Ad testing is a way to measure the effectiveness of your ads. It helps you determine whether your ads are getting results, and if not, how you can improve them. If you’re just starting out with ad testing, it can seem like there are a million different ways to do it. But don’t worry: we’ve got all the answers right here. In this post, we’ll go over what ad testing is, why it’s important, and how you can run an ad testing survey.

What is Ad Testing?

Ad testing is a process of comparing the performance of two or more ad creatives to determine which one performs better. Ad testing is conducted in order to create highly effective ads that drive the desired results.

Ad testing helps us understand what works, what doesn’t work, and why it works or doesn’t. It enables us to improve our ads, and increase conversion rates and revenue. The process also helps us learn about our target audience and how they respond to different types of ads or messaging.

Explore: Free Ad Testing Survey Template

Ad testing is when you compare different versions of your ads and see which one performs better. The goal of ad testing is to find the version of your ad that gets the most clicks or conversions at the lowest cost per click (CPC).

Why Do We Do Ad Testing?

There are lots of reasons why you might want to run an ad test:

  1. To see if changing something in your ad will make it more effective (like changing the color)
  2. To find out if one campaign works better than another on Facebook or Google Ads (like putting multiple URLs into one ad)
  3. To see if changing what you offer will bring in more traffic
  4. To help understand the effectiveness of ads, so that you can make more money

Try for Free: Ad Distribution Price Calculator Template

Elements of Ads to Test

To help you get started, here are some of the most common elements of ads that you can test:

  • The headline (including copy and visuals)
  • The image or video used in the ad
  • The copy (including what’s in the image or video)
  • The target audience being targeted

If your ad is a video, you’ll want to test different images and sound effects. If your ad is written text, you’ll want to test different headlines and body text.

If your ad is an image with some text on it, like a billboard, you’ll want to test different images as well as whether or not the text should be written at all (or just have an image). Once you know what elements need to be tested, then you can proceed with setting up an ad testing survey for your business.

Try for Free: Estimate Advertising Budget Form Template

Ad Testing Methodologies

 The Ad testing survey is a way to test your ads and see which ones work the best. This is important because you want to spend your money on ads that actually get people to click.

To run an Ad testing survey, you’ll need to:

  • Set up ad groups for each ad you want to test (one group per ad). You can set up multiple groups if you have more than one ad that needs testing.
  • Make sure that you’re using targeting options like location and device type so that your ads reach the right people.
  • Create an experiment for each group of ads by setting up a control group (the one where nothing changes) and an experimental group (where one element will change). You can also create multiple experiments within each group. The control group doesn’t change at all during the experiment, while the experimental group gets different elements each time until you find out which ones are most effective at getting people to click on them!

Single Ad Group Testing (Pros & Cons)

With single ad group testing, you test one ad at a time against another ad. For example, if you have an ad that says “Sign Up Now” with a picture of a dog and an ad that says “Sign Up Now” with a picture of a cat, you would run those two ads against each other in order to see which one gets better results. 

Advantages of Single Ad testing surveys

  • You don’t have to create new ads every time; just change the copy on one of them. Since this is usually done through A/B testing software such as Google Optimize or Facebook Ads Manager, it’s easy to set up and run tests quickly. 
  • You also only have one set of creative assets to maintain.
  • There is no need to keep track of multiple versions of each asset in order for them all to stay consistent across all platforms.
  • It is also very easy to use

Disadvantages of Ad Testing Surveys

  • Not very accurate
  • Creatives are not tested against each other, only against campaign benchmarks (if you have them set up). This can lead to false positives where the best performing creative is not actually the best performing creative.

Try this out: Ad Spot Booking Form Template

Multi-Ad Group Testing (Pros & Cons)

Multiple ad group testing gives you more data per test than single ad group testing does and you’ll have access to more information about which ads are performing well and which ones aren’t worth running anymore. This can help you make better decisions about where to spend your budget in the future.

If you’re running multiple ad groups, it’s possible your ads are not performing as well as they could. If you want to find out how to increase your ROI and reach more customers, you can run a multi-ad group testing survey. 

A survey is a way for you to figure out what works best so that you can spend your money on the most effective ads. Here are some pros and cons of running a multi-ad group testing survey:

Pros

  • You can see which ads are working best so that you can focus on those instead of wasting money on underperforming ads.
  • It’s easy to run a survey, just send out an email asking people what they think about your product or service and then tally up their responses.
  • It will help you improve your ROI by showing you where there are opportunities for improvement.

Cons

  • Surveys take time to complete and analyze (which means more work). It might be better just to keep using all of your ads at once and adjust them manually instead of trying something new that might not work as well as expected.
  • It’s complicated and time-consuming

Explore: Advertising Request Form Template

What are the Different Types of Testing Methods for Measuring Ad Effectiveness?

1. Pre-test and Post Test

What are pre-testing methods in Advertising? Pre-testing is done before running a campaign, where respondents are asked about their awareness of the product or brand, their familiarity with it, and other factors that might influence their decision to buy it. 

  • Purpose of Pre Testing

Pre-testing is used to measure whether or not someone knows about a product or brand prior to running an advertising campaign for it. For example, if you’re trying to sell ice cream cones in summer then you’d want people who already know what they are (and like them) before launching your ad campaign so that they’ll be more likely to buy them when they see yours

  • What are Post-testing Methods in Advertising?

Post-testing is done after the campaign has been run, and respondents are asked how much they liked it, how likely they are to buy from that company in the future, etc.

  • Purpose of Post Testing

Post-testing is useful because it gives you information about how well an ad performs after it has been launched into the world. For example, if your goal is to increase sales by 5%, then knowing that sales increased by 3% after running an advertisement would be helpful information.

2. Communication and Sales Effect Test

Communication Effect Tests are a great way to test whether or not your message is getting across to your customers. You can use this type of test by sending out various versions of your ad, then measuring the results of each ad separately. The goal is to see which version performed better in terms of clicks, sign-ups, or other metrics and use that information as feedback for your next round of ads.

Methods for Communication Effect Test

  • A/B testing (also known as split testing)
  • CPT (cost per thousand impressions) testing
  • Click-through rate (CTR) testing

Methods for Sales Effect Test

Sales Effect Tests are used to measure how well a certain ad performed in terms of sales. This test may be useful if you’re trying to determine which products sell best or which kind of messaging leads users to purchase more often than others. For example, Click-through rate (CTR) testing

Try this out: Brand Ambassador Application Form Template

3. Laboratory and Field Test

Laboratory testing involves creating two versions of your ad, then showing each ad to different groups of people. For example, you could show one group the original version of your ad and another group a second version with slight changes to text or visuals. You would then compare responses from both groups in order to determine which ad works better for your audience.

This method is useful when you want to test minor changes like font size or color scheme before making bigger changes like changing the entire concept behind the ad itself. It is used to determine the product’s physical characteristics like color, odor, taste, etc. The lab test may be carried out by using different methods.

Field tests are done outside of the lab and on real people. This allows you to get feedback from a wider variety of people and find out how they actually use your product or service. You can also see if there are any problems with your product or service that might not have been picked up by a lab test or focus 

4. Experimental and Survey Test

Experimental testing is a form of quantitative research, in which a sample of the target audience is shown one version of the ad, and another sample is shown another version. The difference between the two versions can be in terms of design, copy, or both. In order to determine which ad was more effective at engaging the target audience, researchers typically rely on one or more metrics that indicate what percentage of people clicked on the ad or how much time they spent looking at it.

Survey testing is another form of quantitative research where you ask your target audience questions about their preferences for certain ad elements based on images or descriptions. These questions help you identify which elements are most important to them so that you can optimize your ads accordingly.

5. Message and Media Effect Test

The message and Media Effect Test is a type of survey that compares the effectiveness of different messages, media, and channels. It allows you to find what type of ad works best for your company, product, or service.

This is a great way to test new ideas and learn which ones are more effective than others. You can also use Message and Media Effect Tests to compare two different types of ads, like TV versus Facebook or print versus digital ads. These tests help you see what kind of media works best for your audience and how they respond to certain types of messages.

How to Run an Ad Test

Here are the things you need to know about how to run an ad test:

1. Make sure you have enough traffic for your tests to be valid: You need a minimum of 50 clicks per ad group per day before starting a test. For example, if you have 3 ad groups in your campaign that each gets 50 clicks per day, then each ad group must get at least 1 click per day from each of its ads. If any of your ads get less than 1 click per day, then they won’t show up in the results of your test and it will skew the results of your experiment.

2. Set up your experiment correctly by creating an evenly distributed test audience across all of your ads. That way all of them have a chance to show up in the results of all experiments (if possible). This is important because if one ad gets more impressions than another during the experiment period (for example, because they’re being shown more often) then it could skew results by appearing more often than others.

Benefits of Ad Tests

  1. Better understand what works (and what doesn’t) with your target audience
  2. Save money on low-performing ads that aren’t bringing in sales or leads

Limitations of Ad Testing

  1. You need to have multiple ads running at once in order to know which one performs better.
  2. Not all ads are eligible for testing, so make sure yours is

Conclusion

Ad tests are the best way to improve your campaign performance. They can help you find out which ads perform better than others and make informed decisions about what to keep, change, or cut. Also, understand that it is not possible to run a “perfect” A/B test. There will always be some degree of bias in every test even if it’s just because you chose different times of day or days of the week to check out your ads.


  • busayo.longe
  • on 11 min read

Formplus

You may also like:

Job Evaluation: Definition, Methods + [Form Template]

Everything you need to know about job evaluation. Importance, types, methods and question examples


9 min read
33 Online Shopping Questionnaire + [Template Examples]

Learn how to study users’ behaviors, experiences, and preferences as they shop items from your e-commerce store with this article


9 min read
Training Survey: Types, Template + [Question Example]

Conducting a training survey, before or after a training session, can help you to gather useful information from training participants....


11 min read
Concept Testing: Types, Methods + Examples

In this article, we’ll discuss the different types of concept testing, real-life examples you can learn from and how to create yours.


9 min read

Formplus - For Seamless Data Collection

Collect data the right way with a versatile data collection tool. Try Formplus and transform your work productivity today.
Try Formplus For Free