The Four Step Model For High-Converting Ad Creative (and how to test it)
We know that in 2022 ad creative is the solution to our performance problems.
But what does that actually mean in reality? And HOW do you come up with great creative?
WHY is creative so important?
Firstly it’s essential to understand the basics how the Meta algorithm works - and why it prioritises great creative. Here is a video where I explain it.
And an article here.
If you have been advertising on Facebook for more than a year or two - you will remember the heady days of double-digit ROAS and DtC brands scaling to the moon in a few months. This was all due to the incredible data Facebook had on it’s users and it’s ability to target them based on their behaviour, combined with a booming economy.
That all went away when iOS14 dropped a bomb on our industry - taking away roughly half of the data Meta/Facebook was relying on, and then we had economic woes to make it even harder!
To fix this huge data challenge, Meta now depends more on signals from in-platform interaction - things users watch, click on, save and share.
When you hear things like “let your creative do the targeting”, that is what we are talking about.
Facebook will show the ads to people who are positively signalling interest. So the more you can tailor your ads to a specific customer persona, the easier it will be for Meta to find more customers in that segment.
Know Thy Customer
Knowing your customer is fundamental to being able to create ads that cause these interactions and signals to Facebook.
If you are not a housewife and you are targeting housewives, I am willing to bet unless you have spent some time hanging out with them, you are going to fall on your face when it comes to creating ads that tap into their problems and dreams.
If your ads aren’t clearly for a specific, recognisable audience - then Facebook is going to struggle to know who the product is for.
We have to run the ad to a large audience to give Facebook the best chance to optimise - so the ad itself needs to do the job of calling out your audience so that they can self-select themselves and Facebook can quickly learn who your people are.
Before iOS14, data from users clicking on your site, adding to cart etc would have done that work. But those signals are vastly reduced and therefore not reliable.
Here is framework for you to develop ad creative that reaches out and shakes your target customer by the shoulders:
* I first saw a similar framework in the No Best Practices Newsletter which I recommend!
Person -> Problem -> Product -> Hook
Person:
Person = the customer segment you’re speaking to with this ad. This is going to vary based on the nature of your brand. It could be things like age and gender, but it could also be based on social group or interests.
Some examples from most broad to least broad:
Men over 30
Snowboarders
Female Dog owners
Problem:
List out the pain points experienced by your audience. Research is key here!
You can use comments on your ads, your reviews, and reviews and comments on competitor ads, as well as surveys. But there is no substitute for for actual interviews with real customers.
If your product doesn’t solve a problem…
You swap out Problem and swap in Vision. The Vision is how your target customer aspires to live his or her life.
Product:
This is how one of your products specifically solves the Person’s Problem.
Get really clear and link the product to the problem it solves. If you are talking to cold audiences you don’t want to dive right into features. Focus on the benefit and how it solves the problem.
Later on in the funnel you can go deep on specific features.
Let’s imagine we have a new drink bottle brand….
Person: 25-35 year old hot yoga enthusiasts.
Problem: Plastic bottles are bad for the environment - but your old drink bottle doesn’t keep water cool in the hot studio.
Product: Stay cool and get more out of your yoga workout with an eco-friendly thermal bottle.
Hook:
Get creative - this is the fun part!
The Hook is what stops the scroll and get’s people to pay attention.
Elicit emotion here - curiosity, humour, even anger or frustration. The more you can connect to the emotion, the more likely you will drive action.
Hooks can be visual or narrative and you can combine both in a single ad.
You hook could be visual - an image of a very sweaty yogi or a dramatic photo of polluted oceans.
Or it can be a storytelling hook - “Come with me to my yoga class and see how I stay cool”.
Now you have the creative… how do you test it?
There is no ONE way to test creative - but here are the main ways people tend to use.
Four Ways To Test Your Creative
1: Testing inside your main campaigns
Rotate new creative into main scaling ad-sets. Turn of ads as they start to wane or that don’t get good results.
Pros: Works well for smaller budgets. Less risky
Cons: Sometimes difficult to scale if you don’t iterate on creative fast enough.
2. Dynamic Creative Testing
Test one ‘Dynamic Creative’ ad set per concept (creative theme, hook, message etc.)
So if it's: “This drink stops indigestion,” that would be one concept in one ad set.
If it's: “This drink makes you live longer” that's another ad set.
Each concept should have a different image or video to illustrate it. So the variable you are testing is the image/video asset. If you want to test the copy, leave the image or video constant.
Each of these concepts can be put into a CBO.
For lower budgets (less than $200 per day): Only up to 3 variants and test one variable at a time.
For higher budgets (more than $200 per day): You can test up to 6 variants and mix and match more variables.
Pros: Quick and makes full use of algorithm.
Cons: Not always replicable outside of the ad set - results can be unique to that ad-set.
3: CBO
Create a single campaign with 3-4 broad ad-sets.
Each ad set has a ‘theme/concept’ or ‘persona’ being targeted with 3-4 ads per ad-set and see which angles/personas work best. Then iterate based on the data you get back.
Later, you can then test large interest-stacks based on the personas to see if you can improve results.
Pros: Great for avatar-specific creative as it allows the ad-set to find an audience that works with the creative.
If the campaign finds it’s winners, you can just keep scaling it, as well as using the winning creative elsewhere.
Cons: Can be more expensive and risky - especially if none of the creative work.
4: Single-adset creative testing
Put all your creative for testing into a single ad-set (broad or best-performing audience) in it’s own campaign.
See which ones perform best then switch off and graduate the best performers into your main ad-sets.
You need to allocate enough budget for 2-3 conversions per day.
Pros: A simple and straightforward way to test.
Cons: Sometimes the creative won’t get the same performance when moved elsewhere.
So let’s wrap things up..
Creative is ESSENTIAL to your ad success, especially now that broad targeting is the only way you can help Facebook target your ideal audience. But their targeting doesn’t work if your ads aren’t big flashing signs for them!
To nail your creative strategy, you need the four steps of:
Person
Problem
Product
Hook
And then you can test your ads in the four ways I just shared!
If you have any questions, send me an email hello@webtopia.co - I’ll be happy to help.
