If you’re always wondering which bidding model you should use, what objective you should optimize for or whether you should use one image or five, this article is for you.
You can ask others for advice but unless they are in the exact same niche as you, they won’t have a definitive answer. The truth is that every business and audience is unique, and using the exact same methods as someone else will not always give you winning ads.
Not sure how to test? Then follow these 4 steps.
1. How to test campaign objectives
Facebook at this moment in time offers 14 unique campaign objectives. If you’re not sure which ones you should focus on, test all the ones that you think you may use at least one.
Don’t bother testing mobile app installs if you don’t have an app, or create product list ads if it’s not appropriate for your services.
Set 10% of the total budget aside for each campaign objective and see how they perform. To keep testing fair, target the same audience, use the same message and image if possible. Only change the ad objective.
2. Bidding options
After selecting the right ad objectives, the second biggest testing factor is how you decide to bid for ads. Each ad objective will allow you to optimise for:
● Campaign objective
● Impressions
● Clicks/engagement
For example, if you’re creating a boost your post ad objective, you can choose to optimize via post engagement, impressions or daily unique reach:
You can choose to set the bid amount as automatic or manual:
I’ve used both automatic and manual and have seen success with both depending on the nature of content and audience. If you want to receive as much exposure as possible then automatic bidding is always going to get more eyes on your ads than manual bidding on Facebook.
However, while you will receive more clicks and engagement you may have gotten them for cheaper if you selected manual bidding.
Test both against each other of over a series of 34 ads and see which works better for your business.
3. Ad placement
You have three places to serve your ads on Facebook, they are:
● Desktop newsfeed
● Mobile newsfeed
● Rightside column
If you’ve setup Google Analytics goals you may have some data to work with already. For example, Google Analytics will reveal which devices customers are using to buy specific products. For example, let’s say 95% of all your conversions are made using desktop devices, it would then make sense to remove the mobile newsfeed all together to maximize ROI.
Perhaps you learn content receives more clicks on mobiles while products sales favor desktop users.
In the Adverts Manager you can go into each campaign and it will reveal the total amount of engagement your ad had with each placement option:
4. Ad scheduling
You can set daily or lifetime budgets for campaigns and choose to run ads constantly or on specific hours. Once again see if you can get any data from Google Analytics to reveal which hours you generate the most sales. Don’t forget to look at your Page Insights to locate the peak hours yours fans access Facebook.
Test ads running 24/7 versus ads that are only served when the bulk of your fans are online, and see which performs better.
Don’t allocate a large budget to testing
Running several tests may sound like an expensive experiment, but it’s actually a lot cheaper than you think. Facebook allows you to create ads from as little as $1, so even if you don’t have a big budget you can still test on the micro-scale to see what works for you.
Summary
Don’t expect to run 1 test and to have all your questions answered. For every campaign you test, you’ll learn a new thing or two that you didn’t know before. Over time you’ll build a knowledgebase of tips and techniques that you’ll implement on every new advert going forward.
With more businesses using online ads than ever, you really must test to lower your spending and stay competitive. How are you testing on Facebook?
Nick Bridges
Latest posts by Nick Bridges (see all)
- Facebook Releases 8 New Standard Events - November 14, 2018
- Facebook Pixel Changes 2018 - October 11, 2018
- Writing Compelling Ad Headlines that People Will Click - September 12, 2016
