Marketers have a hard job, right? Advertising platforms are constantly changing, tactics that worked 3 months ago are now outdated, we not only need more leads – but we are expected to generate them at efficient costs.
So what do you do? Personally, I enjoy the change & challenge. For example we’ve overhauled our strategy with Facebook THREE times in the past 12 months. Quite a bit of work – but seeing the results is more than worth the effort.
Below is the framework that we use when testing new ideas, tactics to decrease costs, or new features from Google or Facebook.
The first step is to build out your first test. Usually this can be done when you are already building a new campaign. For example – if you have an event your are promoting this weekend, set aside 20% of the budget to test a new Ad or targetting.
Deciding what to test is “less” important than deciding to actually test.
So, what should you test first? To be honest – for your initial tests it really doesn’t matter. You just need to get started.
Pick something to test and more importantly understand WHY you want to test that, and then launch your test campaign. Done.
Quick note: Do not to test more than one variable at a time – otherwise you will have a very difficult time deciding which variable you changed led to the increase or decrease in performance.
Bonus Tip:Set a Calendar/reminder of your test as soon as it launches to check back on your test.
Great! Your reminder you set sent you an email so login and check out your results. They can be positive or negative results – doesn’t matter.
In the second step towards you need to learnwhy or why not your test went great or failed. Use your metrics to analyze the change. This is where all of the foundational work of setting up UTMs, conversion tracking and custom channels pays off.
For Example:
In the last step, you’ll adapt what you learned from your tests to not only perform additional tests, but to also raise the standard for all of your campaigns. This is one of the “hidden” benefits of testing new ideas is the exponential results of applying those successful tests to all of your campaigns.
Wrapping it up!
Screenshot below of a Facebook Campaign using this process: You can see we started around $2.79 per lead, then tested and lowered the cost per lead. Tested again and the cost per lead went up – oh no! But we learn, then adapt. The final result being an average of $1.91 per lead!
The best way to get started is to get started. Take 5 minutes after reading this and get testing!
