You Win Some, You Loose Some

 
What makes one Ad perform while another flops?
What makes one Ad pay for itself while the other puts you in debt?
As a business person you too need to be asking yourself these questions.
At the end of this month I asked myself that.

The Results of the Ad

Here are some statistics:

Ad 1 :

Likes – 557 
Cost Per like – $0.16 
Total Reach – 9242

Ad 2:

Likes – 92 
Cost Per Like – $0.60
Total Reach – 2244

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What’s your first question?
Were all factors even?
Did I hold the variables constant
Let me give you some history. And the answer to both questions is NO by the way.
This is what learning and testing is all about.
 

The Parameters of the Ads

The time frame of  28 days was the same.
Ad 1 ran for the 1st 28 days.
Then Ad 2 ran for the 2nd 28 days.
What was I promoting?
My Fan Page.
So I was promoting the same thing.
Ad Position:
Ad 1 – Mobile Only
Ad2 – Mobile and Desktop (Facebook is now increasing the cost of Desktop positioned Ads so you may want to stay away from that)
 
My target market was different.
 
So here’s an example of knowing who your Avatar really is.
The only thing that was different about these two ads was who I was showing them to and of course the placement.
Clearly the people in Ad 2 have no interest in my Fan Page.
 
Now you’re probably asking a very important question right now.
Did they see the same cover image?
The answer to that is no they didn’t.
 
So maybe all things won’t equal.
 
 
Ok ok ok
 

Lessons from Testing

Now advertising can get expensive, especially when you’re testing.
Which is why you don’t just go out there and burn $10 a day on a like campaign.
1. You start small. 
My budget for both Ads was $2 a day!
Two bucks!!!
That was it.
Could I have gotten more results with maybe $50 a day.
I’m sure.
But when you’re testing markets you want to be in testing mode.
Not spending mode.
 
Another point
2. Only change one thing at a time. 
Here is what I did NOT do correctly with these Ads
1. I changed the target market
2. I changed the Ad image.
3. I changed the position
Now if you’re split testing you only change ONE variable!
Never change more than one.
So here’s an example of wasted money you could say. Because I didn’t do what any good scientist would do.
[Tweet “When it comes to testing Facebook Ads test one variable at a time.”]
When it comes to testing Facebook Ads test one variable at a time.
Being a student of engineering you would think I would remember that right?
 
 
The third lesson I would share with you
3. Know your objective or goal for running the Ad
If you objective is for likes then stick with likes.
Don’t try to get sales from likes.
Keep focused on your goal and work at tweeking until you meet that goal!
Don’t create copy for leads or sales when you’re after likes.
 
So lessons learned!
You win some, you loose some.
But keeping abreast of what’s happening in Facebook and getting the training that will make you better is key.
Last night I was on a What’s Working Now webinar with the Master of Facebook Advertising Curt Maly.
You’re going to be seeing a lot of training coming from me because of that webinar.
We call it an ACTION oriented webinar.
So stay tuned!