What's the variables in an fb ad that will have the greatest impact?
Offer
Ad image,
ad copy,
targeting,
auto vs manual bid,
demographics,
Anymore to this list?
There are many factors of split testing, it depends on your vertical and budget mainly. Before I start to elaborate about the split-testing strategy I recommend to use, you've mentioned offer, image, ad copy, targeting, bidding type and demo, BUT, you forgot one of the KEY-FACTORS - landing page. When it comes to running traffic on Facebook there are two MAIN separate things you need to test - CREATIVE & FUNNEL. Let me explain:
1) Creative - this is what you mentioned above,
2) Funnel - Funnel is basically the process that the visitor need to go through after he clicks your ad - lander and offer.
Before starting, I would recommend you to talk to your AM, and ask him what audience converts with the offers you're going to try, try 2-3 offers MAX.
Creative
This is all about getting a RELEVANT CLICK.
- The most important thing you want to split-test is the creative itself - IMAGE / VIDEO!
- After that you want to test the headline, and after that the body.
From the targeting perspective go with what your AM recommend you, after some time you should know what type of targeting works with a specific ad.
Manual bidding is recommended if you're experienced enough, and have some budget to test.
If I were at your shoes, I would just rip other people ads, and test that.
Funnel
The funnel comes down to the lander and the offer.
You have to split landers that relevant somehow to your ad.
If you're just starting out, and doesn't know what really works, I would recommend you to rip related landers as well, and split them.
Bottom line,
You want to try one of the following campaigns structures:
- 1 campaign, 3 ad-sets, 3 different ads per ad-set
- 1 campaign, 3 ad-sets, 3 duplications of same ad per adset (so you have 3 ad-sets, each ad-set has different ad that cloned 3 times)
General Tip: if you don't know what works, I would try 3 totally different ads, one of them will stick, and you can now split-test the ad that sticked with another 2 totally different ads OR if the ad preforms well, try another 2 or 3 variations of the same ad.
Thanks for the great tips @mation!
Amy
Most important variable is finding the winning offer!
Personally I'd rate them as follows:
1) Offer
2) Targeting
3) Image
4) Copy
5) Everything else.
But that's an "on average". It'll differ for different campaigns.
If you control the offer, then as mentioned above, "funnel" also becomes hugely important. That's kind of a big topic, but you should definitely be considering CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) on your backend as job #1 or #2.