Hello, community! Today, we’re diving into an essential process in optimizing ad campaigns – creative testing. What it is, how it works, and why it’s necessary – find out in our latest review!
But before we begin, a quick reminder that we always provide insights into how various aspects of affiliate marketing work. So, we recommend checking out our recent review on how moderation works in affiliate marketing.
What is Creative Testing?
So, what exactly is a creative? It’s the visual content that accompanies our ad, whether it’s a static banner or a full-fledged video. This is the content that gets tested when optimizing an ad campaign.
It’s important to understand that the primary goal of creative testing is to optimize the ad campaign, not just to create new creatives, although the two usually go hand in hand.
As for how the testing happens: during the campaign, affiliates try to increase the effectiveness of the ad by changing only the creative until the key metrics of the campaign start to improve. This process is somewhat similar to A/B testing landing pages, as we’ve discussed before. But while split-testing your own landing page doesn’t usually incur much cost, creative testing involves ongoing expenses for developing new banners, videos, etc.
However, the A/B testing methods, where we make slight changes to the creative and observe the results, can be actively applied in creative testing.
Another testing method is Lift Testing, which is more suited for larger companies. Here, the effectiveness of creatives is measured by how they impact overall brand metrics, such as brand awareness and customer loyalty.
Overall, creative testing involves:
- Constantly searching for new ideas for creatives that will keep your campaign highly effective over time;
- Additional costs aimed at increasing profits, so consider them an investment, similar to paying for clicks on an ad;
- Achieving greater effectiveness for your ads as a result.
The same creatives cannot perform well over an extended period. If they failed to grab the attention of potential leads initially, showing them the same banner repeatedly is not the best approach. However, trying to change the creative to engage them – that’s a rational strategy that can increase your chances of getting a conversion!
How is Creative Testing Conducted?
No matter which testing method you choose, there are general tips that can help organize the process better. Let’s break them down into stages.
First Stage – Competitor Analysis
The best place to start is by analyzing your competitors. This will help you understand the direction in which you should “dig.” It’s fairly easy to do, as FB allows you to analyze competitors’ ads through their own library, which is not only free but also provides a wealth of information that’s more than enough to understand specific trends. However, there’s nothing stopping you from using paid third-party resources if that’s more convenient (or if you can’t find the necessary info on FB).
Analyzing competitors’ creatives is a great strategy not only for testing your own but also before starting a campaign in general. So, use it!
Second Stage – Create a Selection of Creatives for Testing
One of the most challenging stages is gathering the creatives that will participate in the testing. At this stage, you’ll primarily have to rely on yourself, so evaluating creatives from your own emotional perspective can be quite subjective.
However, if you work in a company, you can hold a brainstorming session where you collectively choose the creatives to be used in the testing. This significantly increases the likelihood of achieving the desired result.
For even greater effectiveness, it’s worth developing a checklist of criteria you’ll evaluate: what emotions the creative evokes, how it aligns with the brand, whether it conveys enough information about the product, and so on.
Third Stage – Testing
This is where we move on to the actual testing. The best option is a split test: create two, three, or even ten identical ads, changing only the creative, and then observe the results.
It’s important to note every success and difference in the campaign, as this is our main resource for future analysis.
We also recommend making not only major but also minor changes (as is common in split testing):
- Play around with color schemes or even fonts;
- Change the dimensions of the image;
- Tweak the Call to Action (trigger);
- And more.
This way, you can find the lever that influences how the audience perceives the creative. And if none of this achieves the effect you were hoping for, then it’s time to completely change the creatives. Just like in the case where a creative immediately proves to be “dead” and fails to deliver any results. In that case, it’s better to replace it entirely and repeat the process using the template above.
Final Stage – Analysis and Decision-Making
But before making any decisions about what to do with the creatives – analyze all the results obtained. Collect data through trackers, examine each metric, or even social media feedback that may have accumulated by that time. Use any information that helps you understand the effectiveness of your creatives, then interpret the results and make decisions: which creatives to keep, which to discard, where a complete redesign is necessary, and where just tweaking the font might suffice.
It’s important to update your creatives throughout the life of your campaigns. Over time, even the best creatives start to lose effectiveness, which is a clear sign that it’s time for a change. And to ensure they remain effective and positively impact the campaign, creative testing should be an ongoing process.
Conclusion
Creative testing is the key to the effectiveness of your ads and, consequently, the campaign as a whole. To keep your CTR counter constantly rising, you need to grab the audience’s attention and trigger them to click on the ad. The audience won’t respond to a creative they’ve seen dozens of times. And they won’t engage with a banner they simply don’t like. The solution is to find a way to the audience’s “heart” through continuous creative testing.
Do you often test your creatives, and what do you think is the most important aspect of this process? Share your experiences in our Telegram community, where thousands of affiliates discuss the latest trends daily or just have a good laugh. Most often, they’re just having a laugh. And that’s great.
Best regards, Your Geek!
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