Facebook and Instagram ad split-testing and optimisation

Posted on by Marie Page

Split testing Facebook ads, even using Power Editor, has always been a tedious and laborious process. Thanks to our new Facebook Marketing Partner service we now have this cracked and our advertising effectiveness is improving dramatically as a result with a similar decrease in the amount of time and effort we are putting into the process. And we can easily do the same for Instagram ads too.

We are now able to easily split test variants of ads. Plus we can even auto-optimise the best performing elements as the campaign progresses (just as with Google CPC ads) .

What would you want to test in a Facebook (or Instagram) ad?

Of course there are multiple elements that make up a typical Facebook ad – both elements that the viewer sees and also elements related to timing, targeting, positioning and more. Best practice of course would be to test each of these. Can you imagine how complicated that would get using conventional methods?

We’ve been there the traditional route and found it complex, confusing and frustrating. So pleased to now be working with a tool that simplifies this for us. Testing options now available to us include:

  • Headlines
  • Ad text
  • Images
  • Urls
  • Demographic targets – gender, age, relationship, family status, industries, life events and more
  • Education level, fields of study, employers, job titles (yes – it’s all getting a bit LinkedIn for B2B advertising)
  • Location – which towns, counties or countries perform best?
  • Placement – desktop vs mobile newsfeeds vs right column
  • Best of all you can test by interest, even using COMBINED INTEREST targeting

In all we can test up to 250 variants in any one campaign. And thanks to optimisation, the campaign can be set to utilise the best performing elements automatically.

Facebook Ad Reporting

New Digiterati service: rapid split testing of up to 250 Facebook ad variants.

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Reporting will break down clicks, conversions and spent by multiple elements (eg age, gender, country, placement etc), you can even see which specific interests have the highest click through rate.

Once we’ve run an initial campaign, the successful elements can be easily repeated with new variants incorporated for further drilling down and testing.

We can easily integrate Google Analytics tracking as well as tracking goal conversion with as many Facebook Conversion Pixels as you like (checkout, registration, lead, page, view, add to cart etc)

We’ve been utilising this tool recently for our own businesses (see some ad variants in the screen grab above) and it’s rapidly transformed the way we do advertising. Instant feedback on which ad elements are working best plus solid evidence of which target users are the most likely to click and convert.

Want more help with Facebook ads?

Check out my brand new course ‘Zero to Hero with Facebook Ads‘ in the Digiterati Academy. You’ll fast track all my knowledge of what’s working to create great Facebook ads right now and feel confident in your ability to run an effective campaign.

Zero to Hero with Facebook Ads Course

 

Marie Page

About Marie Page

Marie Page is one of the UK’s leading Facebook marketing experts. She is a founding partner of digital marketing consultancy The Digiterati and the Digiterati Academy e-learning portal for marketers and entrepreneurs. Her award-winning Master's Dissertation was the culmination of three years' academic research into Facebook that resulted in a book (and companion online course) 'Winning at Facebook Marketing with Zero Budget' that became an Amazon bestseller. Marie's work on the Facebook News Feed algorithm was featured in The Huffington Post. A recognised thought leader on social media, Marie is often approached by journalists for comment in articles such as this Telegraph article. She was also interviewed for ITV's Tonight show on Facebook privacy issues in relation to advertising. Marie is a regular guest on digital marketing blogs and podcasts including Social Media Examiner and Smart Insights. In 2018 she is speaking at Brighton SEO, Europe's biggest search and marketing conference. Marie is also author of two Smart Insights books: 'Smarter Guide to Facebook Marketing', now in its fourth edition, and 'Facebook Ads Guide', both edited by Dr Dave Chaffey. Marie is also a part time yoga teacher.

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