Okay so I must admit, this month we've been a little lax on the tests. And that's okay. As much as we try to Always Be Testing, some months you're going to do a better job than others. If this sounds all too familiar, don't beat yourself up.

This month we tested ad creative on LinkedIn. At Uberflip we traditionally rely on graphic illustrations to depict concepts and accompany content like blog articles and ebooks. 

Photos vs. Illustrations on LinkedIn

You may have heard that photography performs better than text-based or graphic illustrations.

What we did: For our most recent premium asset and benchmark report, The New Marketing Standard Benchmark: How Today's B2B Marketing Leaders Accelerate the Buyer Journey with Content, we ran a social ad on LinkedIn. 

VARIATION 1:

We tested our classic graphic illustration look—the same style we use on our blog tiles and in our email banner images—on LinkedIn to see if this style, that aligns with our brand, would perform well on this paid channel.

VARIATION 2:

We used stock photography in the same ad to see which would perform better.

Why we did it: We've heard over the years that photography performs better on LinkedIn, however, our brand has always been aligned with graphic illustrations. As such, we wanted to see if industry best practices held true for our audience and our brand.  

Results: The version of the ads using photography far and away outperformed the version with graphic illustrations. 78% of the leads who converted off these social ads did so on the version using stock photography.

Learnings: Despite your company branding, use what creative has been proven to work on the platform you're advertising. Don't shy away from photography just because it's not what you typically use. 

Happy testing!