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Testing Backlog: track the ideas you have not tried
Testing Backlog is your saved list of ideas you have not tried yet. An idea is a market concept that your competitors run and your own set lacks, or an angle that your live concepts do not cover. Open it from Create > Testing Backlog.
Problem and intended user
A creative strategist (the person who plans and makes ad creatives) sees many ideas in the market, and some never get tested. Ideas get lost in chat threads, and nobody remembers which one was tried or how it ended. A media buyer (the person who runs your paid ads) then cannot tell whether a new test repeats an old one.
Current workflow
The creative strategist browses competitor ads in the Meta Ad Library or a swipe file. Ideas the strategist likes go into a spreadsheet or a project board, and each row moves by hand from "idea" to "tested". The result of a test lives in a separate note, or in the memory of whoever ran it.
Prerequisites
- To add ideas yourself from competitor ads, track at least one competitor whose ads Nexus has analysed. Competitor Synthesis shows a preparing message until competitor ads are collected. See Track competitors.
- The page itself needs nothing else.
- Until an idea is added, the page shows Nothing in your testing backlog yet.
How Nexus works
Ideas reach the backlog in two ways. Nexus builds some from analysed competitor ads. It lists the market concepts that competitors run and your own concept set lacks, with a hypothesis and a confidence level for each. You choose which of these to save. Fixed rules produce the list. AI reads the competitor ads that feed it, so a mistake in that reading can reach an idea.
Nexus also adds ideas itself, from your own ad data. It does this when a large share of your own-ad spend rides one angle and other angles have no live concept. The hypothesis of such an idea starts with "Nothing live argues via the" and the name of the angle. This kind of idea shows no Run by line and no confidence chip.
Nexus never adds an angle that is already in your backlog, whatever its status. This includes Dismissed.
You move each idea through its statuses and record its outcome. You cannot type an idea into the backlog. Nexus does not run a test, link ads to an idea or measure a result.
Add an idea
- Open Insights > Competitors > Competitor Synthesis.
- Open the Concepts section.
- Find Testing roadmap — concepts you haven't tried.
- Select Add to testing roadmap on a card.
The button changes to Added. A message reads Added to testing roadmap. The idea now shows in Testing Backlog. An idea can be on the list only once. To work with an idea you already added, find it in the backlog. See Competitor Synthesis for the rest of that page.
Move an idea
WARNING
Reopen moves a card back to To test and clears its outcome.
| Status | Buttons on the card | What they do |
|---|---|---|
| To test | Mark briefed | Moves the idea to Briefed. |
| To test or Briefed | Mark tested | Asks for an outcome, then moves the idea to Tested. |
| To test or Briefed | Dismiss | Moves the idea to Dismissed. |
| Tested or Dismissed | Reopen | Moves the idea back to To test. |
Mark briefed changes the status only. It does not create a brief. Dismiss keeps an idea out of your active work, and Nexus does not add that idea again.
Record the outcome
- Select Mark tested on a card.
- Read Outcome? and select Winner, Inconclusive or Loser. Select Cancel to back out.
The card moves to Tested and shows the outcome chip. Loser is not an error. Nexus shows it in amber, not red.
Search and filter
The search box and the filters appear once the backlog has at least one idea.
- Type in Search idea or hypothesis… to match the idea or its hypothesis.
- Use All, To test, Briefed, Tested and Dismissed to show one status.
- Use All outcomes, Winner, Inconclusive and Loser to filter tested ideas. This filter shows only when the status filter is All or Tested.
Exact output
The page is a board of cards grouped by status.
Nexus groups the cards by status, in this order: To test, Briefed, Tested and Dismissed. A group with no cards is hidden. Each card shows:
- The idea, as the title.
- A confidence chip: high, medium or low. The chip shows how strongly competitor ads support the idea. An idea that Nexus adds itself shows no chip.
- Run by, followed by the competitors that run the idea. An idea that Nexus adds itself shows no Run by line.
- The hypothesis.
- The date you added it.
- On a Tested card, an outcome chip.
What to do with it
| What you see | Decision or action | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| A card in To test with a high confidence chip | Decide which ideas to test first. Turn one into a test by adding an angle or a concept, then start a run in the Creative Wizard. See Angles and Concepts. | creative strategist |
| A card you have asked creative for | Select Mark briefed. | creative strategist |
| A card whose test has run | Compare the results in Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads or Performance > Ad performance, then select Mark tested and pick the outcome. | media buyer |
| A card with Winner | Decide whether to give the idea more budget. The budget change happens outside Nexus, in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads. | media buyer |
| A card with Inconclusive or Loser | Decide whether to retest or to leave it. Select Reopen to retest. | creative strategist |
| A card that does not fit your brand or catalog | Select Dismiss. | ecommerce manager (the person who runs the store) |
Expected value and measurement
A single list with a status and an outcome per idea can help you avoid repeat tests and keep a record of what worked. It supports your decisions. It does not make an idea win.
To check the list, look at two places:
- Create > Testing Backlog: the number beside the Testing backlog heading counts all your ideas. The number beside each status counts only the cards that match your search and filters. The Winner, Inconclusive and Loser filters show how your tests ended.
- Performance > Ad performance: compare Spend and ROAS of the ads from a test with your other ads for the same dates. See Define what a winning ad is for how Nexus sorts winners.
Warning: the outcome is your own judgment, and Nexus does not check it. The effect of one idea cannot be isolated when budgets, seasons or other creatives change during the test.
Limitations and exceptions
- You cannot type an idea. You add ideas only from Competitor Synthesis. Nexus adds the others itself.
- Estimates. The hypothesis and the confidence chip are estimates from competitor ads that AI analysed. They can be wrong. Treat them as a starting point.
- No delete. Nexus has no delete button. Dismiss moves an idea out of your active work, and it stays on the page under Dismissed.
- No link to a brief or to ads. Mark briefed and Mark tested change the status and the outcome only.
- Failures. If a status change fails, a message reads Could not update status. If adding an idea fails, a message reads Could not add to roadmap. Try again.
- Nothing to add. If you already cover every market angle, Competitor Synthesis says No untried concepts in this set and explains why.
- A failed load can look empty. If the page cannot load your ideas, it can still show Nothing in your testing backlog yet. Reload the page before you add an idea again.
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| Nothing in your testing backlog yet | Add an idea from Competitor Synthesis. If you added one already, reload the page. |
| No concepts match your search or filters. | Clear the search or widen the filters. |
In the public demo, where you are not signed in, adding and moving ideas is blocked. The message Could not add to roadmap or Could not update status appears, with the text "This action is not available in the public demo."