How can you experiment with advertising online?

1 Define your goal

Before you start experimenting, you need to have a clear and measurable goal for your advertising campaign. What do you want to achieve? Do you want to increase traffic, conversions, sales, or awareness? How will you track and evaluate your performance? Having a specific and realistic goal will help you design your experiments and compare your results.

2 Choose your platform

Depending on your goal, budget, and audience, you can choose from various online advertising platforms, such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, or YouTube Ads. Each platform has its own features, benefits, and limitations, so you need to research and understand how they work and what they offer. You can also use multiple platforms to test different channels and formats.

3 Create your variations

Once you have chosen your platform and set up your account, you can create different versions of your ads to test different elements. For example, you can experiment with different headlines, images, colors, calls to action, or landing pages. You can use tools like Google Optimize, Facebook Creative Hub, or Canva to create and preview your variations.

4 Run your tests

To run your experiments, you need to set up a testing method that will allow you to compare your variations and measure their impact. There are two main types of testing methods: A/B testing and multivariate testing. A/B testing compares two versions of an ad, while multivariate testing compares multiple versions of an ad with different combinations of elements. You can use tools like Google Ads Experiments, Facebook Split Testing, or Optimizely to run your tests.

5 Analyze your results

After you have run your tests for a sufficient period of time and collected enough data, you need to analyze your results and draw conclusions. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics, or HubSpot to track and visualize your metrics, such as impressions, clicks, conversions, or revenue. You can also use statistical methods, such as confidence intervals or significance tests, to determine if your results are reliable and meaningful.

6 Apply your learnings

The final step of experimenting with advertising online is to apply your learnings and make improvements to your campaigns. Based on your results, you can identify what works best for your goal and audience, and what needs to be changed or tested further. You can also use your learnings to generate new ideas and hypotheses for future experiments. Experimenting with advertising online is an ongoing process that requires constant testing and learning.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?