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Ad testing is the practice of evaluating advertising effectiveness, to see if your ads are reaching their intended audience and achieving their intended goals. Ad tests can be done through various methods such as market research surveys, A/B testing, focus groups and data analysis.
Every so often you’ll see an ad, and wonder how it came to be. Like when McDonald’s replaced images of burgers and fries with smiling people.
The secret to ads like these that stand out and still convey a strong message? Ad testing.
Here you’ll learn how to make your next advertising campaign your best one yet using a creative testing survey. Ready to boost your ad success?
Running an ad test is a great way to test the waters, especially if you’re launching something new—that might be fresh branding, a new product or unique messaging that really needs to stand out.
Creative testing is a surefire way of evaluating the effectiveness of ad concepts before they are released to the public.
You can test different aspects of an ad. You can zoom in on the copy to find the snappiest words, test media placement, images and colors to see what stands out or reflects your brand best, or simply test to see if it moves your target audience the way you want it to.
Conducting an ad testing survey with creative testing is a great way for marketers and creatives to work together to create advertisements that have the best ROI.
It helps teams back up their creative ideas with data, to launch campaigns with confidence—and reach goals faster than ever.
It’s also a great way to prevent costly mistakes or ads that miss the mark from going live, which means you’re optimizing your ad spend.
There are plenty of ways to turn test ads. Here are some of the most common ones:
There’s a method for every marketer out there, depending on what key metrics you choose to focus on. However, collecting data from customers on a large scale, both qualitative and quantitative and segmented into different target groups, is best done using surveys.
Make sure your ads bring in revenue
By testing your ads before you launch, you make sure you’ll go live with the most successful version. Get fast, quality creative testing insights with Attest.
Time to get to work. Here’s what the process of ad testing could look like.
Time to come up with the ads to test! Start by brainstorming ad ideas and creatives that align with your marketing goals and target audience. Think about what you want to test as well.
Meanwhile, analyzing data from previous ad campaigns can provide insights into what worked and what didn’t, helping to optimize your future ad campaigns. This will also help you formulate better questions and find what to focus on in individual ad analysis.
Now you’ve got your ads (or a single ad), it’s time to put them in a survey to find out what your target audience thinks of them. With a tool like Attest you can show respondents visuals and then ask them different types of questions.
Additionally or alternatively, you can use a focus group to dive deeper into your survey results if needed. This can be particularly beneficial if your survey is inconclusive, or if you want to gather more knowledge on responses.
If you want to keep the research going, you can create different versions of an ad and run them alongside each other, to find out which one is the perfect ad. If the survey results were clear, however, you can just go ahead and launch the ad or campaign that came out as the winner.
Social media platforms often have built-in metrics that can help track ad performance, such as reach, engagement, and conversion rates. Also track what people are saying about your ad or brand in general, for example for instance using social listening tools.
Creating effective ads is challenging. Ad testing is there to make it easier, but it needs to be executed the right way. To do so, here are some of the advantages of ad testing methods, but also some challenges—and how to deal with them.
How surveys can help with ad testing challenges:
With surveys, you can tackle these challenges:
When crafting your next ad concepts, keep these best practices in mind.
Your ad creative should clearly communicate what sets your product or service apart. If you’re struggling to find a place to start, really zoom in on that in your creative testing surveys.
Think about where and when your target audience will see your ad. How far along are they in the customer journey at that point? What is their purchase intent at that point? What information do they need to proceed?
Ad creative should be easy to understand and digest, with a clear message that is easy to comprehend. If your survey focuses on whether your ad is too difficult to understand, it probably is. Take a page from Coca-Cola’s book, who hit the nail on the head with this ultra-simple campaign.
If you’re running ads on multiple platforms, make sure your messaging and visuals are consistent. This will help build brand recognition and create a cohesive experience for your customers.
Be real. No stock images. No over-used quotes or clichés. Don’t hide behind outdated messages or try to play it too safe. Authenticity builds trust, and it’s memorable.
An industry that isn’t known for its humor in their ads? Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions. Occasionally they do try to play into some emotion, but it will completely miss the mark with a large chunk of their audience.
That’s precisely what Yonder used in their new campaign, that is full of hilarious responses to traditional credit card companies. Humor’s a hit, always.
Ready to create ad campaigns that truly resonate with your target audience? We can help you create your best ad yet. If you’re looking for a creative ad testing platform that provides you with designated research advice, look no further.
Our creative testing tools and survey templates are here to help you create a winning ad. Access to 150+ million people 59 countries means you’ll be able to get the right consumers to provide feedback on your advertisement ideas, within hours.
The Complete Guide to Creative Testing
Check out our free Complete Guide to Creative Testing and discover how easy it is to start testing your creative assets before you release them into the wild.
Senior Customer Research Manager
Nikos joined Attest in 2019, with a strong background in psychology and market research. As part of Customer Research Team, Nikos focuses on helping brands uncover insights to achieve their objectives and open new opportunities for growth.
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