Ad Testing Isn’t Just for Ads

With all of the chatter about ad testing – why it’s necessary, its value, and its limitations – we’ve lost sight of a key principle. “Ad testing” is not just for ads. Many campaigns wait until an ad is fully produced to start testing. By then, the cake is baked. Testing a fully produced ad concept can give you red light or a green light but it can’t help you develop more persuasive messages or a more effective message presentation. 

Political campaigns spend millions of dollars on advertising, yet many fail to answer a fundamental question: what persuades voters and gets them to the polls? Effective content doesn’t happen by chance. It emerges from rigorous testing cycles that reveal which messages resonate with real voters and which presentations of those messages are most effective. 

At Grow Progress, we’ve found that systematic or iterative ad testing can mean the difference between moving the needle on voter preference and burning through hundreds of thousands of dollars on content that falls flat.

Start With Your Theory of the Case

Every effective campaign begins with a theory: by positioning our issue, candidate, or cause this way, we’ll achieve a specific outcome. The best way to test these theories is by examining different values frames before diving into creative execution.

Testing values frames early in your campaign development can save enormous resources down the line. Let’s say you’re trying to move people toward supporting a particular issue and have several theories about what might work. Perhaps previous research suggests that anchoring messages around freedom, community, or economic opportunity will be most effective. Rather than choosing one approach and hoping for the best, you can mock up ads that center each of these values as a starting point for your content creation process. 

You might discover that freedom messaging resonates the most with suburban independents while falling flat with urban progressives, or that economic framing works across demographic lines in ways that surprise your team. Understanding which values frame creates the strongest foundation allows you to build more effective campaigns from the ground up.

Iterate Within Your Values Framework

Once you identify your most effective values frame through testing, you can explore different ways to communicate that core value effectively. If freedom emerges as your strongest frame, what are the most compelling ways to communicate freedom to your specific audiences?

This stage opens up multiple rounds of creative testing opportunities. You might test different messengers—does freedom resonate more when communicated by a veteran, a small business owner, or an everyday family? Format testing becomes crucial: does your freedom message work better as a testimonial video, an infographic highlighting policy impacts, or a direct-to-camera style video?

A climate advocacy group might find that freedom messaging works best when focused on energy independence rather than access to public lands, leading to creative tests around solar panels versus a beautiful landscape. A political campaign might discover that freedom themes require different visual treatments for different demographic segments.

This is also a good time to take big swings at ideas that may be a bit out of the box. Once you’ve figured out your overall frame, testing at this point in your process means you can play around with creative strategies in a low risk environment. 

Test Against Opposition Strategies

If you anticipate well-funded opposition, putting your refined messages head-to-head against your opponents’ most effective strategies becomes essential. This kind of testing reveals not just whether your messages work in isolation, but how they perform in a contested information environment where real campaigns operate.

Opposition testing might reveal that your freedom-based messaging holds up well against economic attack ads but becomes less effective when opponents focus on safety concerns. This information allows you to develop counter-messaging strategies or adjust your approach before launching expensive media campaigns.

Understand Audience Receptivity and Backlash

Testing also helps identify which audiences are most receptive to your messages—and just as importantly, which groups might backlash against your approach. This can prevent costly mistakes and helps you tailor your strategies more effectively.

You might discover that your freedom messaging energizes rural voters while creating unexpected resistance among suburban women, or that certain demographic groups respond positively to your core message but reject specific creative executions. Understanding these nuances allows you to optimize both message content and audience targeting simultaneously.

Common Iteration Mistakes to Avoid

Avoid making hasty decisions based on limited data, especially when testing foundational elements like values frames that will guide your entire campaign strategy. However, don’t let obviously failing approaches continue consuming resources during critical campaign periods.

Similarly, resist the temptation to skip foundational testing and jump straight to creative optimization. Testing different formats for an ineffective core message wastes resources and misses opportunities to build campaigns on stronger foundations.

Conclusion

Ad testing iteration isn’t a one-time activity—it’s a comprehensive process that should guide political and advocacy campaigns from initial concept through final execution. By embracing testing at multiple stages, campaigns gain deep constituent insights, improve resource efficiency, and build sustainable advantages over opponents who rely on assumptions. Start implementing structured testing protocols early, and transform your political communication from educated guesswork into a rigorously tested messaging strategy.