Buying traffic · also called ad testing, creative iteration
Creative testing
Creative testing is running several versions of an ad side by side on small budgets to learn which image, headline or angle performs best before spending more.
No one can predict which ad will win, so buyers test. They launch a handful of variations, give each a modest budget, read the results, stop the losers and build new versions of the winners. It is a form of A/B testing applied to the creative.
The arbitrage twist is in what counts as "winning". The ad with the highest CTR or lowest CPC is not necessarily best. Different ads attract different people, and those people earn different amounts on the lander. An ad should be judged on profit per click: revenue per visit minus cost per visit, measured through the tracker down to the ad level.
Good testing needs patience and enough data. Each variant must gather a meaningful number of visits, and the revenue figures used are estimates that may be adjusted later. Testing also has a floor set by policy: every variant must pass ad review and stay truthful, and under RSOC rules its text must be reported with the traffic. Looking at competitors with a spy tool can inspire ideas, but copying them wholesale copies their risks too.
An example
Say ad A costs $0.15 a click and earns $0.18 per visit (profit $0.03). Ad B costs $0.20 and earns $0.28 (profit $0.08). B is the more expensive click and the better ad.
Related terms
A/B testing
A/B testing is showing two versions of something to randomly split, similar audiences at the same time to learn which performs better.
Creative
A creative is the actual advertisement a person sees: its image or video, headline, text and button.
Ad fatigue
Ad fatigue is the decline in an ad's performance as the same audience sees it repeatedly and stops noticing or clicking it.
Ad angle
An ad angle is the particular idea or motivation an ad uses to make a topic interesting, such as saving money, curiosity, convenience or news.
Spy tool (ad intelligence)
A spy tool is software that collects and catalogues ads other companies are running, so buyers can study competitors' creatives, landing pages and trends.
Learning phase
The learning phase is the early period after launching or significantly editing a campaign, when the platform's algorithm is still testing who to show the ad to.