Social media use is the norm. If you’re trying to promote your company, you have to include social media in your brand awareness objectives. It wouldn’t make sense to not consider the millions of people using these platforms every day. Relative to traditional advertising, social media metrics are a bit different to account for in value to dollar investment. It could be worrisome to not know the effectiveness of an ad when considering how much revenue is a like? Or a comment? Or a share?

 

You wonder, how well is your ad really doing? How much of an audience will it gain or is anyone interacting with it at all? One strategy to better effectively publish ads is through a/b testing, or split testing on Facebook.

 

What is Facebook split testing?

Split testing is a Facebook feature you can take advantage of to test out different ad formats for different parts of your audience. If you want to test out a new ad or compare its success to a previous ad you can use this feature to set up two different ads that go out to two separate parts of your audience without any overlap.

 

These two ads will share most of the same features, save for an independent variable that is different between the two. After setting a suitable sample size (preferably 1,000 people or more), you can run the two ads and see how they independently perform and see which one comes out on top.

 

Something to keep in mind, however, in order to get the most accurate data to optimize your ads is to limit variations to one variable per test. As of right now, you could switch the current variables between your posts:

-Target audience/demographic

-Delivery optimization (focus on link clicks, page views, conversions, impressions, etc.)

-Placement in feed and on the page

-Creative (ad design)

-Product sets

 

Split testing is a tool

Split testing is not meant to test several different variables at once in one test. If you’re going to use this feature, it’s best that you know how to take full advantage of it.

 

This is less of a tool to compare two completely different ads side by side as it is a tool to help you narrow down very specific variables that optimize one ad in the best way possible through testing. The return on investment comes from honing in on creating better and better ads. The better the ads, the more attention you will receive in which will offset the money you have spent running split tests. It could be expected you’ll lose money at first, however you can work your way to having increased traffic, lower bounce rates, and more conversions.

 

If you’re not using Facebook split testing, are you really doing everything you can to promote your brand? Split testing is the perfect way to narrow down your audience and create ads that will best draw in new consumers and gain traffic amongst your current audience.

 

Of course, you could try your hand at split testing ads yourself, but the pros at MAB can help you find the right variables to tweak, testing creative concept variations, nailing down the best demographic to focus on, and finding the best placements for the best costs. Taking all the worry off your shoulders. 

 

If you’re looking to better promote your brand or get into split testing, contact MAB today, we can help you get set up right.