Split Testing with Facebook Ads

Written by Zac Johnson
social social social

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!

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57 Replies to “Split Testing with Facebook Ads”

  1. 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.

  2. Were you paying CPC or CPM?

    I have no idea how you got those ads approved. It a pain in the ass on Facebook.

    1. cpc … cpm is just a huge waste of time and money regardless of what you're marketing

    2. No 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?

      1. Facebook 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.

  3. How 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!

    Miguel Alvarez

  4. 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?

  5. Explain 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…

    1. Facebook 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…

      1. I 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.

  6. have you been able to get these types of ads past their approval process lately?

  7. you 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?

    1. All 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.

  8. I 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!

  9. DId 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..

  10. Wow.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.

  11. Zac,

    The last three posts have been excellent quality, thank you so much. Keep it up.

    -Sam

  12. I 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….

      1. I 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! 😈

  13. Hey nice tips, thank you for sharing this experience. Certainly an image can attract more/less people, the impact will be different…

  14. I am not able to get my ad approved for Search Engine Optimization Services!! 🙁

  15. Wondering 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…

  16. thanks 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.

  17. I should probalby just use my abs on my campagn..look a lot better than those!!

    Okay, enough with the jokes, deff test your images!!

  18. I’d like to try facebook ads sometime, I hear there strict. Anyone else have trouble getting there ads accepted?

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