10 Tips to Make your Ads More Engaging
Engaging ads help grow brands. Impressions are good for building brand awareness, but every click is a step closer to conversion. That’s why brands and agencies should invest in creative and optimize campaigns for clicks, not reach.
The trouble is that online advertising platforms are getting more competitive, which means you’ll need to be more creative than ever before in order to capture customers’ attention. But don't despair! Even though it might not seem like it, there’s a logical explanation for why some ads are more engaging than others.
We’ve compiled a list of best practices for advertising that features ad creative to capture attention and tactics that match up with data-driven engagement.
What Makes an Engaging Ad?
When it comes to clickable ads, you have a lot of options. From the basics—making sure your ad meets the platform’s size guidelines and community standards—to more advanced tips, here are some channel-agnostic pointers for creating clickable creative.
1-Consider the format carefully:When creating your ad, make sure you consider the format that will get your point across. For example, stories tend to be more effective for spontaneous purchases, while carousels work better for in-depth decisions.
2-Mobile-first: As many as 88% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. Especially in B2C advertising – but increasingly in B2B – designing your mobile-first content will help you reach more people.
3-Use less text:Let the ad design speak for itself. Although Facebook has loosened restrictions on text covering images, it's best to keep it under 20% coverage when placing paid social advertisements.
4-Get to the point: Your supporting copy should be short and punchy, because people spend 0.4 to 3 seconds scanning ads. Make sure they get the idea quickly.
5-Add movement:When you want to stand out from the crowd, use movement. There are plenty of tools (free and paid) that help you animate static images for paid social campaigns or create HTML5 banners for paid search.
6-Make the CTA clear: Add a clear call-to-action to your creative. Most social platforms offer a CTA button, but it’s lower in the visual hierarchy and can get lost in a busy feed.
When creating content for a marketing campaign, consider using an experienced designer to create better creatives. But if time and money are tight, there are plenty of free design tools and ad templates available online.Focus on keeping the key message front and center—that might be a product image, snappy CTA or the campaign offer.
How to Increase Ad Engagement
Data is the key to turning good creative into a high-performing ad campaign.Third-party cookies no longer make sense in the digital age. At least not by themselves. Today’s audiences respond to personalization and transparency. Yet, although first-party data is a marketer’s most valuable resource, it’s often in short supply. The solution is to augment first-party data with behavioral insights. In other words, combine what your customers tell you (zero and first-party data) with what they show you (behavioral data).
1-Know your audience:To build personas, compare and contrast audience data. Don't get stuck on assumptions based on demographic data - instead, focus on observed behavior and first-party data.
2-Evaluate all the time: Don't wait for a monthly report from your advertising channels. With our tool, you can create dynamic dashboards that provide real-time feedback on which ads are working. Use this data to determine which channels, creatives or CTAs are effective and apply that learning to optimize spending and increase ROAS.
3-Make it personal:To get customers to buy, you need to know what they want. Desires and pain points can help, but be sure to engage your audience with CTAs that show you understand them.
4-Consider cross-channel journeys:We know that customer journeys aren’t linear and can be tricky to navigate. Data analytics help you avoid getting stuck in the messy middle, for example by informing decisions about creating content that keeps leads in your brand ecosystem.
Don't get discouraged if you don't achieve perfection at the first try.
Start with a low budget, test variations and variables, and monitor the data to see what’s working.
Our tool integrations combine your paid social channels, search ads and web analytics in a single campaign management hub to give you a complete picture of your performance.This insight is invaluable for brands and agencies managing complex campaigns and trying to reach diverse audiences.
With scroll-stopping creative and data-driven insight from Chasers, your next campaign will be the one setting new standards for best practices in advertising.
