In the endless quest to optimize marketing campaigns and ensure you're squeezing every drop of ROI out of your efforts, A/B testing is a must-have tool. With this approach to testing variables in marketing campaigns, brands can gain valuable insights into what works best for their customers in terms of driving engagement and conversions.

But there's a right way to conduct this testing, and there are a lot of A/B testing mistakes to avoid in the process. If you're new to A/B testing and want to make sure you're getting good data from these efforts, make sure you avoid these three common testing mistakes.

For small- and medium-sized businesses, the value of marketing and advertising is directly tied to the efficiencies created by each channel. So it's not surprising that many budget-strapped organizations eschew TV commercials and other high-spend, inefficient channels that can make a big splash while delivering middling ROI.

Still, even with precise marketing solutions offering unprecedented levels of targeting and efficiency, it's hard to drive strong marketing ROI without a clear understanding of your primary audience.

How to Find My Target Audience

Local mobile advertising opens a new world of possibilities for brick-and-mortar businesses, both big and small. The ability to send relevant information to people at the exact moment they need it is something marketers have always dreamed of, and it's now a reality.

Geotargeting on mobile allows you to refine your ad reach to serve only the most relevant audiences at those key moments before a purchase. The granular targeting capabilities of Google's display ads allow you to get a robust return on investment from your ad spend, even with a limited budget.

It might mean fewer impressions and even clicks at first, but, when done right, it can significantly increase conversions.

Each week we hear a friend joke about banner blindness and pop-up takedowns. They simply click those ads away without regard to the information. Our marketing hearts sink, leading us to wonder how we could have made the content more pleasing — even engaging — rather than yet another annoyance. Thankfully, there are lots of options.

In 2017, the Nielsen Norman Group shared the results of a survey regarding digital advertising techniques completed by adults not involved in IT or marketing-related industries. Variants of 23 display ads were shown on desktop and mobile, then rated. Let's dig into the top five least-liked display ad types, and ways to make them more palatable.

Targeted digital display ads are booming, with U.S. advertisers estimated to spend $49 billion on them in 2018, according to eMarketer. With digital display ad trends on the rise, now's the time to beef up that line item in your ad spend budget. 

What Are Digital Display Ads Again?

Digital display ads are highly visual and utilize photography, video and graphics, unlike text-based ads. These types of ads are not integrated directly into the body of editorial content, which makes them more prominent and visible.

You see digital display ads in the form of an above-the-scroll or margin banner ad. Sometimes they pop up over the content you're reading. They're generally labeled "Sponsored" or "Ad" so viewers know that they're seeing a paid placement and not something that's part of the website's organic content.

Online advertisers have no shortage of options for purchasing ad space online — and those options increasingly feature programmatic inventories serving virtually every type of ad you could want.

According to eMarketer, four of every five display advertising dollars were spent on programmatic inventories in 2017, and it's quickly taking over other types of advertising, too. Adobe Digital Insights reported that programmatic's share of TV advertising, for example, is projected to soon rise from 28 percent to 39 percent in both the U.S. and the U.K.

Options are great, but only if you understand where the most effective advertising can be found. Programmatic ad buying is a much-needed product to serve the ad world, but it isn't always better than direct ad buying. Advertisers need to understand how to choose one over the other in any given situation.

Your marketing strategy is already turning in great results — performance metrics all indicate that channels are generating ROI for the company.

The temptation may be to sit back and rest on your laurels. After all, you've built a marketing machine that's getting the job done. However, good results don't necessarily mean that your strategy is generating the best results possible.

That's where an A/B test strategy comes into play. Even if you're happy with the results of your current digital marketing strategy, A/B testing is a surefire way to make sure you never stop searching for ways to raise your standards.

The world's largest advertiser, Procter & Gamble (P&G), has challenged its agencies to become more vigilant in addressing issues like transparency and fraud in its pursuit of a better, more efficient digital advertising ecosystem. P&G's Chief Marketing Officer, Marc Pritchard, recently spoke at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Annual Leadership Meeting and implored the entire industry to adopt the Media Ratings Council (MRC) viewability standard, leverage third party tools for measurement and transparency, and work with the Trustworthy Accountability Group to help eliminate fraud. 

You've heard the term thrown around here and there, and you know it's an important metric, but what is viewability? It relates to impressions, and whether or not your audience can see them. This may sound like a straightforward concept, but a lot goes into determining viewability. Understanding how it's determined and why it matters is key for marketers looking to make sure their online campaigns are running as efficiently as possible.

Call-to-action phrases (CTAs) can make all the difference when it comes to return on investment. While you want to write compelling copy to engage customers, you also need to figure out how to take that engagement one step further and drive traffic to your site and product pages, which is where CTAs step in.

Check out these five effective call-to-action phrases, and learn why they work and how to write your own. These CTAs don't necessarily have to be the button copy, but they should make your customer want to click.