You want to improve your LinkedIn ads. That's why you're here. Smart decision on your behalf as optimised LinkedIn campaigns will help you reach the people who matter most to your business. Not to mention, it’s going to help you get maximum ROI.
In a previous post, we shared three A/B split tests to improve your LinkedIn ads and it's double or nothing, because we're back today with three more.
Let's quickly recap: what is A/B split testing?
Every audience is different, and figuring out what they respond best to is the aim of A/B testing.
Does your audience prefer a particular type of image? What about how the CTA is worded? Does a statistic get more traction than empathy led copy? Basically, in an A/B split test, you put two ad tactics in the ring and let the best tactic win.
Not only is this helpful for your current campaign, but you're also building knowledge you can use in your subsequent ad campaigns.
In our previous post, we covered A/B split testing by audience segmentation, copy and bidding style. Today we're going to include three more tests:
- Ad format options for a single objective (e.g. lead generation)
- Different remarketing pools
- CTA phrases
1. Testing ad format options for a single objective
LinkedIn provides campaign creation based on your goals, whether that's brand awareness, video views, lead generation or another objective. With that campaign objective in mind, you can set up different ad formats, i.e. single image, carousel or video.
The test: Which ad format performs best for X objective.
The example: You're promoting the download of an ebook on your website, i.e., your objective is Lead Generation. Your A/B split test could be to test a video ad against a single image ad.
The success metric: While engagement is great, you'll want to keep an eye on which ad converts the most leads at the lower cost-per-lead.
The results of a LinkedIn ad campaign we ran for one of our campaigns at Bc recently showed that the ad campaign with the Single Image (SI) performed better than the campaign using a video (VID) - where the winning campaign had a lower cost-per-lead, higher click-through rate and lower cost-per-click. As the ad format was the only differentiating factor, it is clear that the Single Image format was the main factor in the campaign performing better.
2. Testing which remarketing pool engages best with your offer
A remarketing pool is created by collecting audiences of LinkedIn members who showed interest by visiting pages on your website or by interacting with one of your ads. We love remarketing pools as these are people who've already connected with your brand in some way, so the chances of them interacting with your ad are much higher than if they saw your business for the first time on LinkedIn.
The test: Which remarketing pool performs best for offer X.
The example: You're promoting a MOFU offer (like a whitepaper or ebook download) and you want leads. Your A/B split test could be between two remarketing pools: website visitors versus viewers of a TOFU video on LinkedIn. Which audience is warmer?
The success metric: Once again, engagement with the ad plays a part, but at the pointy end, you're looking for the ad which converts the most leads on the MOFU offer.
At Bc, we recently saw that our MOFU offer was more appealing to the website visitors remarketing pool than the video viewers remarketing pool - where the winning campaign generated almost 6x the number of leads and a cost-per-lead that’s more than 2x lower than the losing campaign.
3. Testing for the best CTA phrase
Call-to-action (CTA) text can appear in a few places on your ad, including in the ad copy and the image. But on LinkedIn, there is also an option for a dedicated CTA button with a few different copy options available:
- Apply
- Download
- View Quote
- Learn More
- Sign Up
- Subscribe
- Register
- Join
- Attend
- Request Demo
The test: Which CTA phrase performs best for offer X.
The example: Once again, you're promoting an ebook download. Your A/B split test could be between using the Download Now phrase versus the Learn More phrase on your CTA button.
The success metric: The ad which converts the most leads.
We recently tested two different CTA buttons for a client, with surprising results. We pitted the Download Now CTA against a Learn More CTA to generate leads for a MOFU content offer. The results were clear with Download Now performing better in all key metrics for a lead generation campaign.
| CTA | DOWNLOAD NOW | LEARN MORE |
| Cost-per-lead | $75.62 | $188.07 |
| CTR | 1% | 0.8% |
| Form Completion Rate | 26% | 9% |
A few things to keep in mind
- Give your tests time to run to avoid outliers skewing your data. We recommend you run your tests until you get a meaningful and substantial amount of data to make a sound conclusion on your test results (this could be 2 days or 2 weeks).
- Test one thing at a time. The tiniest of tweaks can make a big difference to your results, so hone in on one variable at a time to see exactly what's working (and what's not!).
- It's not just about 'successful' ads. Work out what's not working to understand what will! Use your negative results to inform your next choices.
- Keep testing! A/B split testing is not a one-and-done process; it’s an ever-evolving approach to optimising your LinkedIn ads.