Did you know that 89 percent of marketers leverage Facebook to run campaigns that help them generate traction online and attract more conversions?
Facebook is a popular choice and a leading social media platform that users representing diverse generations prefer.
So, it’s an ideal choice for businesses irrespective of their niche of choice or the audience segment they target.
When leveraging Facebook to connect with the intended audience, well-thought-out ad campaigns amplify your reach and enable you to cast a wider net.
They help you get quick results from your marketing efforts and convey your message to the right people.
However, if you’re not careful with your targeting, you may end up burning out your advertising budget for nothing.
The best way to prevent this from happening and effectively utilize your Facebook ad budget is to conduct an A/B test.
It helps you deploy campaigns that are budget-friendly, enabling you to get the desired results without having to break the bank.
Here’s how A/B testing saves your Facebook ad budget:
Understanding A/B testing
Before we dive deep, let’s learn about A/B testing and how it works when designing Facebook ad campaigns.
A/B testing is the process of pinning different versions of your ads against one another to find the one that gives you the best results.
The goal here is to find an ad that resonates with your target audience and helps you convey your message with ease.
You can create different variations of an ad by making changes to headlines, images, ad copy, and more. Furthermore, you can also test different formats or experiment with placement or audience targeting for Facebook ads.
With over 10 million advertisers on Facebook and its potential to reach billions of users globally, it’s essential to optimize ad performance.
To put it simply, you don’t make intuitive choices but rather rely on relevant insights and make data-driven decisions.
Before green-lighting your Facebook ad, you assess the likelihood of its performance and engagement capabilities.
The importance of A/B testing Facebook ads
Now that we’ve talked about A/B testing, let’s explore why it’s important. When it comes to a general assessment of Facebook ads performance, only 26 percent of marketers claim that they get the optimal ROI from Facebook ad campaigns.
It means that a majority of them are either not satisfied with the performance of their ads or think there’s room for improvement.
When your Facebook ads underperform, it’s not just a lost opportunity to generate quality leads through the platform. They may make a huge dent in your marketing budget.
The problem becomes more critical if you have just gotten started, as you have to make do with limited resources.
Even if you’ve put a lot of thought and effort into designing your ad, there’s no guarantee that it will give you the desired results because Facebook’s algorithm keeps changing.
Hence, it’s best to consider A/B testing your ads before taking them live. It helps you identify the best variant of your ad that resonates with your target audience and is capable of helping you achieve the set goals.
How A/B testing Facebook ads saves your budget
Now that we’ve talked about A/B testing and its significance when designing your Facebook ads, let’s see how the testing process helps you utilize your budget efficiently.
Choose your campaign’s objective
Before initiating the A/B testing process, you must carefully select your campaign’s goal, as it helps you deduce useful findings from the data.
The objective of your ad campaign can be to generate awareness about your brand, increase your website traffic, capture quality leads, get more content views, boost your conversions, and so on.
For instance, if you’re running a campaign to promote New Year’s Eve party ideas, your objective could be to boost engagement or drive traffic to your event planning page.
When you conduct an A/B test, you run your ads for a particular period to retrieve the test results.
A clearly set goal will help you assess the performance of your ad variations as you see which one of them took you a step closer to your destination.
Identify the variable for testing
Once you’ve chosen your campaign’s objective, the next step is to identify the variable for testing.
It will help you gauge the performance of your ad variations and go for the one that gives you the best results.
For example, if your campaign’s objective is to score more conversions, the variable for testing would likely be CTA clicks.
Remember, saving your budget may be one of your goals, but it shouldn’t be a variable for testing, as it may lead you to have biased data.
For example, you can’t compare two ad variations where one’s budget is higher than the other because the variant with the higher budget will likely perform better.
Devise a hypothesis
You can create different versions of an ad by altering the core components representing your ad campaign. You can use different headlines, ad copies, visual content, and CTAs to create multiple variants for testing.
The hypothesis here resonates with the change and showcases the impact on ad performance caused by it.
For example, you can test whether changing your CTA helps you get more clicks or not when planning to run an ad campaign to boost your sales.
Start testing
Once you have set your goals, identified the core variables, and devised a hypothesis, the next step is to commence the process of A/B testing.
Generally, you can test as many variations of an ad as you want. However, it may be counter-intuitive, as you plan to utilize your budget efficiently and likely reduce the cost per click.
So, try not to go overboard, as you may end up doing more harm than good. It’s best to test two to three variations of an ad and see which one performs better.
Conducting an A/B test shouldn’t be your excuse to get away with poor ad design. The variations you create should be well-thought-out. Only then, you will be able to choose the best of the best.
Gather relevant data
You need to be patient when conducting an A/B test. Don’t be tempted to make any changes to ad variations prior to the completion of the learning phase.
The learning phase may last a few days, and even the slightest change you make to an ad campaign will restart it. So, wait till it’s over and let your ad variations stay active for a few days after.
Now, you will be able to access actionable data and useful insights that you can leverage to make informed decisions.
Compare ad variations
When conducting an A/B test, Facebook will facilitate your access to the data that you may need to pick the best ad variation.
However, relying on the insights provided to you by the platform alone may prove to be a mistake.
Once you have the data that you need from Facebook analytics, brainstorm with your team and discuss your key findings.
Your team comprises competent copywriters and advertising experts. Leverage their expertise along with the test data to the final call.
Choose the best-performing ad
Once you have chosen a winner, disable the rest of the ad variations that failed to perform as per your expectations.
Remember your criteria when selecting a best-performing ad. It should align with your goals and help you achieve them without making a dent in your wallet.
Paid advertising is often criticized compared to organic marketing when generating traction online. This is because the budget spent often doesn’t justify the results.
However, if you play your cards right, you can maximize ROI from ad campaigns and get the desired results.
Final thoughts
If you’ve been wanting to leverage Facebook ads to engage your target audience and fuel your conversions, the recommendations in this article may help.
By conducting an A/B test, you can effectively utilize your budget and achieve the set goals from your ad campaign.
Facebook is the go-to platform for around 31 percent of people who shop online. A/B testing helps you personalize your ads as per their interests and intent, allowing you to optimally utilize your budget and engage the intended audience.
