Week 12 – Refining Twitter Ads

Refining Twitter Ads

The art of advertising is to test and learn. Measure. Test Learn. Refine. A week of refining Twitter Ads

The Twitter Ads strategy I was following has this built in with the Test Phase supposed to test 3 creatives against 5 influencer ad groups. I did not get that to work in week 11 – instead I tested one set of creatives out against 2 different demographics with some targeting differences mixed in. I did see nice improvements but conversions were still too low – it was time to start refining Twitter Ads in week 12. Once the test is done it is time for refining Twitter Ads

Week 12 Review

Week 12 was aimed full square at addressing the shortcomings in the results from week 11. I made a video journal of  the week’s action

Here is the week’s review against the tasks I set out last week.

Step one is to have a look at the rolling 28 days on Twitter.

Tweet impressions improved 24k from 160k, of which 9k came from ads. That is a tidy increase in organic impressions. Profile visits were up another 300 from 1300. Last week, I did change the links in the profile section and I know I did get one opt-in to the copywriting list (probably from here).

This was a week for refining Twitter Ads based on outcomes from the previous week’s ads. In Week 11, I was supposed to test 3 creatives against the 5 influencer groups to find the optimal combination of creative and influencer group. The work I did gave me enough information showing that one influencer group (software) was working a whole lot better than the others. Work to be done but heading in the right direction.

• Twitter ads: Progress to testing 3 alternate creatives. I tested 3 different Twitter cards changing images and words. Detailed results below
• Lead Magnet: Create one new lead magnet idea: I found one but did not finish. Requires a day’s work to set up.
• Weekly Webinar: Ran an ad specifically for this. Ad for younger group and for UK group did not work – just as well. I have enough data to work with.
• Guaranteed Solo Mails: Run 2 solo ads: Not done BUT I did run a solo ad at Traffic For Me to test the Plan B landing page. The ad converted at 21% which tells me there is no real difference in results with the Plan B landing page
• Launch Pros: Stuck on legal and cards setup – this is getting complicated and will take time to solve. It looks like I will have to have a UK company with UK Bank Business credit/debit cards to operate.

Refining Twitter Ads Results

Quick summary. I ran two different ad campaigns. Conversions and cost per click improved but opt-ins to my list did not

Test creatives I ran ads testing 3 creatives over two days building on week 11 targeting lessons. Here are the side by side comparisons at aggregate level. What I liked is dramatically improved conversion rates from 0.99% to 2.49% (i.e., people clicking the ads) but no improvement in opt-in rates

Here are the side by side comparison for the 3 creatives I tested. The idea was to add a more compelling call to action on the card itself and to test imagery. The Twitter words were essentially the same for all three.

The results are compelling at one level with the middle picture offering the highest conversion rate (i.e., click rate) and confusing at another level with the original image (left hand one) offering the lowest cost per click (i.e., cheaper impressions). I am noticing that a lot of the Twitter ads do not use images (they use illustrations) and they have much brighter colours (e.g., white text on a yellow background).

Advertise Weekly Webinar. The key part of this test was to test a different style of call to action backed by a different landing page model. The ad ran for the 6 hours before the weekly webinar was run on the day of the webinar. Here are its results compared with the other ads run this week.

Click through rate was worse but the cost per click was better and the converted clicks did flow through to an opt-in and that person signed up for a phone call after the webinar.

Key lessons coming out of the 2 campaigns. The metrics got me quite confused as it is not clear which is the best way to optimise – increase cost efficiency or increase click through rates.

• Getting opt-ins remains a challenge
• Landing page works less well than for solo ads (proved)
• Call to action change was more important than image change
• More call to action words needed on Twitter card
• Mobile works better than desktop

Now Twitter does provide a lot of detailed data about people who have seen the ads. The key is going to be to work through it progressively to improve the targeting and to reduce wastage. [Means: Impressions not likely to result in clicks]. There are two key areas to study next. Firstly, age information is inconsistent with the targeting. I do not know how good Twitter’s age information is. My thinking is to add a targeting criterion that is age biased – e.g., the type of TV Shows people watch. Secondly. conversion rates were a lot higher for mobile vs desktop usage. Clearly a lot of Twitter use is done on the move – I know that is how I use it. That needs testing and refining.

Next steps for Twitter Ads

• Phase 2: Verify best creative – males and females software minus Clickfunnels; revisit platform choice
• Test reducing age related wastage
• Test Desktop only
• Test adding 4 bullet points to opt-in page
• Test a download lead magnet idea (week 14)
• Test a Video Creative (week 14)
• Test a Younger Age Group using Software lead
• Run Weekly Webinar ad next week

Week 13 Tasks

I need to get into the full swing of this on a weekly basis. Once Twitter Ads are running well it will be easier.

• Twitter Ads: Run best ad for core audience; run for female audience with retirement key words
  added; test a colourful words and illustration card
• Video Creative: Write a Joe Fretful script
• Opt-in Page: Draft a few bullet points to add to page
• Solo Ads: Add in one new lead source to make up time taken getting Twitter Ads working
• Guaranteed Solo Mails: Run 2 solo ads. I am leaning to using this purely to sell stuff. It is not working for opt-ins
• Email Followups: Add in one weeks of emails. A problem when one gets behind. I have over 100 subscribers out the end of the 50 something days written
• Weekly Webinar: Schedule ads if there is going to be a webinar – there are doubts for this week too.
• Launch Pros: Check Cards and business structure situation.

Resources

Twitter: Follow me on Twitter @Stratocharge

Weekly Webinar: Dean Holland runs a weekly webinar. The links go live during Friday for the Tuesday webinar (6pm EST; 3pm PST; 11pm UK; 10am AEST Wednesday). Register here whenever the link is live or email me mark@markcarrington.com.

Solo Ads: Traffic For Me is a traffic brokerage service that finds the best solo ad providers. They do all the work to get clean leads to your specification. Explore Traffic For Me – it works