Read Time: 7 mins
We all run ads on Meta platforms, there is no way that a small business can do without running these ads today.
Most of the ads that I see on Facebook and Instagram lack basics. If your ads are not captivating enough then Click Through Rate (CTR) will be low, which will increase the CPC (Cost per Click). Which results in a waste of money.
Sharing a few strategies and learnings in this article, hope they help you improve your FB/ Insta Game!
First, let’s understand the elements we have in FB/ Insta ads:
- Creative – Image, Video, Gif, Carousel, etc.
- Caption
- Primary Text
- Headline
- Description
- Call to Action (CTA)
Facebook & Instagram are platforms where people just keep scrolling. The endless scroll is something that people enjoy.
Hence it is very important to understand that they are just scanning and not reading. It is important to ensure that the creative that we design hooks them in that less than 1-sec attention that they pay to every post.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that people are not looking for a product on these platforms, we are pushing it.
They have not come here to buy something (unlike Amazon or a shopping mall). Hence it is very important to communicate in a way that is social and also grabs their attention.
First, let us see the best practices. Then we will analyse some real ads that are currently running on FB/ Insta.
How to design thumb-stopping Ads for Social Media Platforms?
Let's take an example to understand it better. Say we want to create an ad for a face mask which is made using ayurvedic ingredients. And we have the following two TGs:
1. People who are staying away from home for job.
- The communication can be – “Missing Daadi ma’s homemade face mask?”
- To further this, we can use phrases like – “Daadi ma approved”, etc.
- Newsworthy – “Did you know that Clove helps reduce acne?”
- “100-year-old secrete to fighting acne revealed?
**These are just examples that I have written to make the point, they might not be correct factually or even good copies. But just take them as a reference for the idea.
Hence, the creative that we are using should be able to stop the person from scrolling and then perform one of the following actions – either read the caption or click to visit the website.
On Instagram the headline appears first, followed by Primary Text and then the description. On Facebook, the headline is in bold. So, the headline should add a second layer to the conversation we started in the creative. Or we should add a layer of facts to the Newsworthy line we wrote in the creative.
Example:- Made with 100% natural ingredients. Certified by the Ministry of Ayush, etc.
Headlines occupy an extremely important real estate. Please think about them & ensure that you spend some time and come up with a few of them. Then experiment running them with different creatives and see which of them are working for you.
The primary text should have features, and USPs and should start with any of the following: A relatable question, a Newsworthy sentence, creating FOMO, etc.
The description should use the scarcity principle or be used to highlight features like – price points, discounts, etc.
Many people argue that no one reads captions, I would suggest that before reaching that conclusion it’s good to experiment.
One such experiment is to create a coupon code and add it to the caption. Please make sure that you don’t promote it anywhere else. And see out of all the conversions that we got from that ad, how many people made the purchase using the coupon code?
I once ran this experiment and saw that 20% of people were converting using that coupon code. Today when CACs are so high, it is not a bad idea to optimize the caption if 20% of people are reading it.
A CTA is very important in any ad. Here we are not talking about the CTA button that we see in the ad. The button you will obviously add.
A CTA should always be added in the Caption also. In the caption we can be creative with CTAs – “Checkout the latest collection today!”, “Avail the discount now!”.
These are some basic examples but we can be much more creative here.
For CTAs again I hear many people say that there is a button then why do we need one more line of CTA in the caption? The button is to the point and is there in every ad.
A creative caption with the right persuasion techniques and CTA will move the customer closer to conversion before they land on the website. The more they interact with the brand the better the impression in their minds.
Remember the Customer Buying Journey table we made. Here is the link for the same. So, our objective of running Facebook ads is to get people on our website and hence CTA is very important.
The communication points that we have, should also be written keeping in mind our CBJ table. Hence it is really important to create that first & then accordingly work on the Facebook creatives.
Once we have created the ads with proper persuasion techniques, then it’s time to run experiments and measure.
Real-time Examples:
Let us see a few examples of ads that are well-designed from the Facebook Ads Library.
Ad1:
“Indian Skin” is very relatable and they have played well with the text hierarchy making its font size big. Eyes fall on that directly without even trying. The Headline is very direct with an offer callout and coupon code.
Although their Primary text and CTA could have been a bit better. Another important point to consider here is that MamaEarth is also a big brand now, they might not need an elaborate caption. But I would highly recommend it for small D2C startups.
Ad 2:
“Imli Candy in New Avatar” is something newsworthy. They have also highlighted all the features in the primary text in a very clear way which is difficult to miss. The use of Emojis is also a good practice in Primary text. CTA could have been added in the caption. The headline and description are also missing.
Ad 3:
Here, they have tried to ask a relatable question.
Ad 4:
This ad also starts with a question which would make most parents stop scrolling. They have a good headline and a very clear and to-the-point description. The first line of the caption is also a question, they could have given some space before starting the next line so that readability is increased.
Social Proof Ads:
Types of Social Proof Ads:
1. Testimonial Ads – Can be a Video or an Image
2. Data & Fact Based –
- X number of happy customers
- Y% of customers have seen improvements
- Influencer review video
- Best Selling on Amazon
- 5 Star Rating
These ads should definitely be used with warm & hot audiences like website visitors, cart abandoners, product abandoners, Instagram engagers, etc.
For some categories and brands, this can be used for cold audiences, to acquire customers.
Analytics:
Last but very important point, use proper UTMs.
A standard UTM for ads should have the type of ad i.e. video, image, carousel, etc. then if it is a video we should always have the duration of the video. And finally, the campaign name (like influencer shoot, wedding2022 campaign, etc.) describes the ad.
If you are experimenting with 2 static images that have everything the same except the background colour then please do mention this differentiating factor also in the UTM.
My secret actionable points:
1. Analyze ads and ad set together – Download the report from FB, then create a key by joining the ad set name and ad name. Analyze this and see which combinations are winning combinations.
2. Strong research and strategy - Use the FB Ads library and do some in-depth research on competitors.
3. Use Greek Philosophy – Pathos (Emotions/ Values), Logos (Logic/ Reason/ Proof), Ethos (Credibility/Trust) – Always create 3-4 types of Ads – One with Emotions, Logic and Social Proof. And test all of them with your audiences.
Summary of all actionable points in the article:
1. Create a proper strategy with 3-4 ads after doing a thorough research
2. Use Persuasion Techniques
3. Spend time on captions and experiment to find how many people are reading them
4. Ensure adding a Creative CTA in the caption or the creative
5. Use Social Proof Ads
6. Use proper UTMs
Thank you so much for reading. I hope this piece of knowledge helped you in some way.