Facebook Split Testing: How to Make Your Ads Better

Do you run Facebook ads?

Have you tried split testing?

To explore different ways to split test your Facebook ads so you can refine your ad campaigns, I interview Andrea Vahl.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Andrea Vahl, a Facebook marketing expert. She's co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies and co-founder of the Social Media Manager School. In addition, Andrea is a regular contributor to Social Media Examiner.

Andrea explores Facebook split testing and how best to optimize your Facebook ads.

You'll discover which elements to split test first.

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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Facebook Split Testing
How Andrea Became Involved With Facebook

In 2006, Andrea started using social media to promote her side business (in-home wine tasting). She says that as she was learning how to use Facebook and Twitter, she didn't see a lot of articles that were entertaining and explained things step by step.

So Andrea decided to use one of her improv comedy characters to make an entertaining, fun, and useful blog. She chose Grandma Mary, and dubbed her a "social media edutainer."

According to Andrea, Grandma Mary gets a little cranky about social media. The character is the voice of people who are frustrated with having to learn social media. Grandma Mary explains social media in an endearing, engaging, and understandable way.

Andrea started her blog about nine years ago, and when the parent company of the wine business folded, she made the blog her side gig. It grew substantially (she had a lot of Twitter followers and Facebook fans), which led to the book deal for her to co-author of the Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies series with Phyllis Khare and Amy Porterfield.

Today, Andrea still blogs about Facebook, does Facebook consulting, runs ad campaigns for clients, and more. It's her full-time business and she gets to speak and train on Facebook all over the world.

Listen to the show to discover which two loves Andrea combined when she created Grandma Mary.

What You Can Split Test

Andrea explains that the concept of split testing Facebook ads involves keeping things constant, while changing one thing about the ad at a time. That way, you'll easily be able to tell which variable contributed to the better-performing Facebook ad results. Then you can stop the ads that aren't performing, continue running the ones that are, and hopefully get your click price and cost lower and lower.

For example, if you split test an ad to 1,000 people, 500 would see one version and 500 would see another. Then you compare the results. The hope is that you learn what works and what doesn't so larger audiences can be reached.

First of all, Andrea says, you can split test all kinds of keywords, which go into the Interests area. For instance, if someone lists jogging as an interest in a profile, and you use that keyword in the Interest area of your Facebook ad, your ad will get shown to that person.

Your ad could also be shown to people who have liked pages that are related to jogging, such as types of jogging clothing or shoes.

You can also test all kinds of demographics. For example, say you want to reach people who are 35 to 55, live in a certain city, like certain things, and maybe own a home. There are all kinds of demographics targeting you can put in your ads to reach your perfect prospect.

For Interests, Andrea suggests using general keywords like "jogging" and "running," versus specific pages like Runner's World or Nike shoes.