The worst thing that you can do with many ad platforms is to ‘tick the box’ and say you have tried it and it didn’t work. That’s similar to going to the gym and walking on the treadmill for 20 minutes a few times a week and then complaining that you haven’t achieved an amazing physique. Knowledge is power when it comes to Facebook Ads (and the gym) but also data. Remember – “data is the new oil”.
Facebook Ad Library
You can see your competitor’s ads, by clicking on the page transparency “See all” text.
From here you can click to see the “Ad Library”. Take a look at the start date of the ads; the ones that have been running the longest are likely the most successful ads. This can provide a great starting point for some idea-generation in regards to your ads.
Look at the images, the offers and the retargeting offers. Also, take note of the text that they use. Don’t steal any images or text, as you could end up in court, just use your competitor’s ads to inspire your ideas.
Dynamic Creative
Talking of data, data has always been key to refining any online advertising campaign. One of the main advantages of online marketing Vs offline, is that you can use analytics and tracking software to measure the performance of different ad campaigns and specific ads, allowing you to refine them, improve them and see the benefits in terms of the return on ad spend.
To do this, you used to have to split-test all of your creative. For example, you might have an advert for your online boxing store, and you have one advert that features a picture of a boxer and another that shows a punchbag. Using split testing, you can allocate 50% of impressions to the boxer and 50% to the punchbag advert. After a set amount of time and a significant number of impressions, clicks and hopefully goal completions, you can calculate which ad performed the best. If the punchbag performed the best, then you might want to conduct a further split-test using another product-image or 2 punchbag images with different offers or text. And so the testing process goes on….
With Dynamic Creative, Facebook does this for you. Just upload multiple images, headlines, and descriptions. Facebook will then test everything for you and focus your budget on the best performing combinations. Be aware that the less budget you have to spend on your Facebook ad campaigns, the fewer variations you should upload. Data must be collected to a level of significance that allows Facebook to make robust decisions on which ad images, headlines, and descriptions to show.
If you upload 10 images for example and only have a $10 budget for the campaign, the number of clicks will be too low to enable Facebook to decide which images perform the best. Ideally, each image would need a few thousand impressions and a few hundred clicks each for the data to be robust enough to make ‘data-driven-decisions’.
Click to Messenger Facebook Ads
These ads are interactive and get your customers to engage with your business more often. They feature a call-to-action button in the ad, that opens a messenger conversation with your Facebook page. They can take the form of images, videos or carousel ads. You will probably want to use a scripted, automated messenger via a messenger-bot to make these ads effective.
Instead of clicking an ad being taken to a landing page on your website, the Facebook user gets to interact with your company directly in a format that they are familiar with. Reports show that 90% of Facebook users would prefer to interact over messenger, compared to email.
Sponsored Message Remarketing Ads
Remarketing or retargeting, lets you reengage with people who have shown an interest in your company or product. If for example, a Facebook user has engaged with your company on the Messenger platform, then you can restart a conversation with that person.
For example, this may work well when you have a new promotion or offer that is well suited to a specific audience.
Facebook Ads Audiences – Engaged Shoppers
The “Engaged shopper” is a great audience feature in Facebook Ads. Why waste your money, time and effort advertising to people who never engage with Facebook Ads? By choosing “Engaged Shoppers”
It’s worth noting that this audience is relatively expensive per click and it is better to use your data once you have garnered enough using customer lists or your own Facebook campaigns.
You’ll find “engaged shoppers” under the Behaviours category. Be careful not to advertise to people who are engaged!
Ad Grid Method
A great tip from Molly Pittman is to use the ad grid method. More information can be found on this pdf.
The ad grid is made up of different audiences and different ‘hooks’. You must research your audience and find out where they can be reached and what offers will appeal to them. You will need to narrow down your audiences to specific ‘avatars’ and do research on Amazon, Google and forums to find out what their pain points are, and how your product or service can stand out and appeal to them in particular.
A hook is an advertising message that is designed to grab a user’s attention so that they’ll be engaged with your advert. Tell the audience/avatar what value you can offer.
An ad grid for a phone answering service could include the following hooks:
“A Great Business Startup Tool”
“Dramatically Increase Your Leads & Customer Service”
“Make Business Easier”
“Treat Your Clients Like Celebrities”
Using the Ad Grid Method – all of these hooks should now be tested with specific audiences.
Finally scale-up the most successful combinations of ads and avatars. See if you can create new hooks and new avatars that lie somewhere in between the previous best performers. Increase your budget on the successful combinations and reduce the budget or stop any spend on poorly performing ones.
Record Your ‘Scroll-Stopper’
A great idea from marketing expert Wes McDowell is to create a folder of your favorite Facebook Ads – or anything that stops you in your tracks as you’re scrolling through your Facebook or any other social media newsfeed.
Then the next time you come to create any ad designs for your own or your client’s company, you will have lots of inspiration to hand.