7 Tips for Creating Effective Facebook Ads That Convert

While TikTok might be the big new player in social media (and in social media marketing), Facebook remains the platform with the most users, the second-highest ranking website by time spent per visit, and the third-highest app by average monthly engagement. If you advertise on Facebook, you have an audience of over 3 billion people with an average monthly engagement of over 23 hours. 

It’s hard to downplay the potential of Facebook advertising. Plus, Facebook’s Ads Manager makes it incredibly easy to upload, refine, test, and analyze ad campaigns. The tricky part is creating ads that people will actually engage with, ads that convert to clicks, downloads, reads, or purchases. Let’s try to change that.

Tips for Creating Effective Facebook Ads

Create Ads Specific to Each Stage of Your Conversion Funnel

If you haven’t considered your conversion funnel, that is step one. A conversion funnel identifies the different relationships your customers have with your business. Think of it like being at a party. Maybe you have some friends that you feel comfortable socializing with already, then there are some strangers who you have yet to introduce yourself to, and maybe there are some acquaintances who you can strike up some conversations with but you wouldn’t yet call your friend. 

Your customers are no different. If they have never heard of your business before, they will likely require an introduction before feeling comfortable making a purchase. Whereas if they are repeat customers they might even share your posts with their friends. The point is, that people at different stages of familiarity require different strategies to get them to engage with your ad or with your business 

Generally, a conversion funnel breaks down into something like:

• Stage 1 – Attract attention and brand awareness
• Stage 2 – Convert that attention into leads 
• Stage 3 – Close on those leads
• Stage 4 – Delight your customers so they return or refer your brand to others

Get Granular in Your Targeting

Targeting your ads to different stages of the conversion funnel is just the start of the targeting process. Facebook offers loads of targeting attributes that allow you to narrow down your audience by demographics, location, interests, previous engagement, and campaign goals – take advantage of these! Sometimes you want to reach a wide audience, but most ads will see more conversions when you successfully narrow your scope down to the right audience instead. 

Retargeting is Key for Conversions

One of the main points of targeting is to move people along the conversion funnel. If you’ve managed to make an impression with someone, stopping there defeats the purpose of your original campaign. That’s why retargeting is one of the most effective ways of driving conversions. In one study by comScore, they found that retargeting strategies led to a 1048% lift in search queries–far more than any other strategy they assessed. It is a key part of moving people down the funnel to ultimately become customers or brand ambassadors. 

Great Design + Great Copy = Perfect Ad Harmony

You’ve narrowed down your target audience and you’ve set your goals and budget for your campaign. Now, it’s time to wow your audience. A great ad starts with great visuals. Facebook offers many different ad formats for you to choose from. The right option for your ad will depend on what you are trying to achieve, but some things ring true for all compelling ads.

• Videos tend to be the most effective at capturing attention
• All visuals should capture attention. High-quality, high-contrast, original content is usually best
• A great photo is ruined by bad copy – generate headlines and descriptions that amplify your message
• Keep content short, and ideally with only a single call to action

An example of a great Facebook ad comes from Henson Shaving. Their Facebook and social media ad campaigns are a perfect example of creating engaging original content, with high-production value and excellent copy.

Try a Giveaway Campaign

Giveaway campaigns have been a common strategy lately to get people engaged, and for good reason – they are effective. Your ads don’t always need to focus on sales, sometimes they should focus on increasing brand awareness. For a brand awareness ad, select “reach” as the ad objective, and create a giveaway campaign with a design that is hard to ignore. 

This example isn’t a Facebook Ad per se, but Doordash’s recent Super Bowl Ad giveaway is a masterclass in creating an effective giveaway campaign. They created a giveaway that is impossible to ignore, packaged it in an entertaining video, and promoted it across several platforms leading up to the release.

Regular Testing is Your Friend

You won’t know what works and what doesn’t until you try. That’s why Facebook’s Ad Manager makes it so easy to test various aspects of your ad with A/B testing. In the “Campaign” table of your Ad Manager, select A/B Test, and choose the variable you want to test. You have a lot of options you can test like:

• The type of ad
• The design
• The ad copy
• Your call to action

You can run A/B tests for as many ads as needed to better understand what works for your brand and your audience. How do you figure out what works? By analyzing relevant metrics!

Don’t Forget to Track Conversion Metrics!

A crucial part of improving your ad conversions is, unsurprisingly, tracking your conversions. You need to know how your ads perform so you can decide what needs to change. Facebook offers a handy tool for this with their Meta Pixel – a piece of code you can add to your website that tells you what visitors do when they visit your website. It can help you understand the effectiveness of your ads and your web design.

However, the Facebook Pixel is just one tool. Many other tools also help you track your conversion rate and other key performance metrics like leads generated, ROI, cost per acquisition, etc.

Get Some Help From the Professionals at Consultus

All of these strategies can help your Facebook ads capture attention and convert that attention into engagement or revenue, but creating and analyzing your ad campaigns require a lot of time and consideration. Instead, you could hand it off to the expert team of marketers at Consultus Digital. We can help you create engaging Facebook ads and integrate them into your broader social media and digital marketing strategies. We take the time to truly understand your business, your goals, and your customers to create the most effective content and ad campaigns. Get in touch today to start the conversation.