How to Test Your Online Advertising

Do you know how to test your online advertising? Here's what little I know about testing your advertising. Testing tells you what works and what doesn't work.

Test big things. Don't guess – test. On the web testing is not about money. It's about knowledge.

Small differences in statistics are not enough to make an assumption. Just like in investing, the past doesn't guarantee your success in the future. Direct marketing is like gambling where you control the odds, but they are still odds.

It's easy to draw convincing curves of your expected response with your computer, but nothing happens until someone buys something.

What to test: The list* in its order of importance.

1. Target group/Segmentation
2. Positioning
3. Channel
4. Offer
5. Incentive
6. Strategy
7. Creative

*From the book Reinventing Direct and Interactive Marketing by Stan Rapp and his friends.

Notice anything strange on that list? I brought up this topic in my previous article Digital and Direct Marketing: Elements of Promotion, creative work ranks LAST in the order of importance.

If you aim to the right customers and make a good offer, you are almost there. Brilliant creative work can't save you if you don't reach the right people.

Now, it's tempting to say that creative doesn't matter, but it does. Bill Bernbach once said, "Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten." Amen.