You’ll Get Worse Results When Testing

It’s important that you understand this…

A/B Tests

If you run an A/B test, your audienceThis is the group of people who can potentially see your ads. You help influence this by adjusting age, gender, location, detailed targeting (interests and behaviors), custom audiences, and more. More will be divided so that there’s no overlap. Per Meta:

We show each version to a segment of your audience and ensure nobody sees both, then determine which version performs best.

That’s good! But by spreading your audience across multiple campaignsThe campaign is the foundation of your Facebook ad. This is where you’ll set an advertising objective, which defines what you want your ad to achieve. More and ad setsAn ad set is a Facebook ads grouping where settings like targeting, scheduling, optimization, and placement are determined. More, you won’t get optimal results. Know that going in.

Unscientific Test

Even if you don’t run a true A/B testSplit testing (or A/B testing) allows you to test changes in Facebook variables like ad creative, audience, or placement to determine which approach performs best. More, you can run into suboptimal results. You might create multiple campaigns or ad sets to determine whether one optimizationThe Performance Goal is chosen within the ad set and determines optimization and delivery. How you optimize impacts who sees your ad. Meta will show your ad to people most likely to perform your desired action. More works better than another, for example. That will lead to auction overlap.

The more campaigns and ad sets you create, the more competition you generate for yourself.

Testing and Optimal Results

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t test. You should. But you should understand that testing isn’t the ideal environment for results.

When you test, temper your expectations. Don’t look for one winner that has amazing results. Instead, look for the version that gives you the best results during the test.

Then shut off the other versions so that the winning version has a better chance to perform. Once it’s free from auction overlapAuction Overlap can happen when you have two ad sets running at the same time, targeting similar audiences. When their ads are about to enter the auction, Meta first chooses the ad with the highest total value. That ad will be the one that enters into the auction. The other won’t be considered. Meta does this to prevent you from bidding against yourself. When there’s too much Auction Overlap, it can result in higher costs or under delivery. More and it’s not restricted by an A/B test, you should start getting better results.

It’s a reminder that these tests aren’t meant to run indefinitely. You want to reachReach measures the number of Accounts Center Accounts (formerly users) that saw your ads at least once. You can have one account reached with multiple impressions. More a point where you find a winner so that you can leverage it and get the most optimal results possible.