YOUR AD TESTS ARE GOING TO NEED SOLID METRICS

Tight budgets and stiff competition don’t leave much room for mistakes. Those are probably the greatest reasons why AD testing is so important.

It takes away some of the uncertainty and allows an advertising campaign to be more rifled and less of a scatter gun affair.

Optimal outcomes happens when the testing shows there is one particular ad that really sells and causes major profits to be generated.

That is something any advertising manager wants to have happen. The concept of testing is pretty straightforward.

You can have several ads running simultaneously and check the results to see which one is the best. That essentially is what Ad testing is all about.

The hard part is what the real world can throw at you. Things change on a routine basis and the ads have to respond to that.

There’s also the fundamental activities involved which includes composing copy, deciding what ads are going to be in the test, organizing the actual test in a set scheme, and then taking a look at what the results are.

Anyone who is done testing knows that there are a lot of statistical phrases and probability terms tossed around.

The methodology is intended to show that sheer luck did not cause different figures:

There was a degree of probability and statistical significance in the bargain.

The metrics used are going to be extremely important. The tests are not going to be of any value if the wrong metrics are being watched by those conducting the tests.

There are several metrics that are going to be very important and these are going to be very useful it comes time for evaluation results.

CONVERSION RATE

This is an advertising term that is heard so often in relationship to Click Through Rate that sometimes people may think that both are one and the same. They aren’t.

Conversion Rate concentrates on the number of clicks that lead to conversion. This is an indicator of traffic moving through PPC. It is centred on the number of users who click the ad and make a decision to execute a purchase transaction.

Those ads that bring in a heavy volume of the designated traffic are the ones to be evaluated and measured in the testing sequence.

The Conversion Rate is a pretty straightforward metric to use, but using additional metrics can help firm up the evaluation and produce more meaningful information.

CLICK THROUGH RATE

It is a fairly easy metric to review and evaluation simply follows the C/I equation (clicks divided by impressions).

It has importance as far as determining the potential leads who may be interested in what the ad is attempting to sell.

It is also a fairly limited evaluation tool because it doesn’t take into consideration any actions completed or conversions that have been made.

That is critical since the results of the clicks are what have to be centre stage.

Because of this, the result of the Click Through Rate assessment should also have a Conversion Rate variable as part of the overall evaluation.

IMPRESSION UNTIL THE CONVERSION OCCURS

This is a measure of how many impressions occur until conversion is successfully achieved.

An easy equation to help remember this is I/C (impressions divided by conversions).

Excel spreadsheet calculations can be used to massage the statistics and look at the results.

It can help better understand which ads are creating interest and if clicks are the result, as well as if sales or leads are coming in from the ad.

Another utility for this metric is that it’s a tiebreaker for the other two metrics. Ads that have nearly identical Conversion Rates or Click Through Rates can create a very difficult choice. Impression Until Conversion can help in reaching the final decision.

KEEPING THE AD TESTS VALID

Any researcher will tell you that there has to be something to keep data valid and reduce the risk of contamination.

A good control for statistical reliability is an investigation of the ad rotation settings. Those have to be in good order or else it can cause some drastic variations that will compromise the statistics.

Frequency of ads in the test ought to be the same and actually should be run at the same time.

The reason for that is that using different months or weeks does not take into consideration the same conditions the market is creating. The real world can throw some major curveballs as it is constantly changing.

Ad testing is a critical part of any successful campaign. The above metrics are good indicators of success levels but controls for accuracy and solid test methodology have to be ready ahead of time. This will require a fair amount of planning, but the resulting information is going to make that certainly worthwhile.

THANK YOU

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