A
- 78.8% more purchases than version A
Very nice results given the goal of the campaign, namely to achieve more purchases. This way, you know that text variant B works better and that you can also apply it further in your other ads. And know that it never stops after an A/B test. Continuing to test is extremely important to achieve greater results from small changes.
Get started with testing your ad materials
While reading this blog, you have learned more about testing your social media ads and that it is extremely important. So start quickly and ensure that you achieve the most optimal results. Here are three tips you can work with:
- There are no rules you must follow.
Make sure you know what you want to test and that the difference is clear.
- Time is precious.
To run a good test, you need to give it time. Keep a test active for at least two weeks to see a significant difference. This way, you can also conclude what works and what doesn't.
- Do not test everything at once.
Testing too much at once does not ensure that you will achieve optimal results. Make sure you complete an A/B test first before starting a new A/B test. This way, you can analyze all the data best.
Would you like to get started with A/B testing your social media ads but don't know where to start? Feel free to contact us.
