I don’t know who needs to hear this… but your businesses’ creatives aren’t for you, they are for your audience. Sorry, Karen.

The graphics, videos and thumbnails you create act as the bloodline for your advertising campaign. There are many important components that make up an effective ad, but it is your ad creative that catches your audience’s attention before anything else. 

If your creatives aren’t interesting to your audience, are dull or just overall not great, your whole advert is going to be scrolled past. It is thought that you have approximately 3 seconds to catch someone’s attention and engage them.

We’re a selfish species - yes, we can spend hours on end on social media each day but you want a WHOLE 3 seconds of my time to look at an ad that took your hours to create? Dream on.   

Kidding... kind of 🥴. 

Think about how many ads you see on your NewsFeed, there are a lot of companies competing their ad in front of the same audience as you. You need to ensure that your ad stands out for the right reasons. Here are 5 simple tips to help you do that:

Optimise Your Ads

This is more house-keeping, but important nonetheless. It is important to make sure your ads are optimised for who you are targeting. We recommend creating mobile-first creatives, you can check out our blog on Why Your Ads Need To Be Mobile First. 

If the large majority of your audience access Facebook from their mobile, it does not make sense for you to be creating ads that are desktop-first. 

Choose graphic and video ratios that take up the most real estate on a newsfeed, use (1:1) for newsfeeds and (16:9) for Stories on both Instagram and Facebook. You’ve put all this effort into creating an ad, don’t blow your chance of engaging your audience or making money by not optimising it.

Test Colours That AREN’T Your Brand Colors

We love a bit of brand consistency, nothing wrong with that. By all means, use your brand colours on your ads! People can recognise your business and distinguish it from others through the use of brand colours only. 

But, this is where you need to take a step back from what you prefer and what will work for the audience your targeting. If your brand colours are dark and *dull*, your ads may not stand out enough for them to perform well. 

Why not test brighter and more engaging colours? There’s so much information out there about colour psychology and the way that colours can trigger emotions in us. Test colours and see what response you get! It could be a game-changer.

If you’re running a campaign targeting Females only, use colours that resonate with them. 

(Pinks and purples perform very well - *sorry girls, I hate that it is true*)

Create Fast-Moving Videos

Let’s double back around to having those 3 seconds to capture attention. The number of videos I see on my newsfeed that contain nothing interesting nor vital in the first few seconds baffles me. Make it make sense. 

Video ads that perform well in terms of both conversions and engagement have a hook at the start of the video - this could be a question, a statement, a review or your product. You need to give your audience something to quickly entice them in. 

Your video will need to be fast-paced and kept interesting with the use of transitions, movements, text and different visuals. Facebook recommends a sweet spot of 15-seconds for a video, but they can be longer depending on your audience and product. 

Stop Trying To Be Steven Steilberg, It’s Not Going To Happen.

At times, creating great ads can be a double-edged sword. We spend years perfecting our craft and levelling up our creative design skills for the quick ad we made on a whim to outperform an ad you spent days perfecting. Your ads don’t need to be studio-quality and production perfect in order to perform well and generate good results. It all depends on your audience and product. 

If your company is an Italian restaurant called Fantastico Come Una Merda and all of your cuisines are expensive, your seating areas are decked in chandeliers and you have more than one working soap dispenser in each bathroom - maybe stick to creating something of quality.

If you’re a Car Finance Company, having ad creatives that are a little rough and ready isn’t a necessarily a bad thing. Your audience may feel like they have a better chance of getting approved or you being able to help them because your ad isn’t daunting or unwelcoming to them. Try it out! 

Be Unique & TEST!

With such a large number of adverts put in front of us each day, it’s hard not to pick up inspiration here and there. The world of ads and creatives is constantly evolving! 

There may be trailblazers in your industry that everyone looks up to and it is completely fine to look at what they are doing and take note, but don’t get caught up in it. Each business is unique and ads should be too. 

Think outside the box, test something new every week! Some of your ad creatives are going to flop, but who cares? Make changes or move on to something else. Test every single form of ad creative possible and compare the results. It is the only way to find out what is really going to work for you and move your business forward online. 

Also, straight-up copying ads from another business reeks of laziness, uncertainty and you being shit at your job. Don’t be that guy. 

If you want a🔥🔥🔥 Facebook Ads, then you know who to contact!

Written By Jorja Miller