Testing is an extremely important part of creating a digital advertising campaign that works. Utilising various testing methods helps you to determine what’s working and what’s not. This, in turn, makes it easier to optimise your adverts for better Return on Investment (ROI).
There are two common types of tests for online advertising and you can run either of them, or both:
A/B Testing:
Essentially, A/B testing compares two aspects of your advert. It could be two different images, two different headings, two different CTA buttons. The beauty of A/B testing is that it’s available on many platforms and is relatively simple – you test one thing against another and arrive at an actionable conclusion.
Multivariate Testing:
On the other hand, multivariate testing (as the name suggests) compares a larger numbers of variables at the same time and therefore produces more complex data. You can compare a combination of multiple CTAs, images, copy, headlines and designs.
A/B testing is often enough to ensure your digital ads are on the right track. Here’s the 7 steps to starting an A/B test:
- Write a hypothesis: What do you think will happen? Which version do you think customers will prefer and why?
- Choose one variable to test: Pick one variable you feel will have an impact on the customer’s behaviour. This could be your image, your CTA, your headline, and so on.
- Decide on a sample group number and type: Which demographic or industry will you focus on for this A/B test?
- Define what success looks like: Success can include opens, clicks, conversions, and more.
- Set up automated A/B testing: Schedule when you’ll administer the test and how long it will run.
- Look at test results from all channels: After the chosen amount of time, analyse data sets, examining results based on the success factors you decided on earlier. Make sure you look at all of the different channels you are administering the test on to ensure completeness.
- Determine the winning combination: Which version performed better? Did it perform significantly better or just marginally?
In our next blog we will explore A/B testing further, offering checklist for adverts like Pay-Per Click ads, landing pages, display ads and social media ads. Contact the Website Design Centre team to learn more and don’t forget to check back for part two.
