I spend a lot of time in Facebook Groups and I often see people asking for help choosing an image for their Facebook Ads. They have designed 2-4 images, and ask the group to vote on the best one… the problem is… in many cases, the people in that group is NOT your target market. The good news is, Facebook allows you to quickly and easily test multiple creatives with your exact target market – that is what I will show you in this article.
The benefits of testing multiple creatives – every time
Facebook ad delivery is based on an auction system. Each ad goes to bid in competition with other ads, to determine which ads show up in which newsfeeds. When you target your ideal audience, you may have anywhere from 1,000-5,000,000+ people in that audience, but your Ad will only actually reach a segment of that audience based on your budget, who is actually online at any given time, and the competition in the marketplace. When you test multiple creatives, Facebook serves them out randomly in an effort to determine what image resonates best with your audience. If you only have one image, it means you only have one chance to get it right – not good odds. Testing out more than one image gives you a better chance at finding one that your audience responds to!
Should I also be testing copy, audiences, etc.?
There are definitely a lot of things you can (and should) test out when it comes to Facebook Ads. The reason I recommend starting with creative is because that is the element that gets people to stop scrolling through the newsfeed. People notice the creative before they have a chance to read the copy, or pay any attention to the call-to-action button, for example. For that reason, I would run an initial test to a broad audience to get some intel on what your audience is responding best to before niching down in your audience targeting in an effort to split-test the performance of different audiences. If your budget is big enough you could test 3 images with 3 copy variations each (9 ads total) for example – but running that kind of a test with a $5/day budget simply won't be the best use of your money. But, that's another blog post – this post is for the business that wants to run an effective ad on a bootstrapped budget.
What type of creatives should I test?
You can take a couple different approaches when you are testing creatives. You could test the same picture with text overlay vs. no text overlay, test a lifestyle image vs. a product photo or an illustrated photo, test a personally shot photo vs. a stock photo… the list goes on and on.
How much should I budget for this test?
Because most people have a fairly limited budget, you'll want to limit your tests to no more than 1-2 images per $5/day budgeted to the ad in most cases. This helps ensure that there is enough money budgeted to the ad to allow Facebook to adequately test the creatives.
How do I set it up?
The actual ad set up consists of multiple steps. You can browse a variety of other Facebook Ad related content HERE.
Optimize after 2-3 days
After 2-3 days, you should go in and check on the performance of your Ads… you'll notice that one of the Ads is likely being delivered more, has more results, has spent more of the budget, etc. This is the Ad that Facebook has determined “won” your split test. At this time, you can turn off the other Ads and allow the winning ad to spend the rest of the budget.
Conclusion
The next time you are ready to run an ad, you will want to continue to test creatives and/or other elements of the Ad. After conducting a variety of tests, you'll begin to notice trends – when the same type of ad wins most consistently – and you can begin to make more long-term decisions. You never want to assume that the results from one test are representative of your entire audience – remember that these audiences are dynamic and what resonates with them today, may be different from what resonates with them next week. So, always design 2-3 creative options at minimum and test them out!
