How To Successfully Pair Images And Captions Using Variations

Variations let you easily post different text captions or media each time your Evergreen post is recycled. 

To learn the basics of using Variations, check out our helpful guide: What Are Variations? How To Vary Images & Text For Evergreen Posts

How your captions and media will be paired depends on how many of each you add, the order in which you add them in the Post Editor, as well as what available combinations there are. 

Here are some tips on how to successfully pair them the way you want. 

In This Article:

• How To Perfectly Pair An Equal Number Of Captions And Media Components
• How To Create Repeating Cycles Of Caption And Media Variations
• How To Pair An Out Of Sync Number Of Captions And Media Components

How To Perfectly Pair An Equal Number Of Captions And Media Components

When creating Variations where the number of captions is equal to that of the media components (for example 2 images and 2 captions), your variations will be determined by where each component is positioned in the Post Editor. 

This graphic demonstrates how each media option will pair with each text option:

For example, the first text caption will be sent out with the first media component as the first Variation that gets posted. Then the second text caption will be sent out with the second media component and so on and so forth. 

💡 Tip: Always add the one link you want to use first - adding it to the Post Editor before you create multiple Text Variations means it will automatically be copied to all Text Variations 😉

You'll need to add your captions (Text Variations) in the Post Editor, in the same order that you've uploaded the images you want to send out with them, left to right:

As we can see from the example above, we have 3 images and 3 captions, listed in the correct order to send out each rose image with the caption mentioning that rose's color. 

You can press on the arrows in the Preview pane on the right-hand side to verify what each variation will look like. 

💡 Tip: You can drag and drop your uploaded images to re-order them by clicking on an image and dragging it to the desired position. Or, you can re-order your Text Variations by clicking and dragging the arrow icon (above the trash can icon), check out the example below... 

But what about if you want to test two different Text Variations with the yellow rose image?

To create two different captions for one image:

• Create a 4th Text Variation - in the example below, you can see we've added a different yellow rose Text Variation, which we also want to match up with the yellow rose image.
• Add the yellow rose image again as a 4th Image Variation. 

How To Create Repeating Cycles Of Caption And Media Variations

Let’s say that you don’t have an equal number of Text Captions and Media Components that you want to use together, but you still want to pair them in a specific way. That’s OK! ✨

You might want to use only one image and vary the caption you send it out with, or you might have a specific message to send out, but you want to try it with different images. You can absolutely do this and your media and text will pair according to the following graphic! 🎉

You can even go one step further and pair a different number of text captions and media components.

As long as the higher number of specific component Variations (no matter if text captions or media) is a multiple of the other, they will pair based on the same principle – where each component is positioned in the Post Editor.

As we can see from the example above, we have 2 images and 4 captions. This will generate 4 Variations. 

💡Tip: You can use the AI Caption Writer to quickly create unique Text Variations!

Based on the order the images are added in, the captions need to be added just like above: first for the color red, second for purple, third for red once again, and then lastly, the forth for purple.

You can press on the arrows in the Preview pane on the right-hand side to check what each Variation will look like. 

You can also reorder the images and captions to ensure that they are paired correctly to be sent out exactly how you'd like. 

How To Pair An Out Of Sync Number Of Captions And Media Components

Sometimes you won't have an equal number of Component Variations to combine or a perfect pairing in mind. In fact, you might want to combine all media components with all caption options and just see what brings in the best results. 

If you're not using an equal number of Component Variations, or the number of specific Component Variations is not a multiple of the other, then your Variations will be out of sync. Rest assured, all this means is that each caption will go out with each media component until all combinations are exhausted as shown in the graphic above. 

We can see in this example that we have 3 text captions and 5 images. This creates a total of 15 different Unique Variations that will be sent out one by one. 

In this case,  where each component is positioned in the Post Editor still determines the order in which the components will be used, but will not determine pairings anymore, as all possible pairings will be created and posted. 

💡Tip: You can use the AI Caption Writer to quickly create unique Text Variations!