How well are your social media adverts converting?
If they’re not performing as you’d hoped, it’s probably about time you took some time to split test some of them to see how you can improve them.
If it’s been a long time since you did split tests or you’ve never done them at all, this is something you’re going to want to resolve as soon as possible.
Also known as A/B testing, split testing is all about trying out slightly different versions of the same ad to see which performs better.
This takes a huge amount of guesswork out of the equation so there’s no need to take guesses on how much engagement your ad will get or how well it will convert.
And if you have definite confirmation that something is working well, you can justify spending marketing budget on it in the future. This is a big deal if you don’t have a lot of budget to play around with and need as much of it as possible to count in your favor.
How Split Testing Works
With split testing, the two versions of a particular ad should be very similar but subtly different.
This lets you get a very good idea of what it was that led to better results. If you change too many things at once, you’ll have no real clue which of them was instrumental in triggering any increase in performance and this defeats the object of doing a split test!
Changing one thing at a time gives you the best basis to see this. This can be things like using different wording between the two ads, adding a photo to just one of the ads, using different photos on the ads, using video on one ad and a photo on the other, or changing the Call to Action (CTA) on the ad.
On Facebook ads, split testing could involve some of the following scenarios: person versus no person photos, just asn image versus an image with text overlaid, and a CTA button versus no CTA button.
You can also split test on the demographics for posts to see which audience responds more positively.
If you want to test out several different things, it’s best to do this one at a time. Sure, it’ll take longer but it should give you more idea how each change is really affecting the ad’s performance.
Tracking the Results of Split Testing
When you post each of the two ads that you’re split testing, they need to be live for the same length of time so you can track how they’re performing over the equivalent period.
Running split tests over a very short period can affect the results as you may not get data from them to get an accurate picture of how well the ads are performing.
An ad with more clicks isn’t necessarily the one you want to go with. If an ad gets fewer clicks but more conversions, it will be outperforming one that gets a bigger number of clicks but isn’t doing well in terms of conversions.
image: mailerlite
