In the world digital marketing and a sea of ​​different expressions from that sphere, you've probably heard of A / B testing or split testing. If you may not, in this blog we will tell you what A / B testing is and why it is important.

What is A / B testing

As the word itself says, testing provides us with a certain type of test and is a very important tool that provides insight into what works well and what doesn’t. Based on that, it clearly directs us towards making the right decisions in addressing the end users of our services or products.

As in life we ​​constantly encounter various hesitations, which start from the most common things - what to have lunch today or what coffee to drink, to some bigger ones like making important decisions, so ambiguity also occurs when addressing the target group. We wonder if it is better to write something in one way or another or to use one or the other creative.

How to start?

Since in the real world there is no magic shortcut to finding out what works best and how to best interact with users, A / B testing is the right option that will give us clear guidelines on how best to reach the target group, get clicks, lead- these, conversions, etc., depending on what we want.

The most important thing is to first determine what your goals are, and then what you want to test. Is it an ad / visual design, CTA (call to action), copy or the text of the ad, the age and gender of the target audience or platform on which the ad will appear (Facebook news feed, Facebook Story, Instagram feed, Instagram Story etc. - is a great choice).

At the beginning of creating a campaign in Facebook business manager-u, the A / B testing option is available within any selected target. For this to be possible, you need to turn off budget optimization at the campaign level and move it to the campaign level Ad Set-a (the second part of creating a campaign). 

After switching budget optimization within Ad Set-and checking A / B testing, an option opens asking us what we want to test. Three types of testing can be observed on the following visual: Creative, Audience i Placement. 

Depending on the selected target at the beginning, another testing option appears - Delivery optimization, if we want to test impressions, link clicks, landing page views, engagement, reach, app installs etc. - that is, if we want to test e.g. clicks, the ad will be displayed to those users who are most likely to click on the ad.

How does A / B testing work?

Once you've determined what you want to test, all you have to do is create two or more ad types and run an experiment. Yes, you can test more than two types of ads, or as many as are necessary to get what you want. Over time, you can leave those that give better results and delete worse ones.

It works on principle Facebookof this algorithm, his excellent knowledge of his users on the platform, as well as your settings that you have specified. As you optimize your ads, they will appear to users who are on criteria Facebook-a relevant to the set optimization. 

When monitoring the results, it is very important to study each of the segments and based on them decide what needs to be improved in order to achieve the desired goals the fastest and most efficiently.

Experiments like these are designed to help marketers make better strategic decisions in their business, find the best way to communicate with their target group, and thus achieve their set goals.

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