The most critical quality of a successful Facebook advertiser is an openness to experimentation. It is through your experiments with Facebook ads that you will gain knowledge, find solutions, and achieve success.
Rather than asking, “Should I…” in relation to a fundamental Facebook advertising strategy, understand that there is very little black and white (outside of the rules themselves). What is effective for you may not be effective for me, and vice versa. If you want to know if something is going to work, give it a try!
It’s also quite easy to become entrenched in your ways. As someone who has been using Facebook ads to run my own business for over a decade, I understand how quickly you can rely on tried and true methods. It’s all too easy to fall into a templated mindset.
Of course, the issue is that while your approach remains constant, the advertising environment is constantly evolving. Everything is so much different today than it was even a year ago. If you fail to evolve your strategies, you can anticipate sinking into frustration.
You should conduct experiments frequently. It’s what keeps me sharp and enables me to discover things I would have never discovered without attempting something new. I’m currently conducting an experiment, which I’ll describe in greater detail at the bottom of this post.
For the time being, let’s review the primary categories of experimentation opportunities that you should pursue with your Facebook advertising…
A/B Testing
If you’re attempting to determine whether one thing performs better than another, Facebook’s built-in A/B testing tool is the only way to conduct a true, scientific test that is free of overlap. This is the most effective method for determining the most effective strategies based on factors such as image, video, text, and targeting.
A/B testing is not something you should do indefinitely. It’s a brief test (1-30 days) to determine what works best in the future.
You are not required to use A/B testing in all circumstances. Perhaps you’re fine without a rigorous scientific test and simply want to run distinct ad sets.
An ad set is a collection of Facebook ads that define targeting, scheduling, optimization, and placement.
To read the full description, click on the word. to different audiences or separate ads with a variety of creative options. All of this is acceptable. Optimization of Facebook
How you optimize your Facebook ad has an effect on who sees it. Facebook will display your advertisement to users who are most likely to take the desired action.
Additionally, clicking on a word to read the full description will assist in focusing on what works best in those instances.
Additional documentation on A/B testing is available at the following link:
- Types of A/B Tests Available on Facebook
- Best A/B Testing Practices
Budget Optimization for Campaigns
Should you create multiple ad sets with distinct budgets or use Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO)?
If you enable CBO, Facebook will allocate your budget “optimally” among ad sets in order to maximize results. Thus, you could set a daily budget of $50 with CBO and use two ad sets; Facebook will allocate budget between the two ad sets based on the results generated by each.
If you do not use CBO, you would allocate budgets to individual ad sets. Naturally, you have more control here. Perhaps you’re okay with spending more per action for a specific audience. Perhaps you have reservations about Facebook’s optimization.
Although I prefer the control, I will occasionally experiment with CBO, especially when the audiences are comparable in size.
