Creative is now the biggest lever in paid social, and testing it well is a discipline. The most common mistake we see is testing too many things at once with too little budget behind each.
Test one idea at a time
A useful test changes one thing: the hook, the offer, or the format. If two ads differ in image, headline and call to action, you won't know which change made the difference.
Give each variant enough spend
As a rule of thumb, each variant needs enough budget to reach around 50 conversions, or at least several thousand impressions for click-based goals, before you call a winner. With a small budget, that means testing two or three variants, not ten.
Write the hypothesis down first
- What are you changing?
- What result do you expect, and by how much?
- What will you do if it wins, and if it loses?
A test without a written hypothesis is just a guess with a bigger invoice.
We keep a shared test log with every client. After a few months, it becomes the most valuable document in the account: a record of what your audience actually responds to.
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