One of the biggest reasons that brands fail in their Facebook advertising efforts is that they do not split testSplit testing (or A/B testing) allows you to test changes in Facebook variables like ad creative, audience, or placement to determine which approach performs best. More. They create one ad or two ads or three ads… They don’t find success and they label it a failure.
The key to success with Facebook advertising is no different than the key to success in almost anything: Fail. Fail a lot. Find what works by trying out things that don’t work.
Sound crazy? It’s not. The truth is that most marketing efforts are great ideas that won’t work. If you put all of your eggs into that one basket — without testing and retesting — the odds are stacked against you.
That’s why you must split test. You must try out dozens of variations, fail like crazy and find what doesn’t fail. When you realize something that doesn’t work, stop spending money on it. When you discover something that works, ride it into the ground.
The following should act as your checklist of ways you need to split test your advertising.
1. Copy
You have 90 characters to convince a Facebook user to Like your page or buy your product. That’s hard. You will fail a lot.
In other words, you should split test the heck out of this. Create identical ads in every way, including targeting, but with one exception: Switch up the copy. Use a different call to actionA call-to-action is a button or link on your ad that suggests the action you want your audience to take. Examples: "Learn More" or "Sign Up." More. Substitute words. Try a different tone. Use an exclamation mark in one but not the other.
How you say it is often more important than what you say.
2. Imagery
You’ve been told that imagery is the key to advertising and to success on social media. The problem is that you don’t know what images people will respond to best to make the desired action. And that imagery will be different from person to person and demographic to demographic.
Use different faces. Use an inanimate object. Flip the direction that the person is looking. Use wide and narrow images. Try one that’s black and white and one that’s color. Use a photo with text on it and one without.
3. Destination
You created a terrific ad that attracts the attention of Facebook users. It inspires clicks. The Click Through Rate is incredibly high. Yet… Those same users are abandoning your Page instead of sealing the deal.
Why is that? It’s often because your landing tab didn’t provide what you promised in your ad. So with the same ad, create multiple landing tabs and find which is most successful at fulfilling your business goals after the initial click.
4. CPCFacebook reports on CPC (All) and CPC (Link Click). The first refers to all clicks and the second on all internal and outbound links. More vs. CPMCPM measures the cost per 1,000 impressions. It's a good metric to evaluate competition level and costs to reach your audience. More vs. Optimized
Sometimes you can save money by bidding CPM instead of CPC. Sometimes you’ll throw that money away.
Likewise, Optimized CPM and CPC targets your ads at people most likely to perform a specific action. That also comes with the prospect of much higher costs and bots.
What works best? It depends. Try each one within the same campaignThe campaign is the foundation of your Facebook ad. This is where you'll set an advertising objective, which defines what you want your ad to achieve. More. Whatever works best, run with it.
5. Demographic vs. Demographic
Your ad may be perfect, but it could be targeted at the wrong audienceThis is the group of people who can potentially see your ads. You help influence this by adjusting age, gender, location, detailed targeting (interests and behaviors), custom audiences, and more. More. Maybe your imagery, offer and copy will reachReach measures the number of Accounts Center accounts (formerly users) that saw your ads at least once. You can have one account reached with multiple impressions. More optimal efficiency when targeted at 40-50 year-old men, and you’re throwing money away when targeted at everyone else.
How will you figure out if this is the case? Split test like crazy. Select different imagery and copy that will appeal to a specific demographic. Or try out a generic ad, split tested to age and gender groups.
6. Detailed Targeting vs. No Targeting
Sometimes, you can over think it. If you target an ad too much, you can cut out a segment most likely to positively respond. And when you loosen up targeting, ad pricing typically goes down.
So when you create an ad that could potentially appeal to a large audience, try running it without any targeting at all and see how it does. Who knows? You may have a winner!
You Can Only Fail if You Don’t Try
Don’t tell me in one breath your Facebook advertising failed and in the next say that you only ran one or two ads. The Facebook ads didn’t fail, you did.
Do me a favor: Next time your advertising is struggling, stop. Try something else. Try a dozen “something elses.” Don’t throw money away, but keep trying something new.
Are there any other ways that you split test your ads? Let me know in the comments below!
