Split testing is CRUCIAL for your paid ad campaigns because it allows you to figure out exactly what your audience is responding to and gives you the ability to maximize your advertising dollars! Split testing (also known as A/B testing) is a method used to describe the process of running marketing experiments to see which version connects better with your audience. In this article, you’ll discover how to split test objectives through your sales, and understanding which metrics deliver the best insights for your Facebook ad campaigns.
If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness - Jeff Bezos
Approximately 2.23 billion people log on to Facebook every month, and a good split test can increase ROI by 10x. However, as you get started you’ll realize that there are so many things you’d like to test:
The rookie mistake you’re likely to make at this point is creating an A/B test with too many changing variables. Thankfully, you won’t have to aimlessly conduct trial and error experiments. Facebook’s Split Testing tool enables you to choose the marketing objective for your campaign easily, and walks you through the rest of the steps. You will choose your variable, budget, and duration for your test. Split testing to determine the most suitable target audience can be done by specifying which group of users will see each ad set, and then customizing other demographic information such as location, age, gender, languages, interests and behavior. If you have not created a custom audience yet, you can do so based on the different types of users who have already engaged with your page.
Your Facebook page traffic can be narrowed down into three types—cold, warm and hot with multiple campaigns at each level of your sales funnel.
Split testing at this first stage in the conversion funnel usually entails setting up lookalike audiences and experimenting with creative, budgets or placement elements.
Split testing at this engagement stage in the conversion funnel usually entails setting up custom audiences and experimenting with creative, objectives or placement elements.
Split testing at these final stages in the conversion funnel usually entails setting up custom audiences and experimenting with creative, product sets or placement elements.
For e-commerce clients, which ultimately optimize for purchases, we suggest to start split tests with an Add to Cart or Checkout Initiation optimization goal first. Facebook will optimize for a more shallow conversion in a funnel which may be obtained at lower CPAs, so your variable testing will produce statistically significant and relevant actionable results. We recommend running every test for at least 5-7 days depending on the variable being tested and the budget you have.
The number of ad performance metrics Facebook offers might seem overwhelming at first. All of them can be used to measure the success of your campaigns. Here are a few metrics most paid social media specialists usually use to define success:
The golden rule of running split tests is quite simple–use them to test measurable hypotheses. Now, it’s time to put new learning into practice. Head over to your Facebook Ads Manager, and up your game! Want more performance out of your Facebook ads? Reach out to us on our Facebook Community.
Thanks for reading,
Joe
