Getting started with — Facebook Countdown Ads
Countdown timers are being used on websites to increase urgency, boost engagement, and encourage sales.
Now, there is a way to implement the countdown concept in Facebook ads.
In this article, I will explain why countdown ads work and how to implement them on Facebook.
Why countdown ads work?
The obvious reason: urgency
Countdown ads are displaying a unique offer that is about to expire.
Frequently, users seeing your offer are not ready to buy yet.
Countdown is the perfect way to “push” buyers to make a purchase decision.
The not so obvious reason: multi-touch sales funnel
Data shows most prospects will decide to make a purchase after being exposed to a service or product 6–8 times.
However, most marketers are still running their ad campaigns, hoping a potential buyer will see their fancy ad and make an immediate purchase.
Imagine you see a TV commercial just once. Will it have a strong effect compared to seeing it multiple times over a few days or even weeks?
Countdown ads can be configured to expose the ad to the potential buyer several times during a short time frame.
Our data shows most buyers will not purchase after seeing the ad the first time, but seeing the ad up to 6 times during 72 hours dramatically increases the chances of conversion.
Technically, a multi-touch sales funnel can be achieved by building an audience based on the people who saw their first countdown ad - and aggressively targeting them to make sure they see more ads later during the campaign.
This functionality is built-in into our “Countdown Ads Builder” that I will introduce later in this post.
How effective are countdown ads?
The following statistics were calculated using data from our first 100 beta testers (small to medium businesses with $1K-$50K monthly Facebook ad budget).
X2.7 Increase in click rate
Unsurprisingly, animated - eye catching ads with an attractive offer and a live countdown get more clicks compared to the regular “boring” image ads.
X1.9 Increase in engagement
Because the ads catch the attention of the viewers, countdown ads are getting more likes and comments.
X2.4 Increase in conversions
The bottom line metric. Such a dramatic improvement was achieved because our users not only used the countdown ads, but also implemented the countdown experience on their websites(more about this later in this post).
X3.1 Decrease in price per conversion
Not only the same amount of traffic generated more sales, but because the “relevance score” went up, the price per click went down (learn more about the influence of relevance on price in this blog post).
Why better ads are such a big deal?
There are over 5 Million advertisers on the Facebook ads platform. This means you are competing with a huge number of other advertisers for the same audience. This also means the price you need to pay to reach your audience is increasing all the time, as more competitors join the battle on the user’s feed.
If you have better ads than your competitors, you spend less money acquiring a new customer.
If you spend less money acquiring a new customer, you can invest more in ads and grow your business rapidly.
Campaign types
Here are some use-cases that are a great fit for using countdown campaigns
- Retargeting Campaigns — After a visitor leaves your website without making a purchase, you can retarget him with a series of countdown ads offering a limited time discount.
The ROI of retargeting campaigns is much higher compared to “cold” ads, because retargeting campaigns are targeting a highly relevant audience that visited your website and is probably interested in your products. - Targeting campaigns — A cold audience also can be targeted with countdown campaigns; a cold audience is people who never heard about your brand. Displaying series of countdown ads during a short time frames actually “warms up” the audience and helps them know who you are and what you are offering.
You can take advantage of Facebook’s unique targeting campaign to find the most relevant customers and make them a limited time offer they simply can’t refuse. - Weekend / Holiday sales — Countdown ads are a perfect fit for special sales you want to conduct. People know when the weekend/holiday will end, and the countdown effect is much stronger because they know the offer will really expire.
- Event campaign — Hosting an event , webinar or live stream?
Countdown ads are a great way to show your audience how much time is left before the event and make them act on time.
Countdown ads can also create urgency while selling early bird tickets. - Abandoned cart campaign — According to Shopify, 67.45% of online shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes a sale.
Your sales numbers may only be one third of what they could potentially be. Countdown ads are a great way to make people return to your website and complete their purchase.
Implementing Facebook Countdown Ads
Countdown timers have been used on websites for many years since the beginning of the internet, but this concept was never used with Facebook ads until we (TopVid) introduced the “Countdown Ads Builder”.
Several challenges need to be addressed to create a successful countdown campaign on Facebook:
- Generation: Creating large amount of video ads with different counters.
Video ads are static; once the video is generated it can’t be changed.
However, we need to display different time counters through the campaign, the solution to this challenge is creating different variations of the ad, each variation with a different time in the countdown clock.
2. Automation: Constantly replacing the videos to make sure the right user sees the right counter.
Many videos were created during stage #1. Now they need to be switched on and off continuously. If a user just saw an ad saying 24 hours are left, 10 hours later he will see 14 hours remaining on the countdown.
3. Multi-touch sales funnel: Setting up the campaign in such way that users who saw the first countdown will be aggressively re-targeted to see the other countdowns during the campaign.
Data shows most prospects will make a purchase decision after being exposed to a service or product 6–8 times, countdown ads are a great way to implement the multi-touch sales funnel.
Do you really need to do all this to run a countdown campaign?
The answer is no! Keep reading…
World’s first “Countdown Ads Builder”
We at TopVid joined the pieces of the puzzle and created a platform that makes countdown ads campaigns accessible to everyone with just a few clicks.
This is the only way to create countdown Facebook ads without having a team of programmers, designers and Facebook ad experts.
Step 1: Choose a template
Choose a template from our variety of eye-catching templates.
We work with leading social ad agencies and each template is tested in real campaigns before being released to the public.
Step 2: Customize the template
Make the template your own by customizing: Logo, texts, fonts, colors, images and even videos (some templates include videos that can be replaced by your own footage).
Step 3: Connect your Facebook account and publish the campaign
The ads will be created on your Facebook ad account. You will have complete control and transparency.
You can create multiple campaigns, targeting and re-targeting different audiences.
Step 4: Choose audience
After the campaign is created by our system, you can open the campaign on Facebook and choose the right audience for your ads.
You can target cold audience, or re-target visitors who didn’t complete a purchase.
You can run weekend or flash sales or do any other campaign if you offer a good product ,those ads will have high conversion rates.
How often the ads will be seen?
The campaign is going to last 72 hours. During this time anyone in your target audience may see your ads up to 6 times (2 per day).
What will happen after 72 hours?
Once the campaign is over, our system will automatically restart it will a new 72 hour countdown. Keep in mind that viewers who saw the first campaign will not see it again after the restart.
For example if I was targeted with this campaign, and saw several countdown ads during the 72 hours of the campaign, I would not see more ads after the campaign restarts.
Embedding a countdown inside your website
This is an optional step, but highly recommended.
You can embed a small JavaScript code snippet into your website. This code will recognize when a person came through the countdown and pop a small countdown widget that will have the same time as the countdown in the ad the user just clicked on.
This way you can keep the “urgency” feeling the user experienced while clicking the ad in your website.
Ready to give it a try?
We offer a 14 days free trial, so can make sure the countdown ads will work for you. If you signup now, you can lock 50% discount when upgrading!
