Advertising can be a tricky beast, but we’re here to help. How do you capture the attention of your ideal customer? Testing, testing, and more testing! The easiest way to get started with testing is by creating similar ads and testing them against each other, a process known as A/B testing, or A/B/C testing.
Today we’re going to talk about how to easily create tests for your own ads.
Testing Facebook ads
A/B testing helps identify which ad resonates best with your target audience. By creating 2 or 3 ads that have different variables we can see which of the ads performed the best and then replicate something similar to that ad in the future. Different types of variables can be: Messaging, promotion or offering, design/template, CTA (call to action), audience settings, photos/videos, colors, and more.
In this scenario, we’re going to show you 1 ad 3 different ways by changing the text in the ad’s artwork (our variables), while everything else will remain the same. When you create Facebook and Instagram ads in Ripl, you’ll want everything else to be identical except for the variable. That means if your variable is text, the photo or video, call to action, budget, audience, ad objective, timeframe, location, etc. will all need to be exactly the same as each other in order to see which ad performs best in this test.
Facebook ad examples
1. General Awareness (No offer)
In our first example, the text in the ad’s artwork is giving the audience a general idea of what your company offers. Indicating what is special about your company or product, in this case “Organic cotton sweaters” is the main headline. General awareness ads are a great way to get the word out about your business or to introduce a new product or service.
2. Small Offer
In our second example, we’re offering Free Shipping on orders over $50. This creates incentive for the potential customer to visit your website. “Free Shipping” is the large text in order to capture the attention of the scroller.
3. Big Offer
In our third example, we’re offering a bigger incentive to potential customers to get them to click through and visit the website. The main headline “20% off” is likely going to be the first thing that scrollers will see in this ad.
How to analyze Facebook ad testing results
Analyzing your ad results and synthesizing your findings helps to narrow down the ad that speaks to your audience the most. After your ads have stopped running, you’ll want to check the results of each ad that you ran for the test. You’ll likely find that one ad has more clicks than another, in which case, that would be the winner.
With this new understanding of what your audience wants to see, we recommend making ads similar to that one in the future and even run another test against that ad. Facebook and Instagram ads are a constant learning game to see what best captures your audience's attention.
Our Content team has created many Facebook and Instagram ad templates for you to use as a starting point, or feel free to start from scratch. We can’t wait to see how you utilize Facebook and Instagram ads through Ripl to help your business grow!
