Split Testing with Facebook Ads
- 74 Comments
- By Zac Johnson on August 15th, 2008
One of the best advantages to using Facebook Ads is their ability to send you a massive amount of traffic in a short period of time. Once you have some ads running with a decent click through rate, you can easily throw a bunch of new ads up to see what converts best. A couple of months ago I was running a weight loss targeted campaign that ended up serving over 30,324,503 impressions and 27,538 clicks. What I wanted to show you in this post, was how much of a difference an image can make in your advertising.
In the chart below you will see five of the images I was using in my ad campaign. The text for all five campaigns were the same, only the images were different.
 |
2,637,259 Impressions 3,288 Clicks (.12 CTR) |
 |
3,205,582 Impressions 3,221 Clicks (.10 CTR) |
 |
3,858,594 Impressions 3,092 Clicks (.08 CTR) |
 |
3,962,476 Impressions 3,000 Clicks (.08 CTR) |
 |
3,260,100 Impressions 2,251 Clicks (.07 CTR) |
For those of you wondering what the total campaign stats looked like, here are the figures straight from Facebook.
Without any real explanation, (besides what people prefer to click)… the top ad was pulling in clicks at almost double the rate as the bottom image in the chart. This just goes to show you how important split testing is. Not only should you be testing your “text” ad copy multiple times… but definitely your “image” ad copy!
- Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Facebook, Make Money, Marketing, Pay Per Click
"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of.
Great post Zac.
I currently just started with FaceBook a few days ago and have split tested a few ads so far. They all seem to be getting the same CTR so I am still working on trying out different images as well as different ad copy.
I just wish that you could modify the ad text and image without having to create an entirely new ad.
ReplyGood post Zac, I started off with facebook few days back they are pretty good
ReplyWere you paying CPC or CPM?
I have no idea how you got those ads approved. It a pain in the ass on Facebook.
Replycpc … cpm is just a huge waste of time and money regardless of what you’re marketing
Replyhaha so those are your ads! I was seeing them quite a bit for a while.
ReplyNo kidding. I actually tried to create a weight loss campaign on Facebook. I went through 6 ads and couldn’t get any of them approved.
Any secrets here Zac?
ReplyHow well does that type of FB traffic convert once it hits your landing page? (Does it convert at about the same rate as adsense traffic?)
Cheers!
ReplyMiguel Alvarez
this is an interesting topic. I know there are a lot of people that are interested in trying this but do not want to waste the money to try. How much is it to advertise for a month on Facebook?
ReplyThat was a nice testing..so how was the conversion?? did you make any profit?
ReplyNo minimums. Just depends on your cpc amounts and how much you want to spend.
ReplyOn this campaign, profit was around 30%. It performed much better in the beginning, then conversions kept getting lower.
ReplyReally depends on the offer. Facebook traffic seems like HIT or MISS.
ReplyFacebook has recently changed their advertising terms and it’s a lot tougher to get ads approved now. I would say to just keep changing ads around until you start getting them approved. It sucks, but it works.
ReplyThis and all of my facebook campaigns are on a cpc basis.
ReplyCool Case Study!
Thanks
ReplyNice case study.
But which of these 5 images had the best conversion rate?
ReplyThats a great CPC at .30 Wish I could get my ads down that low.
ReplyDo create landing pages for FB or do direct linking to the offer?
ReplyThis campaign was direct linking.
ReplyZac, thanks for giving freely, the information is very helpful for those jusst getting started with affiliate marketing. keep it up!
ReplyHaha, seems like the bigger the pecs, the more clicks it gets. Good case study.
ReplyExplain this, Zac: As an experiment I tried using all of the images you posted above in a Facebook ad. All of them got disapproved because the image didn’t meet the terms of use.
The text was fine, just the image.
Explain how you got any ads approved using these images…
ReplyWow this is very good information thanks for sharing!
Replyhave you been able to get these types of ads past their approval process lately?
Replyalso, would you mind sharing which campaign this was for?
ReplyGreat Post again Zac — not much of a Facebook user, but definitely worth considering!
Replydam I gotta get in on face book make some money some great stats zac
Replyyou spend almost 9 thousand dollars, zac what is a good amount to spend before given up?
I will hate to spend a thousand dollars and make less when do you know its time to stop?
ReplyI know pics make a big difference, which is why may male marketers like ot use half naked women pictures, so I am wondering if your clicks were males or females…. Nice study!
ReplyFacebook Ads are now more strict on the ads they approve. I would not expect these to get approved under their new terms. What they allow is not minimal…
ReplyAll depends on your profit margins and how much of a margin you are comfortable with. It got to a point when the margin was dropping low enough that I just stopped the campaign.
ReplyMostly male.
ReplyDId you make money from this campaigns?
by the way, I haven’t got my t-shirt and sticker from ML signup…I am sure you are getting small but several hundred $$ from my commission..
I want 2 t-shirts since you forgot mine…:P
anyway, another great post..
ReplyWow.Thanks for sharing. I’m not sure I’d have the kahunas to spend 8gs on a campaign. i was thinking about starting in facebook with 250bucks free, but it seems with the low conversion rate, i’m going to get killed and lose that 250 real quick.
ReplyZac,
The last three posts have been excellent quality, thank you so much. Keep it up.
-Sam
ReplyWhat do you suppose made the difference? I cant really see that much of a difference in all of those photos.
ReplyThis is nice post by you..
ReplyI wonder what the major difference in the images are except for the colour shades.. that would impact clicks…Can you share the conversions from the different images ads , the less clicked ads could have better conversions….
ReplyZac, Interesting post. I’m just starting with Yahoo Search Marketing and some Hub Pages adsense. May try MSN next week, lot’s to learn. Respectfully, Nicholas http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Guitar-Hub
ReplyInteresting!
ReplyCan you earn any money from advertising on Facebook?
ReplyVery nice post Zac, and a good point out about the images. Will try it out!
ReplyIt’s amazing what makes some people click and not others… that’s why we must split test non stop.
ReplyDefinitely! It’s not as easy as it was before to get ads approved, but keep working at it and you can still make good money.
ReplyHey nice tips, thank you for sharing this experience. Certainly an image can attract more/less people, the impact will be different…
ReplyI tried to get an ad about fitness with a girl showing her abs and FB refused my add because I was showing “nudity images” =S, how could you show that???? tell me your secret!
ReplyI am not able to get my ad approved for Search Engine Optimization Services!!
ReplyIt sure does make a difference - just like text PPC advertising - u gotta catch their eye
ReplyWondering if you could answer a question..When you launch one of these campaigns, at what point do you feel it will be a success? By that I mean, how many clicks in (without a conversion) do you decide whether to let it run or pull the plug…
ReplyI tried using one of the images as well for a ClickBank product and it was a no go. I had 6 ads disapproved when using the 1st image and I even changed to a stone frickin’ statue with great abs and they still wouldn’t approve it.
Maybe one day they’ll get their heads screwed on straight.
ReplyI guess I didn’t clarify…that was on Facebook.
ReplyHmmm, nice pictures!
BTW, nice case study too.:}
Replythanks for the post on this zac, very helpful. I think the top 2 look like real guys/homemade shots, opposed to the bottom 3 airbrushed/mannequins.
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ReplyI should probalby just use my abs on my campagn..look a lot better than those!!
Okay, enough with the jokes, deff test your images!!
ReplyI’d like to try facebook ads sometime, I hear there strict. Anyone else have trouble getting there ads accepted?
ReplyHack again?!
Replyhavent heard about this from anyone else yet. but will surely give it a try now.
i have a facebook account but i do not use it much. rarely i guess
Custom Term Paper’s last blog post..Un astudentessa racconta la propria preparazione agli esami universitari a Bari
ReplyWow, I never thought that it can increase the traffic like that. Thanks for informing!
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