Common Problems in Creatives

After analyzing many Facebook Ads accounts, we see some problems repeated over and over.

Perhaps one of the most common problems we face is a certain pattern when it comes to generating creatives for ads.

Let’s look at an example of the most common problems and how to fix them.

This is a translation of our original article in Spanish which can be found here.

When we review accounts of potential clients or collaborators, we often come across images or creatives that correspond to the following scheme:

I made this template a bit “crappy” on purpose, because it’s usually the feeling this kind of ads give prospects.

Maybe the more experienced marketer are thinking, “what an exaggeration”, but… you would be surprised to see how many ads of this kind are running on Facebook and Instagram. Even ones from business with decent success and profit.

How to improve this creative for Facebook Ads?

Let’s analyze the major flaws in these types of ads:

1. Image is not attractive

Will it stop me from scrolling on my Facebook feed? Probably not.

General advice

1.1. If we are highlighting how important they (the consumer) are to us, i.e. a human connection, we can try with images featuring a person.

In particular and depending on the service:

• We can try an image of a woman (because it will be because of machismo, society or a reflection, we usually associate women with affection and care).
• We must try in the image that that person is looking at us (because we humans tend to stop when we detect that someone is looking at us).

1.2. Another common tactic is to play by increasing the contrast and brightness of the image to make it stand out from the rest of Facebook.

2. Too much text

These ads contain so much text they often trigger Facebook’s “too much text” algorithm .

Although Facebook removed the 20% text limit on an image to being able to launch a campaign, they simply don’t like photos with text because they feel they break up the user experience on their platform.

Besides, in terms of the message, it’s usually not about how much you can squeeze in an image, but how much you can take out.

3. Logo

The company logo can be much smaller, or even disappear (there’s the rest of the ad for conveying the brand’s positioning and message).

Remember: it’s about them, not you.

If you choose to put a logo, you can put it on the opposing side of the image to avoid confusing and messing with the rest of the text (the really important one).

4. Slogan

Maybe we can get rid of the slogan? Does it really add something or is it just our ego that has put it in there?

Again, this is not about us or our business, it’s about the user and their needs.

5. You and only you

If we have a consumer-focused message (as we should) and we have words like “you”, “for you”, etc, we can try to make those words stand out from the rest of the text to emphasize our concern for them.

This can be achieved by putting it in bold, putting a larger font size, a different colour, underlining them, putting them in a different font… It all depends on the situation and the design.

6. Dots and text design

Although there are exceptions to this, as a general rule it is better not to put dots at the end of sentences. They are short sentences (or should be) and finishing a phrase with a dot only adds noise and slows down the reading process.

It is an ad, not literary work, we can afford to bend things a bit.

7. Asterisks and reading order

It’s better not to put asterisks (if you have to clarify text in an image, you’re in trouble).

It also interrupts the reading pattern of the consumer (because we hums are that curious and need to know what that asterisk refers to) and skip the text between the current sentence and the asterisk.

It’s better to upload the sentence with the asterisk after the one that refers to it and have the user read continuously.

Remember: don’t make me think.

The best advice

Just use a clean image.

Yes, you heard that right… The best advice is to just “do nothing”.

Facebook wants clean images, with little text or no text at all, like the images most people share on the network.

At the same time, it is important to blend in with what the user is used to and wants to see, and this usually means images without text.

The advice isn’t really not to do anything, but to use powerful images (using some of the techniques described above) without text.

Except in rare cases, this kind of images or creatives convert better than those with a lot of text: there are other sections of the ad for the message and copy text, such as the title or the text box.

Other tips

Ad text

Write a short or long text in the ad (not the image), depending on the situation or, better yet, do an A/B test with those two types of text to see which one converts better with your audience.

You can also try a more positive approach, another offer, a more emotional one… Different people react differently to different messages.

General advice

Test with different creatives.

Depending on the budget and type of campaign, we usually test with at least 9 creatives: 3 static images, 3 images with motion based on each of those images and 3 videos.

This is usually multiplied by the number of different texts we have created.

A classic sixty year old white woman will perceive our service very differently than a twenty year old young man who is into the latest fashion.

Their motivation and what drives them to convince themselves they need what we have, and that we are the best option, are completely different in each case.

This is referring to general services. If we are in a niche service with a very defined audience, it simplifies the way we manage our different “avatars” of ideal clients.

Summary

We hope these guidelines will help you create better ads that attract more attention, improve the CTR and, above all, convert more.

We are convinced implementing these points if your creatives do not comply with them will improve your results.

But, if you want us to take a look at your campaigns to see if we can improve them, contact us and tell us about your case.