Test ads in social media or on a news website

Make sure your ads are seen and measure attention

In a digital marketing world most ads may be categorized as performance marketing ads or brand marketing ads. While performance ads focus on driving specific immediate actions like clicks, conversions etc. brand ads focus on leaving a long-term positive image of a brand in customers’ minds. In the performance world it’s easy - you need to measure clicks, impressions, signups or sales. In brand marketing how do you know if the target group actually saw the ad? What ratio of viewers saw the ad? Did the ad bring any attention? How engaging the ad was?

Thanks to RealEye you may measure ad visibility and attention.

What you may test with RealEye?

• Ad Placements: Thanks to RealEye you can test your ad in different ad placements. Compare how the same ad performes on a news website or social media (TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook etc.)
• Ad Context: Eye-tracking can also be used to test the context in which an ad is placed. By seeing how different context impacts users' attention, marketers can gain insights into how the surrounding content impacts the visibility of an ad.
• Ad Format: Visibility and attention to a certain degree depend on a shape and format of the ad. Now you may compare an animated skyscraper with a static double billboard. You may also see whether users are more drawn by pre-roll or mid-roll video ads.
• Creative: test creative elements of an ad, such as color, images and copy - the may also draw visitors attention - and in consequence be seen.

In all these cases, eye-tracking provides data that help marketers create more effective branding campaigns.

What are the most important social media platforms to be tested?

• Facebook: - the most popular social media in the world (FB has 2.9 billion active users).
• Instagram: is the second most popular social media network (2 billion active users)
• TikTok: is probably the fastest growing social media platform at the moment. It’s best for reaching a younger audience like Generation Z.
• Twitter: is particularly effective for real-time marketing and B2B advertising.
• YouTube: is the most popular streaming platform on Earth with 2.5 billion active users.
• LinkedIn: is the platform for B2B advertising.
• Others: Hulu, Peacock, Snapchat

These platforms are popular because of their large user bases. If you want to get the best ROI or branding effect you should test ads on multiple platforms to see which ones deliver the best results.

Ads formats

There are several types of ad formats that can be used across different social media platforms and there are some platform specific formats.

Here is the list of most common ones:

• Image Ads: These are one of the most common types of ads. They are simple but effective at reaching the right people. They usually consist of a single static image with a short text and a CTA (call-to-action) button.
• Video Ads: these ads aim to either engage visitors or provide information. They can be particularly effective for storytelling or demonstrating a product in action.
  - Pre-Roll ads - They are shown at the beginning (pre-roll), before desired video/content. They are used across most social media platforms.In most cases pre-roll ads are skippable which also may be measured thanks to RealEye. Apart from pre-roll ads there are also mid-roll ads that are breaking long videos into smaller chunks.
  - Shorts vs Reels vs TikTok every platform has its own formats of the short video ads.
• Carousel Ads allow advertisers to showcase multiple products or features within a single ad. Users can scroll through the different images to see all the options.
• Stories Ads these are full-screen vertical ads that appear between stories on Instagram and Snapchat. They’re immersive and interactive, offering a full-screen, distraction-free experience.
• Sponsored posts.

The best ad format to use depends on the specific audience and goals of the campaign. It’s always a good idea to test different ad formats.

What are the problems of using Generative AI heatmaps?

Using Chat GPT to draw AI heatmap may sound like magic solution to all problems: it's super fast and it's inexpensive but there are some drawbacks:

• AI heatmaps are the same for all demographics
  ‍You will not see differences between target groups:
  - men vs women
  - Baby Boomes vs Generation X vs Millenials vs Generation Z
  - French vs Dutch vs German etc.
  
• Generative AI heatmaps don't work on videos and animated ads.
  A lot of ads (especially for larger campaigns) are video content or animated ads. AI heatmaps cannot be generated on videos :(
  Predictive AI will also not measure engagement - how often viewers skipped an add.
• AI heatmap accuracy is far from perfect on scrollable (mobile) content:
  Users behavior differs significantly depending on the content shown so it's better to measure actual scrolling of real visitors rater than hoping that AI predictions are accurate in this regard.

Using Chat GPT is not always a good idea, so instead of releying on predictie AI heatmaps try RealEye with Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or other social media platform mockup.

How to test ads on Instagram? or Facebook? Or TikTok?

Just do it with RealEye.
This is a 'Step by step guide':

• Define Your Hypothesis:
  Clearly state what you want to test.
  ‍Example 1: A/B test of two ads on TikTok to chose which is better (visibility, clicks, engagement)
  ‍Example 2: test of ad visibility on Instagram to compare it’s visibility compared to a benchmark
• Prepare your stimuli and social media platform mockup:
  ‍To do the test right you need to show the ad in the environment that looks like the original of a social media platform.
  You can either use:
  - graphical mockups of the platform that may be clickable and interactive
  - html copy of the social media platform 
  BTW. write to us on contact@realeye.io if you need Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Youtube or any other mockup/ html clone.
• Set Up Your Study:
  ‍Access the RealEye platform and create a study.
  i. If you go with interactive mockups read this article https://support.realeye.io/mockup-studies/ or
  ii. If you go with html social media platform clone here’s an instruction how to set up your study https://support.realeye.io/embedded-website-tests-for-aggregated-results/
  
• Run the Study:
  After testing the study flow yourself, invite participants to view your ad variations while their eye movements are tracked.
• Analyze Results:
  - Use RealEye’s analytics dashboard to analyze the data.
  - Identify which ad elements captured the most attention and resonated with viewers.

Remember to focus on one variable at a time. Changing 2+ things at once may lead to wrong conclusions.

Want to learn more? Let's start by introducing your Case Study idea to one of our Team Members, choose a spot and book a meeting with us: