Run a banner A/B test
This tutorial shows which of two banners gets more clicks. You will put both in a group, show the group on your posts, and compare the numbers after a while.
Set up the test
- Create two ads. Make two image ads as described in Create your first ad. Use the same size and the same Click URL, and change only one thing, such as the headline or the colour. Give them clear titles, for example “Spring sale – blue” and “Spring sale – red”.
- Create a group. Go to Sanil Ads Kit → Groups and add a group called “Spring sale test”. Set Rotation Mode to Sequential so the two ads take turns, and Visible Ads to 1 so one shows at a time.
- Put both ads in the group. Open each ad, tick the group in the Groups box on the right and click Update. Leave Priority the same on both, so neither is favoured.
- Show the group. Go to Sanil Ads Kit → Placements, add a placement, choose After First Paragraph as the Placement Type, and under Assign choose Ad Group and your group. Save. See Place ads automatically.
- Check it works. Open a post in a private window and reload it a few times in new private windows. You should see both banners in turn.
Read the result
Wait until both ads have a decent number of views, ideally hundreds. Then go to Sanil Ads Kit → All Ads and compare the Views, Clicks and CTR columns of the two ads. The ad with the higher CTR is the winner, not the one with more clicks, because one may simply have been shown more often.
To dig deeper, open each ad and use the Analytics box to compare days, countries and pages. See Track views and clicks.
Pick the winner
Move the losing ad to the trash, or unpublish it. The winner now shows alone, and the numbers of both ads stay in the list. Deleting an ad permanently also deletes its statistics.
If your site uses full-page caching, rotation happens when a page is built. A cached page keeps showing one banner until the cache is rebuilt, so the views can come out uneven. Compare CTR rather than raw clicks, and see Ads and caching plugins.