In a nut shell that means test your banners!
Testing banner ads against each other is, well down right easy!
First: Choose a site or network on which to run your Banner Ad's
Second: Now, instead of developing a single ad design two different ad's.
Third: Instead of serving up a single ad to all the traffic randomly divide the ads. Half of the traffic is served one ad while the other half sees an alternative.
Fourth: Sit back and watch. You're simply allowing your potential customers to show you, by their very actions, which treatment compels them to complete a task (e.g., clicking the ad, making a purchase, filling out a form, requesting more information).
The question begs, why isn't more companies testing their banner ad's.
This is what I believe, sometimes companies run banner ad tests and don't see much of a difference between the two that they tested. They end up thinking, "The variations in the ad obviously don't matter much, so why bother?"
That kind of thinking can lead to complacency in the creative development process. The danger lies in you losing your competitive edge. Successful testing can increase clickthroughs and conversions, thus increasing ROI more easily and more quickly than almost any other marketing initiative, and if you're not doing it, your competitors are (or soon will be)
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It can be challenging to continue testing, when you try testing and end up with less than spectacular results. So here are three steps you can take to guarantee you will see improvement.
Step 1. Test stronger differences
Sometimes a marketer who wants to run a test takes a basic version of the ad, makes some minor changes to it, runs the new one against the original, and wonders why the results for each ad are basically the same.
Generally, this happens because the two versions are too similar. This is often the case, by the way, in organizations where risk is not rewarded. Marketers are so concerned with not seeing the numbers go down that they avoid making significant changes that help numbers go up
Sidestep this pitfall by trying three things:
The 50-foot test: A colleague showed me this. He printed out the banners and tape them to the wall across the room and stepped back as far as he could. He turned to me and asked, can you see the difference between the two ad's? He would do this to ensure the two creative options are different enough.
Simplify: He called it his economy of design. He might also try leaving out certain elements altogether. Sometimes, we marketers jam too much into a small space. Consider making one of the elements more prominent and skipping one of the lesser elements altogether.
Push your creative limits: Come up with at least one version that pushes the limits a bit. You will almost always see the first couple of attempts are too much like (in content and design) to their current ads. Go back and try again come up with something really new.
Another problem that often occurs is the two ads are too similar and will yield very similar or general results. That's usually because the marketer is still in his comfort zone. Never forget, big improvements come from big risks.
Keep in mind, you're really not risking much, because it's just a test. If your results are disastrous, you can stop the test immediately.
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Step 2. Run your test based on a theme or hypothesis
In most cases where your tests return a neutral result there's usually no real structure. For example, There's banner #1 that includes a photo of a woman, banner #2 which is blue and banner #3 which has some Flash.
When using this approach, if you do find a winning version you haven't really learned much that you can use in the future.
Instead of using two or three random ideas, Pull your ideas together and force them into a structure. let's say, for example, you believe that photos of women work well, test an ad with a small picture, a medium picture, and a large picture.
Better yet, start with a hypothesis. For example, if you believe your message will generate better conversions by using a softer, more human approach, instead of trying to force the sale through an aggressive call to action then test it: Try three different versions.
Version #1 has a happy mother with her arms around a child.
Version #2 that takes a direct marketing, aggressive approach.
Version #3 includes factual content.
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Step 3. A Sharper Focus
Say you test three very different ads: You have a winner and you're happy with the results. Still, you don't feel you've really found out anything of real lasting value. (try reviewing (Step 2 again).
Congratulations are in order you have discovered a new winner. Now you might take your new winning banner and begin multivariant testing to improve it. But you might also want to go back and investigate further into your original three tests to see if you can discover even more about them.
In other words, take Version #1, the one with a happy mother with her arms around a child, and create a second and even third version (let's call them Version #1a, #1b and #1c). Version #1a, has the mother and her child playing outside, while Version #1b, has her in the kitchen baking cookies with her daughter and Version #1c, has her putting the child to bed.
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It gives you the opportunity to push further into the test. You will end up with six to nine different approaches, and if you continue to consistently win, then you can even further ask yourself are they all three winners? Test again and verify.
This becomes useful because it helps determine whether a particular creative treatment works consistently. You can begin to see patterns and develop lessons which you can use in future tests.
Once you've become adept at testing your basic banner ad, you're ready to move on to more difficult (and exciting!) tests. When you've pinpointed an ad that beats the others, for example, begin multivariant testing to see how much better you can make it. Play around with the copy, the colors, the smaller stuff that you might have wanted to test in the first place.
Even more exciting, you might want to try segmenting your audience. See if visitors who have clicked on your banner once and are seeing it for the second time behave differently from visitors who are seeing it for the first time. Run a test of a new banner on those second-time viewers.
These three steps will help your organization identify banner ad creative that best resonates with your target audience. Not only will you increase clickthrough and ROI, you'll also learn about the preferences and motivations of a very important group of people: your future customers
