What is the best creative when it comes to Facebook ads?
The best creative is one that disguises an ad as a Facebook post.
Yes.
If you want more and more people to engage with your ad and buy you need to design the creative as a normal social media post
And let me tell you why this works.
People are on social media for gossip.
They want to know what is happening with their friends and around the world.
Your target audience is on social media for the neighborhood, national, international gossip, and entertainment.
People on social media are not looking forward to ads.
And certainly not ready to be sold to.
Some of them have installed an adblocker.
Add to it the fact that netizens are ad blind.
Regardless of whether the product or service is something that your target audience needs social their first preference is always up swipe if they see the “sponsored” tag.
So how do you make sure that your ad is given the initial attention it needs?
The ad needs to be disguised as a social media post!
This has several advantages.
First, it makes the target audience who might be ad blind take a look into the ad.
You have won 50% of the battle here.
Because getting attention is difficult.
With a great hook, you can now engage the TA to read further and buy.
Another interesting thing that happens here is the audience doesn’t feel alarmed by the ad and actually lets down their guard.
It makes it easier to convert such an audience to paying customers.
Well by now I am sure you might be thinking how can I be so sure of my claim that an ad needs to be disguised as a social media post for it to work better, right?
Allow me to explain.
I want you to take a look at the ads run by some of the biggest media buyers in the world.
I am talking about Frank Kern or the ones by Digital Marketer.
Take this ad by Frank Kern for example.
In this ad, you can see that Frank opens with a casual hook “ I apologize in advance for whatever crazy noises… “
Again it’s a casual opening for a video ad that masks itself as
Or take a look at this ad by Ryan Deiss who co-founded Digital Marketer.
Ryan Deiss actually begins by saying “So funny story… Actually, it’s not that funny. I don’t know why I said that…”.and then goes on to explain his growth flywheel video series.
Relevant article: Facebook ad secrets learned from managing 30 lakhs of spending.
Notice how the words “So funny story” may not be addressing the pain point directly as per conventional rules of copywriting where you have to grab the attention with a pain point and agitate it to give the solution.
However by saying “funny story” the ad is made to disguise as a social media post!
Also notice how they are not using any motion graphics or they don’t have any video header or footer.
I can name a few more but these are the best that come to my mind as of now.
Oh I know I can be wrong about the conclusion I have drawn above.
I am in no way claiming that this is the only way to make great ads.
No, that is not what I am saying here.
But I have written ad copies with hooks similar to these and it has worked out amazingly well for my clients.
Some of the split test winners I wrote began with a “casual gossip social media post” type hook.
There are also other forms of ads that are to the point but they manage to grab attention through what I call “shock advertising.”
Consider this ad by Ad world conference.
This ad is doing the exact opposite of what the other two are doing.
It’s creating a lot of commotion and standing out as an ad with bright colors.
Its dark blue color with distinct “bum bum bum bum “ music does one thing better than anything else.
It grabs “attention”.
All three ads are using different techniques to do the same thing which is to get attention.
The reason why their approach varies so much may depend upon a lot of factors.
For example, Frank Kern’s ad may be targeted to someone who likes the Frank kern Facebook Page.
Whereas the Ad World conference ad may be short and loud because it is targeted towards a cold audience.
That’s the problem when it comes to marketing.
You can understand what is working after testing.
But to figure out “why” it’s working remains a mystery.
All we know is that stories sell and gossip interests more people including ourselves.
As all successful copywriters have said, “People come on social media (here facebook) for STORIES”.
I would like to go a step further and say that people come on social media for “gossip”.
Glamorous gossip to be more specific.
I am not saying that these ads are good or are working because they are published by big names or because they have storytelling and gossip in them.
But one cannot deny the fact that they have tested out a lot of stuff before running an ad globally, right?
Let me know what works for you.
And feel free to ask your doubts and questions in the comments.
Criticism of any kind is more than welcome as always.
Hope this article added some value to your advertising and marketing life.
Thanks a lot for reading.
Happy media buying to all.
I help consumers make buying decisions with copywriting. When I write, people buy! Currently working for US digital marketing agency and freelancing on the side, I have worked with some of the biggest coaches and eCommerce brands in India and collaborated with several international brands as well. I am an eternal lover of memes,high converting copywriting and great storytelling.