Mastering Meta's Creative Testing

Did you know that Facebook/Meta has one of the world’s most powerful creative testing capabilities, but most media buyers don’t know how to use it? Understand these algorithms, and you will find top performing creatives quickly and easily.

There’s three key things to understand about how Meta's creative testing algorithms work:

RAPID PERMUTATIONS - Meta tests every possible combination of visual + text + headline + call-to-action button quickly and decisively. If you use dynamic creative, you could have 1000s of variants tested in the first day a campaign is live.

ATTENTION WINS - Given the system picks winners from a few hundred impressions, there isn’t enough scale to look at conversions. Instead dwell time and click-through-rate are used to identify top performing combinations.

BIG REWARDS - Some creative variants might only be 5% better, but might get 90% of the budget. This system picks winners fast and rewards them generously.

Knowing how this system works gives you a huge upper hand. Here’s a few ways to take full advantage:

1️⃣ Dynamic Creative - Take full advantage of dynamic creative by feeding the system a wide range of creative versions. Utilize versions across every dimension (10x visuals, 5x post texts, 5x headlines, etc).

2️⃣ Analysis Splits - Use Ads Manager creative breakdowns to see which versions of visuals, headlines, and CTAs are getting more spend and more impression volume. This is done at the Ad Set level using the Breakdown > By Dynamic Creative Element setting.

3️⃣ Focus on Winners - There’s no need to shut off under performers (they’ll receive little to no budget, anyway). Instead, focus on your winners and try to understand WHY they are doing better.

4️⃣ Iterate - Make 2nd generation creative variations that incorporate your insights and relaunch in new campaigns. Swap out under-performers with new creatives. Augment the creative format of top performers to increase reach (make a series of videos from statics, for example).

Why is Meta creative testing so powerful? Because it’s like a Darwinian natural-selection machine at your fingertips. Use it to quickly test, learn, and scale high performing ads.