Three Simple Tests that Help Digital Campaigns Grow

If you try to segment traffic and bid competitively, you’ll find some success in digital advertising. You’ll also hit a ceiling. It may take some campaigns longer than others, but you’ll soon find yourself bringing home roughly the same conversion rates day after day.

After a while, your campaigns get stale and those amazing conversion rates begin to dwindle. The key to moving past that threshold is to grow campaigns through thoughtful testing. Here are three ideas to test for, and some thoughts on how to gather meaningful data.

Test to See if Date and Time Alter Conversions

It’s easy to overlook how dates and times can affect your sales. Most people will stop a campaign when it’s time to log off for the day, but that might exclude the time their audience spends browsing online after their jobs are finished. What about early in the morning, when other time zones ahead of yours are more likely to be browsing before work?

Try letting your campaigns run and reviewing your analytics once the day is closed. This gives you valuable data on when your conversions are most likely to trigger, thereby giving you the opportunity to eliminate needless spending.

Test for Location Targeting

Certain campaigns will perform best when they target by location. Mortgage leads are a good example, where the value of a customer from some states may be higher than others. Affiliate campaigns may also have restrictions on location, which might make leads from outside those locations non-payable. It’s best to target specific areas you can get paid for and increase bids to get good traffic.

You may also find that a majority of your business comes from a particular part of the country. In situations where location impacts your conversion rate, you can run a test to confirm whether cutting other locations will actually improve your overall conversion rate. You may find that focusing on just a few states will bring a higher return than trying to net conversions from all over the US.

Test Mobile Campaigns

Not every campaign will work well with mobile, but it can be worth the cost of testing if you suspect your campaign may be. Mobile users are impulsive, so they don’t like offers that require careful consideration. These users are looking for something immediately and would prefer to stay home or receive the product instantly and at a discount.

Try running a new campaign designed for mobile, with a smaller ad that has a more succinct call to action. You may find a reason to scale outside of the desktop.

Bio: Ted Dhanik is a digital advertising expert who has experience in the industry dating back to the early 2000s. Ted Dhanik is the co-founder of engage:BDR. Ted Dhanik is also an active mentor in Start Engine, and writes for AdAge and Venture Beat.