📹 How To A/B Test Your Content Using Variations

Changes to Facebook Groups Publishing

Facebook unexpectedly decided to remove Groups API access, preventing any third-party tools, including SmarterQueue, from interacting with your Facebook Groups. After April 22nd, 2024, SmarterQueue will no longer be able to publish directly to groups you manage. You can still schedule posts for these groups, but will receive email notifications for easy manual posting instead. You may also wish to consider transitioning to a Facebook Page for better engagement.

Learn how to A/B test your content and find what's most engaging using Variations!

In This Article

Video Walkthrough

How To A/B Test Your Images With Variations

You can try out several different versions of a post, each with a different image, and see which image gets the most engagement. 

1. Go to "Create a Post" to access the Post Editor and select your Category and the Social Profile(s) you want to publish to.

Optional: If you're creating a link post, add the URL (link) into the Post Editor. The link will automatically change to [[link]] and will be displayed how it will appear in your post in the Preview on the right-hand side, as below:

2. Add one Text Variation (as you'll be testing the images only) in the Post Editor.

3. Add the images you would like to A/B test.

4. In "Media Options" select the "Vary media" option (you'll know it's been selected when the box is blue and ticked, and only one of the added images is shown in the post preview).

Note: The "Media Options" section will not come up in the Post Editor until at least 2 images are added under "Media". 

You can see in the example above, we are testing 3 different images with one Text Variation. In the Preview on the right-hand side, 3 Variations have been generated (each one with the same Text, but an alternating image)

5. Preview your Variations to make sure everything looks perfect in the Preview on the right-hand side. Click on the arrows to view each image Variation

6. Make sure "Recycle After Posting" is selected.

7. Click "Save".

8. Once several variations have been published, you can view the results of your A/B test 🎉

How To A/B Test Your Text Captions With Variations

Here's our easy 8-step guide for split-testing different post captions.

1. Go to "Create a Post" to access the Post Editor, pick which Category your A/B Text test falls under, and the Social Profile(s) you want to publish to.

Optional: Add the URL (link) of the page you'll be sending readers to into the Post Editor. This will automatically change to [[link]] and display a link preview in the righthand preview. This link will be used throughout your A/B test. Please keep in mind that only one link can be used in Variations.

2. Add your first Text Variation.

3A. Click the "Add Text Variation" button to manually add another Text Variation

💡Tip! Make BIG changes between Variations to see what engages your readers most

3B. Click the "magic wand" icon to let the AI Caption Writer rewrite your existing caption. You only need to choose the tone of the result(s), if you want any hashtags or emojis, and how many results you want, and then the AI Caption Writer takes care of the rest💪

4. We recommend adding a third Variation to get the most out of your A/B test (you never know what you'll discover)! 

5. Next, make sure to select "Add to Queue" and "Recycle After posting" (they will be highlighted blue and ticked when selected).

6. Preview your Variations to make sure everything looks perfect in the Preview on the right-hand side. Click on the arrows to view each Text Variation.

7. Click "Save".

8. Once several variations have been published, you can view the results of your A/B test 🎉

How To View And Interpret The Results Of Your A/B Tests

To review your A/B test results and measure how each image Variation performed, view your Past Posts, click on the (...) menu icon for the post, and click "View Stats per Cycle".

You will then see stats for each Variation/cycle that was published. If the same Variation was published multiple times over different cycles, each cycle will appear separately. 

Bear in mind that engagement can be highly variable, and will vary based on many factors (day of week, time of day, other news)

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