In recent years, creative has become the single most important lever to pull on Meta for advertisers. With the push for a simplified account structure, increased efficacy of Advantage+, and rise of user generated content (UGC), it’s all the more important to know how to test creative. Here, Sum Digital presents our creative testing strategy to help you test, analyze, and enhance your copy and creative.
1. Set Clear Objectives & KPIs
Start your creative journey by defining precise objectives. What's the purpose of your creative campaign? Whether it's driving website traffic, generating leads, or increasing conversions, having well-defined goals is paramount for accurate success measurement. Align your primary Key Performance Indicator (KPI) with your objective. For instance, if conversions are the goal, focus on metrics like CPA or ROAS.
However, it’s also important to consider the impact of dollars spent. Meta's advanced algorithm often allocates spend to top-performing assets. Post-experiment, sort your results by spend to exclude low-spending ads or assets.
2. Select Variables & Create Variations
Identify the specific elements you want to test in your ads. Common variables include headlines, ad copy, images, videos, ad formats, and CTAs. Begin with a single variable to ensure clear results, simplifying analysis to pinpoint the winning variation. Remember, more variables introduce more uncertainty.
Now, craft multiple ad versions, each with a different variable. For example, if you're testing images or videos, test a different image or video while keeping the copy, landing page, and CTAs consistent. Be mindful that Meta advises against launching new creative that are substantially similar to existing assets. To avoid inefficient testing, aim for diverse content in your creative production process instead of just making small changes.
3. Set Up & Launch Tests
Standard Campaign Setup:
This method utilizes the classic 'creative testing' campaign method, widely employed by advertisers for years. For each creative batch, create a new ad set within a designated creative testing campaign. As it uses a standard campaign type, you'll launch approximately 6-8 new ads per ad set. Targeting for all ad sets in this campaign should be as broad as possible. Allow the batch to run for a predefined period with a sufficient budget to exit the learning phase, typically lasting one to two weeks with a total budget of $1K-$2K. Adapt the duration and budget to your specific needs.
Advantage+ (A+) Campaign Setup:
Advantage+ is a newer campaign type emphasizing creative and a simplified campaign structure. Set targeting at the account level and maintain broad targeting. Notably, A+ supports up to 150 creative variations and allows only one ad set per campaign. This means you can potentially have 150 different ads running in one A+ ad set. This method is ideal for advertisers looking to test A+ and who generate abundant creative. Simply launch a new A+ campaign for each creative batch you want to test.
In both methods, optimize as infrequently as possible during the testing period to reduce unnecessary variables.
4. Analyze Results
Post-testing, conduct a thorough data analysis to identify the best-performing ad variation. Look for statistically significant differences in key metrics, ensuring you sort results by spend. An efficient CPA or ROAS doesn't matter if an ad can't scale—scalability is a vital indicator of success on Meta. Explore different data cuts to understand performance by age, gender, platform, placement, and more. Meta's ads manager offers versatile data segmentation capabilities.
5. Implement Changes & Keep Testing
Based on your analysis, implement the winning ad variation across your account. Utilize gained insights to shape future creative and copy decisions. Creative testing is an ongoing process; consistently explore new variables and refine your ad strategy. Over time, this iterative approach will maximize the effectiveness of your Meta advertising campaigns.
Five simple steps to testing creative on Meta.
In conclusion, effective creative testing on Meta is pivotal for achieving campaign objectives. By following these steps and leveraging Meta's robust advertising platform, you can refine your messaging and visuals to effectively engage your audience.