Most companies have one issue in common: they have to make do with a small advertising budget. This is true not just for start-ups or home-based businesses, but also for small- and medium-sized enterprises. To be frank, there is a huge spending power gap between large companies and everyone else. This means that marketing managers and business owners need to be very careful about every cent they spend on ads.
Since the most popular and cost effective ads are Facebook™ ads, today we will focus on the specifics of creating and setting up ads with a high rate of conversion. The only way in which you can reach the exact design/content and the exact audience for a high conversion rate is through A/B testing.
We have used this term quite frequently in our past articles – so what does it exactly mean? It means simply creating various ads and testing them either on different audiences or picking an audience and testing various ads on it. It does seem a little confusing, right? This is why today we will show you the most effective A/B tests you should perform on Facebook™ ads for maximum conversion.
1. The Placement Test
Facebook™ currently offers five different types of placements for ads. These placements are available for desktop only, for mobile only and for desktop and mobile. While it may seem like a great idea to go for the desktop and mobile ad placement, you should find out what type of ad is more appealing to your audience, both by placement and platform.
If you find that your mobile only ads perform significantly better than your desktop ads, this tells you something about your audience: they mainly use their mobile phone to browse Facebook™. This knowledge will help you create both content and ads which are specifically designed to attract and be easily accessible on the mobile screen.
2. The Design Test
This is probably the most comprehensive set of A/B tests for Facebook™ ads. As a rule, when you come up with an ad idea you should develop it into several formats and designs. Replace static visuals with a short film, change the colour of the CTA button or the words in the copy, and so on.
One way to test a specific set of ads is to expose the same audience to two versions of the ad at different times. Another, and more comprehensive, test involves splitting the audience into two (or several) groups according to criteria relevant for your business (age, gender, marital status, etc.) and to expose these groups alternately to the two different ads.
3. The Interests Test
This is also a comprehensive test and it is meant to help you not only refine your ads, but learn more about the interests, likes, and hobbies of your target audience. By including or excluding various interests when defining target audiences, you can find out what is the fine connection between people’s personal interests and their preference for your products. The results of this test will help you create content and ads which appeal more to your target audience by focusing on topics, and emotional and logical appeal in line with their preferences.
4. The Age and Gender Tests
Most companies target people of both sexes and a large age span with their products and services. If this is your case, then you should find out exactly what type of ad is more appealing to various age groups and to each gender. The most common types of age-related A/B tests split audiences in the 18-25, 26-45, and 46+ bands.
At this point, it is worth making a small observation: do not make pointless and costly tests which will only confirm you what you already know. For example, if you sell outdoor extreme sports equipment, it is unlikely that you will find customers in the 65+ age group.
5. Use the Adequate Prioritisation in A/B Tests
It is important to test your ads in a cost efficient manner – this means that you cannot afford to run dozens of tests on the same audience or for the same ad campaign. In order to avoid costly experiments, here is the top levels of priority you should assign to your audience when selecting various groups to expose them to your ads:
- Country
- Gender
- Interests
- Age
This prioritisation is the result of painstaking analysis of numerous campaigns run by various companies and totalling millions of dollars spent on Facebook™ ads.
As a final thought, A/B testing should become a second nature to you, and not just for Facebook™ ads. If you want to see your conversion rates going up, do not let loose any ad out there without proper testing, adapting and refining.