How to effectively A/B Test your campaign ads

Revenue rocking AB Testing Strategies 

The best online advertising moves are… less wedding day waltz: more blazing break-dance! Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the rules take on a new meaning. 

To shine like a sales supernova, all the right campaign creation tactics need to come together effortlessly. A little key targeting here, a cool creative there, a splash of catchy content, and before you know it you’ve got the core of a killer campaign, ready to fire! But as digital goes, the rhythm really does all come down to relevancy

Resting on past campaign achievements can only take someone so far. And, once your campaign reaches its plateau and the clicks start to die off, it’s time to reevaluate.

Enter A/B Testing! What is it? 

Also known as Split testing, A/B testing is the act of putting two similar (but slightly different) marketing variants together, side by side, to see which performs better in the opinion of your audience. The results are analyzed and tracked, and the process is repeated. 

The Benefits of AB Testing

Improved user engagement

Effective Split testing keeps your audience engaged for longer. When it comes to running campaigns, the ad needs to be creative, captivating, and enticing enough to take traffic to conversion. 

Lower Bounce Rates 

The more time a user spends engaging with the content being displayed, the more likely they are to see its overall value and more likely to click through to what’s being advertised. 

Finding what works QUICKLY, and stick with it. 

Speed of analysis plays an important role when you’re testing out different ad campaigns on your own dime. The aim is to find what works and get behind it with the minimum possible expenditure. The good news is that once you’ve tapped into what your audience likes, the testing becomes far less difficult and the results pour in much faster. 

In the past, campaign creation was a little industry knowledge and a HECK OF A LOT of guesswork. That same maze of numbers is now streamlined to make analyzing your Split testing results easier than ever. It’s just a matter of finding the right platform.

AB Testing Onsite Elements

When AB testing your ad campaigns, be it display or full page, some common onsite elements to take into account include…

Headlines

There’s a limited amount of space to make a BIG impact, especially when it comes to your smaller (Display) ad formats, like Native, In-Page Push, and Banner.  So make it count. 

Always consider the overall length of the headline. Think short and powerful! What message are you sending out to the world and how can you get it across in ten words or less? Pick offers with strong selling offers, discounts, or deals where applicable. Make use of numbers and percentages and get the value across as quickly as possible. 

Colour, Font, and contrast

Let your offer dictate the colors and fonts you choose for your ad campaign. As a general rule, big and bold fonts work well to grab attention. Combine that with a cool background color combo and you’ll gain more attention and stand out from the crowd. in online advertising, colors have different online associations and consumer psychology. 

Red: Power & energy

Yellow: Hope & optimism 

Blue: Trust & calm

Purple: Premium & high end products

Black: Authority & Strength 

White: Safety & Conviction

And the list goes on from there. Remember to keep it simple though. Start off with generic color-coded templates and take it from there. 

Images

Wherever possible try and find original images. People subconsciously associate cookie-cutter, generic images with a boring, uninspired offer. The goal here is to grab attention, so try and opt for images that make people do a second take. Obviously keep it classy, in line with your offer, and in line with Googles’ better ads standards. Oh, and on the SEO side of things, make sure the image translates well to mobile so that nothing is cut off from the frame and the size doesn’t take an eternity to load, etc. 

Call to Action (CTA)

Lastly and MOST importantly, The Call to Action needs to be powerful and directed. It’s purpose is to convert the traffic from spectator to customer. Whether looking for lead generation, conversions, click-throughs, or any other sales metric, your call to action needs to land your traffic at the next point in the sales funnel. More often than not a high-quality landing page.

AB Testing Best Practices

Don’t modify and test too many different elements at once. If, for example, you want to test ad copy, then stick with this aspect for a good month before jumping into other elements, like design, pricing, etc. 

Change too many things at once, and it will be tricky to pinpoint exactly what aspect led to improved results and click-throughs. 

Give your Split Testing time to track

AB testing can sometimes seem like a daunting task but it’s a vital step for creating ad campaigns that convert well. Rather than breaking your campaign down into its core concept, creation, targeting, and optimization phases, think of the “Optimization” phase as an overall guiding principle that dominates and directs the overall flow of the campaign.

You should also avoid jumping to conclusions too early. Depending on the volume of your traffic, you should let your AB test run for around 4 weeks, continuously, then look at the data to understand which one performed better.

Side with ad trackers like Voluum and RedTrack to help you conduct your split testing effectively and efficiently in the bid to rank and optimize your online advertising traffic for better and better results.

That’s it for now. All the best and see you on the road ahead.