Creating Effective Facebook Ads

Hi, Everyone...

So I have been playing with Facebook Ads for one of our stores and think I have finally hit the 'Mother Lode' (until the next one)...

We are getting ready for a marketing campaign for the store and throwing a sale for two categories of product and additionally one specific product. I came across a guy on Facebook who has been having tremendous success with his ads...

He was offering a free download of 5 of his best performing ads, and later I was able to get 6 more...

Our Experience...

I use a couple of graphics editing tools, one paid and one free (GIMP), and these allowed me to edit the ads and add what we needed for our sale. It did take some time, but at the end of the effort, I thought they looked good.

To test the market, I posted them with build-up text saying that the sale was coming within the next couple of days. I also negotiated a special shipping rate for the sale which I pointed out...

Imagine how surprised I was when after 30 hours, the generic posts had reached over 1100 people - with no money, no special targeted audience, etc. These ads are going to kick butt it looks like!

Our Sanitized Ads...

Just to give you a feel for the ad, I have added marked up versions for you to have a look at:

Here is the first ad...

Here is the second ad...

and...Here is the third ad...

The Lesson:

It is how you design your ads as much as what you are selling when using them for paid traffic. As stated, these templates were proven winners for the person I got them from, and he realized over $500k USD in sales from them (I saw the proof)!

Simple is good. No chance for losing focus with too much copy, large images are great, and a strong call to action are components...

This ad template below is a start...Basically it is a bar with room for text on the bottom, the image above and that is it...Hard to see the border, but above the bar it is simply white space where you place a good large image of whatever you are selling...

Another Basic Template He Uses...

Our Templates

The template I used was slightly different...For two, the image was on the left 2/3, and the copy was on the right...The third split the available space 50/50...I did not use the one with the bar at the bottom...As you see from the edited ads above...

The images were all great shots of the sale item(s)...Big enough so people could get an idea of what to expect...

In that right text/copy portion, I added the company logo (top) and red arrows at the bottom, and the simple text between the two...

One last thing I added was a small bright circle (in a highly contrasting color so it would catch the eye of the viewer between the right and left portions of the ad to highlight the discount percentage for the sale...

That is it...Simple...Powerful...

Remember:

Over 1000 hits of shares, views and likes - no money, generic traffic from one social platform (we will be posting (free) also on Twitter, Blogger dot Com, and Instagram over the sale period)....

Implications For This Upcoming Ad Campaign

We are pretty confident that we will do well, based on the results with NO money, but we are testing A, B and C versions of the ads each with slightly different format to see which of the three does better...

The plan is to start with $5 a day for each ad, and after 2 days up the best performing one to $15 to $20 a day...Then again if we are happy with the results...This is all small stuff compared to the stories I read about in e-Commerce Facebook groups, but is a start...

We are also using on site tracking (the ad sends them directly to the category page of the store or to the product, as the case may be) and our Facebook Pixel to see from start to finish how each performs, and adjust, and increase our spend...

I will keep you informed. Quite excited to see how this one turns out!

UPDATE AS OF 29 JUNE 13:15 PM DUBAI TIME

After we started our campaign, Facebook came back and said there was too much text (I think they were counting our logo text) for the T-Shirt and the Beer Mug Set so although the shot glass ad was getting an OK 4% CTR, I went on ahead and changed the looks of all three ads...

Here are the amended ads all now awaiting approval by Facebook:

The changes included a larger image, removal of 'click here' over the image (there is a nice 'shop now' button FB adds), The background color changed for the 30% and the special shipping rates, and finally the logo, some text, and arrows were removed...

Much cleaner?

Here is the second with changes:

Here the changes were text removed over the image. logo, arrows and some text removed, and the background color changed to closer match the main color of the walking talking beer mugs...Oh yes, I also changed the color of the 30% Off and special shipping rates to closer match the tongue color of the one beer mug...

Also much cleaner?

Lastly, the one that performed the best from the three:

On this one, fewer changes...I simply made the image bigger to use up the available space, removed the logo, the arrows, and some text...

Let's see what Facebook thinks and how these edited versions do (we did have a good view and CTR, but FB suggested that there was too much text)...

We have a Call To Action button added by FB, which takes the viewers directly to the sales pages, and the logo is in our heading that all will see anyway, so I have to say I am in agreement with the changes...

Keep you posted on how it goes....

Stay Tuned!

Cheers!

Dave : )