1. Determine Your Test Objective

 Before you grab your lab coat, test tubes, and beakers, it’s important to have a plan of attack. Otherwise, you may end up like Dr. Frankenstein with a monster of your own creation. You should think about what you want your test objective to be. As contractors, we have unique goals and metrics. The customer journey is very different from other types of companies that advertise on social media. The commitment is a lot greater and the services we offer are typically need-based. If you aren’t sure about what your test objective should be, think about some issues or opportunities for improvement that you see with your current ads.

 

2. Discover Your Variables

 After you’ve decided what your objective is going to be, you should think about what variable you’re going to test. With social advertising, there are so many pieces of your campaigns to experiment with. Below are just a few of the different variables you can choose from.

 

●      Images

●      Videos

●      Ad copy

●      Headlines

●      Landing pages

●      CTA’s

 

3. Choose Your Testing Method

 Whatever your intended goal may be for your test, you need to figure out what testing method will work best for your scenario. Let’s say you’ve been running ads on Facebook for a while. Lately, you’ve noticed that the website traffic from your Facebook ads has gone down and you believe creative fatigue might be the cause. You have 2 new ideas for ad copy, but you aren’t sure which version will perform best. In this instance, an A/B test would probably be your best bet. It would allow you to compare the results each version of the ad copy obtained. Now, your situation may not be as cut and dry. You may have to break out the magnifying glass to see what test methodologies will work best to accomplish your objective.

 

4. Define Your Metrics

 Understanding how you’re going to measure the results of your campaign is important also. Let's go back to the scenario we mentioned earlier about A/B testing. If your goal for the test is to see which ad copy will drive more traffic to the website, then the metric you use to measure the experiment should make sense with your objective. In this scenario, measuring link clicks or website sessions will allow you to grasp how well your campaign is performing.

 

5. Analyze Your Results & Take Action!

 When performing tests, it's crucial that you analyze your results. Oftentimes we implement changes to social ads and the impact of those changes are never carried out to their full potential. After completing a test, ask questions about the data and see how you can use that information to improve future ads. Even if the results were negative, examine what choices you made to improve upon next time. 

 Remember to not get discouraged by negative results either. If scientists were discouraged every time an experiment failed, we wouldn’t have a lot of the advancements we have today. A test might fail and that’s okay. Maybe what you thought might happen didn’t happen. Dig in deeper. Ask more questions and keep testing. Don’t let one bad test intimidate you from starting another. You may find in your next experiment that testing other variables work better.

 

6. Go Beyond Social Advertising

 Social advertising is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to testing. Running tests on your website ads, connected tv ads, and other platforms can help improve your companies brand awareness. When you’re ready to put on the lab coat and turn on the bunsen burners, remember that the BrandBlaster team is always here to help with your advertising test. We can offer advice for tests you’re running on your own or we can implement tests on campaigns we currently have running for you. It’s time to experiment, analyze, learn and repeat!