Two colleagues within the same clothing company firmly believed that they had the best idea for a Black Friday promotion. In the olden days, there'd be a lot of arguments before one persons idea would prevail and the others would falter. Often times, there would be no real data to support which associate was right and which one was wrong in this type of situation.
Fast forward to the digital age that we now live in. Within 24-hours, an A vs. B test could be set-up via social media where two sets of advertisements could be targeted to the same demographic on Facebook. Each associate who claims to have the "best idea" would get to see how his or her respective campaign performs. Based off of the click through rate of the advertisement and the conversion rate on the landing page (total sales generated) there could be a clear-cut winner to determine which promotion was the most successful.
If you are a social media marketer and dabble with online advertising, split testing via social media needs to become a part of your vocabulary (if it isn't already). Let's look at several examples of social advertising split testing that should become a part of every online advertisers game-plan moving forward.
Ad Copy Testing:
Within the creative on Facebook advertising, there is the option to enhance the headline, text and news feed link description. It is critical to have multiple variations of ad copy. The verbiage on your headline and text can make all of the difference between making a conversion and someone never clicking on your ad. For starters, create two different headlines and two different variations of text and descriptions to see which one performs the best. By constantly testing, you'll start to learn what messaging resonates the best with your audience.
Click through rate, "Likes", "Shares" and reach will be the most telling measurements as to the top performers of the advertising copy. Search Engine Watch provides great tips for Facebook advertising success!
Landing Page Testing:
You have mastered testing out your ad copy and description and now want to take this one step further. Create two different variations of a landing page where you will send the user after they click on your ad via social. If you dominate your landing page experience, you'll be able to drive more conversions and decrease your bounce rate.
According to unbounce.com, every landing page should have the following:
Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
a. The main headline
b. A supporting headline
c. A reinforcement statement
d. A closing argument
2. The hero shot (images/video showing context of use)
3. The benefits of your offering
a. A bullet point list summary of benefits
b. Benefit and features in detail
4. Social proof (I'll have what she's having)
5. A single conversion goal - your Call-To-Action (CTA) (with or without a form)
You will be amazed with the difference that adding a video instead of an image and changing up your headline on the landing page can make. Knowing that a winning landing page strategy can increase conversions makes it a must for all online marketers.
Imagery Testing:
Just like changing up the text up can make all the difference when it comes to the verbiage on an advertisement, changing up the imagery can drastically alter the results (in a positive way) for your Facebook advertising campaigns.
Imagine an advertisement for an apartment community. When scrolling through your newsfeed, you see a beautiful photo of their resort style pool. The next time, you see the same advertisement but instead of the pool, it is a generic blue background.
The difference in click through rate and interaction if you have a professional looking photo that correlates perfectly with the ad copy opposed to a below average graphic that confuses the reader can be drastic!
Continue to tweak the imagery and messaging on display advertisements as this can make a big difference in conversions for your company.
David Ogilvy, the famous marketing executive, famously said, "Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving." This quote should be bolded, printed out and taped onto every social media marketer's office wall. Whether it is advertising or daily social posts, you should always be testing and trying to improve. If you are not willing to test, you won't see massive improvements to your social media marketing campaigns.