Your ultimate guide for designing Facebook Ads — Part 2
How to be a Facebook ad design magician with some tips and tricks!
Well, good to see you again!
I hope you enjoyed the 1st Part of this blog (fingers crossed! 🤞) and must be ready to explore a few more areas of FB ad design!
As you already know, the best product in the world won’t get sold by ads with sub-par design. So it is important that one uses superlative design creatives to sell their value proposition to the users. So here I am to give you FB ad design mantras that will make your ads stand out from the rest of the crowd!
First things first, FB ad design can be tough. And it is getting tougher every day as more and more brands/products/advertisers realize their potential and jump on board. Thus, the increased competition can quickly turn a very good running FB ad into a money-waster.
But, over the years, I’ve learnt a few things, which you can use in your ad design to make a winning ad campaign! Feeling excited? Well, let’s start our voyage by sailing into a few FB ads design secrets which you can implement in your ads for better traction!
FB ad design Secrets:
“There is no secret ingredient!”, Mr. Ping tells Po in Kung Fu Panda. Well, maybe it holds for soups and noodles, but definitely not when it comes to FB Ads. You can use some secret ingredients in your FB Ad designs to boost the performance. So, without further ado, let’s discuss some of the secret ingredients you can use in your FB ads to spice them up more and create a successful campaign.
But always remember, if your target and audience-driven creatives aren’t in place, your campaign will fail even if everything else is in place.
1. Create Buyer Personas:
Hema, Rekha, Jaya, and Sushma may like washing powder Nirma but definitely not the same FB ad! You need to understand many businesses have a different sort of user base with different tastes and needs.
It would be better to spend some time to understand the potential customer type and create a detailed persona before diving into designing an ad. Don’t forget to do a little user-research on pointers like how old your target audience is, how they are going to use your product, their professional life, and understand the gaps where you can pitch your product, etc.
Once you are ready with your target audience personas, create FB ads for each of them. Directly address the gaps and fill them with your amazing product!
2. Use a call to action:
Has it ever happened to you when you like something and end up not knowing what to do next? And by the time you figure it out, your curiosity runs out of fuel? Well, this happens with me a lot, and believe me, it happens with most of your target audience as well who see your beautifully designed FB ad!
So, what to do?
Well, the answer is to include a Call to Action button in your ad. So, when a user/potential user gets his curiosity ignited by your FB ad, he clicks on your ad and gets redirected to the product website/the app where he will have complete information about your product. This not only gives the target audience a better understanding of the product but also, turns your ad campaign into a successful one!
3. Use an image which stands out:
Legends say, “FB feed is the battlefield and is filled with the warriors!” So remember, if you want your audience to click on it, it has to stand out from the rest. It has to attract the eyes of the target audience when they are on a mission of infinite scroll down in a fraction of a second!
The easiest way to grab their attention is to use bright and vibrant colours. You may wanna add in visual contrast, thus focussing the eyes of people and making your ad stand out. You can avoid some colours like light blue which goes with Facebook’s UI. Also, don’t add too many things to your image. People may get distracted if it is too cluttered. Always remember the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) rule!
4. Use localization:
It was 2017, I just started designing FB ads. While I was scrolling down my FB feed something caught my attention immediately. It was a FB ad in Kannada. And moreover, they personalized it for my profession!
Did you notice? I said something caught my attention immediately. Well, this is the power of localization! In other words, when you show people a FB ad that feels like it’s just about them, they’re way more likely to stop, click, and share because they feel a personal connection to it. Whether this can be regional languages, gender, profession, and hobbies, etc. Always remember to use localized stuff in your FB ad for a successful campaign!
5. Show customer testimonials:
Well, just like you, before buying a product from Amazon, going through all the reviews, checking movie reviews on IMDb before going to a movie, people would like to read the testimonials about your products too!
As a common psychology fact, people would like to put themselves in the place of others and try expressing how they feel too. When they see it, their brain lights up and says grab this product. So, if you are designing, include a few ads with user testimonials for a successful campaign!
After all the best sales come from recommendations!
6. Use the super word ‘Free’:
They say it right, the best things in life are free!. Well, it is for all of us. Free food, Buy one get one free, free money… people love the word free.
When you use this weapon in your ad, it can be incredibly powerful and effective. The word free in your ad creative can set your FB ad a mile ahead of some other ads on the feed which usually ask the user to pay some money.
Well, thinking about your product which isn’t free? Ohh… I forgot to mention in the above paragraph that free can be anything. Maybe free shipping, free trial, free coupons, free scratch cards… and the list goes on!
The other side of a successful ad campaign is the off-post content. Witty content about the free thing will definitely boost the performance of your ad. So, don’t forget to pitch this to your content team next time!
7. Keep everything simple:
Remember earlier, in point 3, we discussed KISS a little bit? Let’s dive more into this!
To give you a better understanding of this, let me explain this with simple math (yes, a simple one!)
a. 2+3
b. 12,034+864/3–35,678*4
Out of the two, which one would you prefer to solve? Yes, you said it right! a. 2+3. Because it is easier!
Well, the same logic works on your eyes and your brain. Usually, people prefer to check out something which is easy on them. So is with your FB ad! Many designers try to overfeed the users in just one ad. Put too much information, put too many colours and fonts, put many stylings, etc. in one. Please don’t do that! Always try to keep as simple as possible. If you want to convey multiple messages, go for an FB carousels ad or make a video. Try to keep everything to the point. Short and sweet!
Once Albert Einstein explained the KISS rule in his own word, “Everything should be made as simple as possible!”
8. Use emotions and happy faces:
Happiness… we try to find it a lot in our life! Don’t we?
What do we do when we are happy? We smile, a lot. Dr. Witchel says, “According to some researchers, a genuine smile reflects the inner state of cheerfulness or amusement”. The Behavioral Ecology Theory suggests that all smiles are tools used in social interactions. And According to a study conducted in 2005 at the California Institute of Technology, there’s even a specific group of cells in our brains that fire only when we see a face.
When people see your FB ad with happy faces, subconsciously they connect with the cheerfulness of the product. It’s a phenomenon that’s deeply implemented in our brains — so use it in your Facebook ads!
9. Easy on the text:
Remember in the 1st part we looked extensively at this and the things you need to keep in mind when you are designing a FB ad? Usually, people don’t like to read cluttered information and prefer something which communicates the same visually. Facebook prefers this too!
So, next time when you are designing a FB ad, challenge yourself to pitch the ad idea with little or no text in a creative way. Use every neuron in your brain to come up with the most creative idea and see how it performs!
Ohh… the marketing team has come up with 200 books of text, which they want you to put in your FB ads? Tell them they can put it as off-post content too!
10. Show your product in action:
Believe me, the best way to make people understand and be convinced about your product is to show your product in action. Let me explain this with an example. Imagine if you are making an ad for a travel agency, include people booking tickets/taking a flight at the airport or enjoying the vacation in Hawaii, etc. in your FB ads. This will make people understand and connect with your product directly without any ambiguity.
Also, this will make your FB ad look like someone’s news feed. If your target audience is used to seeing updates from friends and family, make sure your FB ad doesn’t alienate them before they have a chance to see what it is you’re offering. It’s always better to show people using your product rather than simply displaying your product all by itself!
It is up to you now:
Ohh…
Again, it’s been a while since you started reading this blog!
Well, here I’ve pointed just 10 tips that I usually implement on my FB ads. But it doesn’t mean that there aren’t anymore. Remember me saying FB ads isn’t an easy thing to understand? So, of course, I can’t come up with every single point which works for your product. There are a few more tips and tricks which are worth checking out. I highly recommend you to go through these links for a few more tips and tricks:
• 25 Expert Tips to Create Facebook Ad Images THAT SELL by Fabrizio on Uhuru Network
• Ana Gotter’s The 9 Facebook Advertising Tips You Need to Know on Disruptive Advertising
• 22 Evergreen Secrets to Create Great Facebook Ad Design on AdEspresso
Rest is up to you, how you creatively use these pointers to make the most out of it. So, just dive in and explore the world of Facebook ads.
If you’ve designed a few ads, learnt a few more tricks that work for your target audience, don’t forget to share and tag me on Twitter @VananidhiKalkur and I will be happy to see!
In the next blog, we will look into conducting A/B testing for FB Ads. Sounds interesting? Well, fasten your seat belt, and stay tuned for more!
But until then,
Signing off! 👋
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