Digital advertising is becoming increasingly costly, with expenditures expected to reach half a trillion dollars in the near future.
Image source The reason is straightforward: everyone is vying for attention in the digital space. To gain a competitive advantage, optimizing your ad campaigns for maximum return on investment is crucial. Traditionally, A/B testing and ad rotation have been the go-to optimization methods. However, there’s a lesser-known technique gaining traction: copy testing. This guide will delve into what copy testing entails, why it’s experiencing a resurgence, and how to leverage it effectively to boost your advertising ROI and sales. Let’s begin.
What is copy testing?
Copy testing is a market research technique that gauges an advertisement’s potential effectiveness based on consumer feedback. This feedback helps advertisers anticipate an ad’s performance before investing in online promotion. Despite its benefits, copy testing lost favor over the past 15 years. copy testing has fallen out of favor. Many advertisers perceive it as outdated, citing lengthy processes, high costs, and a tendency to result in unoriginal campaigns due to research groups’ aversion to risk. However, with the advent of automated copy testing in recent years, it is making a comeback. Additionally, tools like Microsoft IF functions now allow for testing different copy variations in both Bing Ads and Google Ads.
What is automated copy testing?
Automated copy testing is a modern approach that employs software to distribute ad variations to real individuals who have consented to provide feedback. This crowdsourcing model reduces time and costs associated with traditional copy testing. Moreover, these tools often incorporate advanced analytics to interpret the collected data. For instance, the copy testing app Qualtrics presents the feedback from your market research group in easy-to-understand, actionable graphs.
Regarding the criticism about stifling creativity, the truth is that contemporary consumers respond positively to originality. Take this advertisement, for example.
This ad remains captivating. Is there genuine concern that a modern copy testing research group would disapprove of such creativity? This video has amassed 56,600,000 views on YouTube alone, originating from a TV commercial.
What about A/B testing?
Experienced digital marketers might wonder about the necessity of copy testing when A/B testing already yields positive results. Why spend money showing ads to uninterested individuals? The answer is simple: Investing more upfront can lead to greater profits later. The concept of ROI is familiar to all. The goal is to maximize return on investment, and while A/B testing contributes to this, it lacks a crucial aspect: You still incur expenses for the underperforming ad variation. Copy testing allows for a higher upfront cost but potentially results in higher earnings later. Furthermore, A/B testing can be problematic in itself. How often do A/B tests fail to reach statistical significance, or result in a winning ad design that clashes with the rest of the website, creating a disjointed sales funnel? How often do false positives lead to long-term financial losses? The key takeaway is: Only 1 in every 7 of A/B tests yield a statistically significant winner, and this figure is based on data from experienced advertisers. Countless other marketers conduct A/B tests without comprehensive, full-funnel analytics tracking. While A/B testing provides concrete data—a tempting prospect for digital marketers—it can often be unreliable. Copy testing, in contrast, offers both quantitative data and qualitative data, providing insights directly from individuals resembling your potential customers. Before delving into extracting optimal quantitative and qualitative data from copy testing, let’s briefly examine the elements that contribute to a successful ad campaign in the first place.
Creative and targeting: crucial factors in ad campaign success
This section highlights the critical elements to identify before initiating copy testing: the factors influencing your campaign’s success or failure. Here’s how Nielsen categorized various advertising elements based on their contribution to sales:
Image source In essence, prioritize testing your creative. It’s no surprise that your ad design remains the most influential factor in a campaign’s outcome. Next, test your targeting. This holds particular importance in copy testing as you select a smaller group to represent your broader audience. If you don’t gather insights from the right people, those insights become useless later. Form multiple research groups to understand how each demographic responds to your campaign creative, and then target those demographics when launching your ad. Effective targeting can give you a significant advantage over your competitors. The same Nielsen study mentioned earlier found that “less than half of fast-moving consumer goods brands effectively reach category or brand buyers.” It further emphasizes that “when a campaign fails to reach the intended buyer target, the creative has to work harder to drive sales.” Observe the following example.
Demographics and context: crucial factors for successful copy testing
Similar to most ad testing, copy testing hinges on demographics and context. Primarily, your market research group should exclusively consist of individuals within your target market. Gathering feedback from 17-year-old boys for a campaign targeting 65-year-old women is pointless. That should be self-evident. What’s often overlooked is the impact of the platform where your ad will be displayed on its success. Your market research group should experience the campaign in the same way your target market will. Imagine presenting your ad campaign on a projector screen, devoid of any desktop or mobile newsfeed context. Would the insights be reliable? Only if your target audience also viewed the ad in a similar contextless environment. Don’t underestimate the influence of platform or context. Consider that desktop shoppers convert at a rate over 300% higher than mobile shoppers. Context is paramount in advertising, which explains why the average cost of an advertisement on Google Ads is $2.32, while on Facebook, it’s $1.72. Similarly, desktop shoppers convert at a rate more than 300% higher higher than mobile shoppers. The platform and manner in which an ad is displayed directly affect the likelihood of clicks. Now, equipped with a better understanding of why and how to copy test your ad campaigns, let’s explore how to maximize its effectiveness.
How to get the most out of copy testing
Three key strategies can ensure optimal, impactful results from your copy testing:
- Target your copy testing group as precisely as you would your actual ad campaign.
- Ask pertinent questions that provide valuable insights.
- Ensure the data collected is actionable and translates into improvements. Let’s delve into implementing each of these strategies.
Target your copy testing group as you would your ad
While mentioned earlier, it bears repeating: The demographics of your research group should closely mirror those of your campaign’s target market. Creating an ad campaign for working mothers with young children and then assembling a research group of retired men is counterproductive. Remember, copy testing won’t yield statistically significant results due to the smaller sample size. Instead, it relies on a focused group providing objective feedback, which is only valuable if those individuals accurately represent your ideal consumers. For instance, Qualtrics boasts a searchable and filterable user base exceeding 10,000 potential ad viewers, each with a detailed profile, allowing for precise targeting.
Ask the right questions
What are you aiming to discover from your research group? Primarily, copy tests are historically, conducted with two key aspects in mind:
- Recall: How effectively do potential customers remember your ad’s message? How well do they recall the brand even if they don’t remember the specific message?
- Persuasion: To what extent does your ad motivate potential customers to engage with it? These are excellent starting points, particularly recall. For campaigns that don’t rely on click-throughs, such as brand awareness campaigns on Facebook, memorability is paramount. Therefore, ensure your target audience provides initial feedback and, after 48 hours, shares insights into their recollection of the ad’s details. Modern copy testing tools go beyond these two basic aspects, allowing you to ask a wide range of questions. However, it’s crucial to maintain focus to obtain the most relevant results. Consider these recommended questions:
- Did this ad capture your attention?
- What words or phrases come to mind when you see this ad?
- What might prevent you from clicking on or engaging with this ad?
- What do you anticipate happening if you click on this ad?
…Make the data actionable
Can you translate qualitative feedback, such as “what words or phrases come to mind,” into actionable steps? Similarly, can quantitative feedback, like ratings on a scale of 1-10 for ad resonance, be transformed into concrete actions? Unlike A/B testing, copy testing necessitates data interpretation and translation. Instead of a simple “This one is better, this one is worse” verdict, it provides nuanced insights like, “This ad didn’t resonate with me because it seems to assume all single mothers feel exhausted, which isn’t true for me.” From a conversion optimization perspective, such insights can be more valuable as they provide a clear direction and rationale. In A/B testing, you test a hypothesis but can’t be certain if the winning variation’s success is solely due to a correct hypothesis. External factors could be at play. Perhaps the winning variation loaded faster, subconsciously building trust compared to a slower original. Maybe it’s simply because it’s September, and your audience has an affinity for that month.
Get the most out of your copy testing
Understanding the value of copy testing your ad campaigns empowers you to gain truly valuable insights by asking the right questions, targeting the right audience, and presenting the ad in the right context. Compared to other digital marketing strategies, copy testing can be costly and ineffective if executed poorly. However, when done right, a few hundred dollars invested in copy testing can potentially save thousands once your ad campaign launches.