Best practice for A/B testing paid social campaign

Marketing & Content Hub Reporting & Analytics
1

We are running an A/B test of landing pages for a paid social campaign on LinkedIn for 2 different products. Currently in hubspot, we have 4 Landing Pages (1 for each product + 1 for the A/B of the landing pages = 4 total), and 1 form for each landing page (4 total).

I am wondering what the best practice would be here to track success of this campaign and for each version of the LP. My thoughts are that given we can track impressions per post in LinkedIn, and can track Clicks and form submissions, we should be all set here. Should we apply any UTMs to the landing page or form? What would be the best way to build out a report to measure the results?

2

Hi @MDiaz37! Welcome to the Community-- happy to have you here :blush:

I want to invite some subject matter experts to see if they have any suggestions.

Hey @jolle, @elizheleva, @karstenkoehler do you have any resources or best practices to share here? Thanks!

Best,
Kennedy

3

Hi @MDiaz37,

Happy to help, thanks @kennedyp for tagging.

In terms of UTM parameters, I’d suggest something along the lines of:

  • utm_source=linkedin
  • utm_medium=paid_social
  • utm_campaign=[product_name or campaign_name]
  • utm_content=[LP_A or LP_B]

Each landing page should have unique UTM parameters to differentiate traffic sources and versions. This setup will make it easy to see which ad and landing page combo is driving traffic and conversions.

Regarding metrics, I would look at:

  • Impressions (from LinkedIn)
  • Clicks and CTR
  • Form submissions (via HubSpot)
  • Conversion rate (submissions/clicks)
  • Bounce rate and Time on page (to gauge engagement)
  • Cost-per-conversion (CPC)

It’s notoriously difficult to get all of this information onto one dashboard in HubSpot, so I’d recommend managing expectations accordingly. You’ll be looking up data and different places, unfortunately.

On a side note, ensure enough data is collected for statistically significant results before making decisions. A/B test calculators can help determine this. Statistical Significance Calculator for A/B Testing Especially for smaller campaigns this can be a challenge. I’d recommend playing around with the numbers before the campaign to get a feel for how much budget would likely be needed to get statistically significant results. As a rough number, don’t spend less than 500 USD (bare minimum) per ad variation.

Once the data is in, identify the better-performing LP based on conversion rates and cost metrics. Apply those learnings to future campaigns.

Hope this helps!

4

Hello @karstenkoehler , thank you for the assistance!

There is a slight change and a/b test will now just be of the videos we should on LinkedIn. There will now be the same LP and form for each product. Since the journey is click link in social → landing page with ctas → new window with the form page, where should the utm parameters be added in the tracking link?

5

@MDiaz37 if it is currently the same LP, then I’d recommend cloning it and use one for each variation. That way, you’re not reliant on parameters and know for sure that the activity in the page must come from one particular ad.

6

That makes sense. If we were to use UTM parameters, how would you suggest they be applied? I have added property fields labeled “utm_campaign” etc., and applied them hidden in the form field.

7

@MDiaz37 I would still use utm_content to denote which variation it is :slightly_smiling_face: