Split test everything when advertising games on Facebook

In Gamasutra's latest feature, Freshly Brewed's Christian Fager shares several useful tips for advertising games on Facebook, and emphasizes that studios need to make sure they split test everything. Using Facebook ads, you can learn a lot of valuable data about your game's market -- not just who will be interested in your title but also what parts of the game will draw them in. But to get the best results from campaigns, Fager says studios need to conduct split tests, running two ads that are identical except for one variable. For example, you can run two ads (A and B) where the only variable is the image, and see which converts more users into fans of your game's page. "If ad A converts at 1 percent and ad B converts at 1.2 percent, you keep ad B and make a new ad C (the only difference will be a new image), says Fager. "The ads B and C will now face off in round 2. You will run the ads several rounds, replacing the loser's image each time. When you find the best converting image, you can move on to split testing the next part of the ad." "Let's say you ended up with ad F which converts at 1.3 percent, and you want to move on to split testing the body text. You now run ad F against ad G (now they both have the same best-performing image from the first split test, but different body text). You will run the winners of the body text the same as you ran the image competition. Now you end up with an ad Q that converts at 1.5 percent." With your image and body text optimized, you can then run split tests for ads with different "calls to action," which are important for telling users what to do next once they've noticed your game. Some sample calls include "Click to try the beta," "Like this fan page," "Visit this website," or "Sign up for this newsletter." You can eventually end up with ad W, which converts at 1.9 percent. Fager continues, "Now you can continue split testing with the landing page, go back and split test the image again, or change up who you are targeting. Either way, those small improvements in clickthrough rates from the original A at 1 percent to W at 1.9 percent are a 90 percent improvement over the original ad. That's almost double the clicks for the same cost!" The full feature, in which Christian Fager shares more insights on running Facebook ad campaigns to hone in on your game's audience, is live now on Gamasutra.