Ever heard the phrase “you’re one in a million?”
Well, you’re literally one in three million on Facebook.
Facebook advertising is a big jungle of competitors trying to get their stuff seen over yours. Their links clicked. Their products purchased. 🙁
Sure, you probably have creative tricks up your sleeve that will up your audience overnight.
But you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel.
You can use some of their tricks and use them for yourself if you know where to look.
Rule of the thumb: look to what your competitors are doing right, and steal borrow to optimize your ad results (and save some time trying to come up with new ideas that haven’t been tested!).
1. Use Attention-Grabbing Headlines
Something your competitors have down? Their headlines.
And you should take note.
A good headline has the power to single-handedly lift conversions by 10%.
The key is to stand out. Remember how many you’re up against?
The best marketers out there know most winning headlines have something in common. They stick to proven formulas they know will work 98.9% of the time.
The trick to an attention-grabbing headline is the angle.
5 Types of Attention-Grabbing Headlines for Facebook
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1. Get customers thinking with a question
People want answers. Questions lead them to that logical conclusion.
That’s why questions also receive 150% more click-throughs than standard statements. The number jumps to 175% if you include the word “you” (more on that later).
This question-method plays into the popular PAS formula. You’re presenting a problem by way of a question that needs to be answered. And that conveniently positions you to provide the solution/answer.
Take investment advisor Phil Town’s ad (below). His customers have extra money that they need to invest. First world problems, amIright?! “But what am I supposed to do with all this extra money?!?!” I’m joking. But that’s more or less the train of thought, here.
Here, he’s targeted their exact need:
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2. Use commanding words
No beating around the bush here.
These headline types tell your customer exactly what you want them to do.
Combine this with a good image and some quality copy and they’ll be hooked and ready to take the action.
OptiMonk wants customers to “Get” the app. And they aren’t shy about it. But they also offer a good reason to “get” it!
There’s the 18% average revenue increase. There’s the “Shopify #1” claim. And then there’s social proof in the reviews back up that bold statement.
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3. Offer a value proposition
Benefits sell. Customers want to know what they will get from the product or service.
Good headlines tell them how your product will make their life easier/better/more exciting. And is a better approach than just telling what the product or service does.
If you use Shopify, you can obviously take your site and business global. Quite the benefit.
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4. Make them wonder
Clickbait is a bit of a dirty word. But you can’t deny it’s lure.
“You won’t believe” what we know and you don’t know. Click.
A good headline will tease what you’re linking to, and will be so juicy and exciting that users won’t be able to resist clicking through.
Upworthy does this a lot. For example:
(Image Source)
This “giving them the popcorn without the butter approach” provides just enough to pique their interest and makes them want to know more.
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5. Leverage listicles
Lists help viewers process information more quickly.
Maria Konnikova says that the numbers and bullets help break down and differentiate from the onslaught of content users see all day.
And headlines with numbers in them are the highest performing when it comes to click-throughs, preferred by 36% of individuals questioned in a recent study.
2. Write Good, Concise Copy
Facebook ads aren’t the time to get long and flowery. You can do that later when they click through (the ultimate goal).
You aren’t trying to give them every.single.piece of information in this one ad.
Don’t sell in an ad. Sell on the landing page. The ad is just there to get them to click-through.
We found that the average length of an ad is about 14 words.
They should also be to.the.point. No confusing, wordy sentences that people can’t digest as they are scrolling through.
Handcrafted shoes for men from Italy. Got it.
The point is to throw in some popular words to elicit the biggest response from viewers.
Like, “you,” which is just another way to target (without really targeting). It pulls the reader into seeing the ad that was obviously intended just for them.
Here, Shopify uses it once in just one line:
You (see how that works?) can also appeal to their sense of thriftiness and make a little offer of a freebie.
It’s hard to pass up free. Or at the very least, not to stop and see what it’s all about. Well done Hubspot!
You can also create a sense of urgency and speed by using the word “instantly,” and offer customers the opportunity for right now. Because we want things right now.
3. Add High-Quality Images
Content that is visual is 40x more likely to be shared than content that isn’t. And consumers remember it better.
Individuals will only remember about 10% of information after three days if they have only heard it. But if you couple some good information with an enticing picture? They’ll remember 65% of it.
So these ads are being shared because they’re memorable. If you need even more reason to include good visuals, they increase your conversions, too.
Spearmint Love gets this right.
High-quality images that show customers just how they can use the products, showing a full outfit and accessories instead of just a piece. Customers can envision the purchases as part of their lives.
Instead of a generic product image, let’s try showing some of those potential use cases in the link text. Or selling the experience, rather than the thing itself.
Take United, for instance.
What are they actually selling? Flights on one of their airplanes. But that’s not what their ad is selling. There’s no hint of cramped seats or miniscule bags of peanuts (or potentially forceful behavior from their flight attendants).
The ad is selling the destination. The adventure. The experience.
Some other tips for making your images irresistible?
Use people and faces
Even better? Use the face of a happy woman.
People like looking at faces, especially pretty faces.
We see a happy person smiling back at us and envision ourselves in the role, should we sign on to the product or service.
Try something funny or unexpected
A dog on a human’s body? HILARIOUS.
What’s that about? I want to know more.
4. Help Customers Visualize the Product
A good before and after is a surefire way to get the customer’s mind rolling about how the product or service will fit into their life.
Subscription meal services are great at this. Like this ad from Plated.
Not only does it show the guy having a seemingly great time making the pizza, it shows the finished product.
In this photo, there are two hands. Those hands help the customer see how the subscription could be used.
Date night? Dinner and a movie? Bro’s night in? Sure!
Could you imagine a bro’s night in, cooking pizza, in matching bro rompers? De-lect-a-ble.
5. Leverage the Power & Credibility of Influencers
A Wall Street Journal study found that people are influenced by others just like them. (SURPRISE!)
When asking customers to conserve energy in their homes by using fans instead of their air conditioning, they tested out four different signs.
- Sign #1: Informed the customer that they could be saving $54/month on their utility bill.
- Sign #2: Told customers that they could prevent the release of 262 pounds of greenhouse gasses every month.
- Sign #3: Encouraged customers that saving energy was a socially responsible thing to do.
- Sign #4: Let customers know that 77 percent of their neighbors were already actively using fans to save energy.
Not shockingly, Sign #4 performed the best. Consumers were swayed by knowing their peers were doing the same thing.
To further capitalize on the power of the influencers, Kissmetrics suggests adding a photo of them.
These photos are like an additional stamp of approval, that the service/product/event is relevant and worth the customer’s time.
6. Create an Appealing Call to Action
CTA’s are the norm on Facebook ads, and should be straightforward reminders of what you want the customer to do next. But not all CTAs are created equal.
Scoro found that a “Sign Up” CTA does better (by about 14.5%) than “Learn More.”
The next step is to make sure the CTA matches the ad and the intent of the customer.
Do they want to learn more? Or do they have all the information they need and might be more likely to click if they could start a free trial or sign-up?
Including a call-to-action button in your ad makes it easy for a user to click-through to your site to learn more about your product, sign up to a service, or to download an eBook, app, or game.
7. Show the Results Someone is Gonna Get
Does what you are offering work? Prove it.
This goes back to consumers wanting to know just what’s in it for them.
People need to see, visually, that you can do what you say you can do.
In this ad, SumoMe talks about building an audience. Then it shows a graph trending upward.
Viewers will put two and two together and take away that their service has caused a steady increase in audience size for those using the tool.
They also include the “Join the 10,000+” copy to further drive home the large number of users who have already signed up.
If viewers don’t put the picture and the headline together, they might still be interested in knowing what the numbers show, and will click through. It’s win-win.
If you don’t deliver a verifiable gain in someone’s life, show them what you take away.
Here’s what I mean.
Check out the top few results about “why people buy” from this Omni-Channel Retail report:
- #1 – Price: How are you cheaper or provide more value per dollar than the alternative?
- #2 – Speed: Look no further than Amazon Prime. Get it to them ASAP.
- #3 – Variety of Options: Show all ‘dem colors, shapes, and sizes!
8. Link to Specific Landing Pages
We found that 69% of Facebook ads link to some sort of landing page in a recent analysis.
This means, in addition to all the other targeting you do, these ads should reach back to a specific service or product. Now is not the time to sell the whole store.
The best ads link to a targeted landing page for three reasons:
- ‘Cause that’s what visitors want to see. Duh.
- Message match leads to lower Cost Per Acquisitions and higher ROI
- And the proper traffic segmentation improves your tracking
LinkedIn does that here.
No, LinkedIn is not just a professional networking site for you to make a resume-style profile. With this ad, they are targeting job recruiters and sending them to a page just for their needs.
Do the math in your head real quick. Multiple different user types, segments, or personas means you need brand new campaigns and offers for each.
Targeting multiple audiences isn’t easy. It’s time-consuming.
But the extra work is worth it when you see the numbers from these laser-targeted ads.
Conclusion
A little friendly competition is OK.
When something works for your competitors, it might be wise to take notice and spy on them to see how you can make it work for you.
Avoid making mistakes that will turn your customers away or not bring them in in the first place.
Use engaging headlines, amp up your photo game, and cut down on your copy (but make it good).
This will not only up your credibility in the game, but it will give you a better bang for your ad spend buck.
Jarvee says
This is called an awesome read! Valuable, well explained tips that anybody can reproduce. And great examples.
What do you consider to be more important and more likely to trigger people to action – visuals or text – or both?
Thank you Brad!
Gurjit Singh says
Thanks for sharing this useful information