Creating Facebook Ads is a very straightforward and easy process, creating Facebook Ads that actually get clicked on and drive leads and sales is much much harder!
I audit a lot of Facebook Ad accounts every month, which gives me a good understanding of what works and what doesn’t work across many different industries.
The most common recommendation I make is that the Ad copy could be greatly improved.
For example – I took on a Gardener as a client last summer who had never managed to generate any leads through Facebook, despite having a decent website, a good social following and lots of photos and videos. The main culprit was their Ad Copy, it consisted of “Cheap Gardening quotes in [Location]“. This is what I’d expect to find in a Google Ads headline, not in a Facebook Ad.
Here are some of the most common improvements that I make and the approach I use to write new Facebook Ads.
- Talk about the reader, not yourself!
The client above didn’t engage the reader. As a lot of local businesses seem to do far too often they list the common recycled selling points… We’ve got over 30 years of experience, we’re a family-run business. Your reader doesn’t care, they need to know what’s in it for them in terms of a story and / or benefits. For the client above, offering ‘half price on your first garden maintenance package’ and including a before and after carousel worked very well. - Create Ad Variations
Manage Facebook Ad Accounts seem to use the same phrase/headline that first generated them a lead or sale and then just use that for every ad. I can understand their reasoning, they don’t have the time to run a proper test, but it’s such a waste! Testing a couple of variations such as a new headline can double or 10x your leads or sales overnight - Remove Dull or basic copy
You need to write Ads that attempt to engage the reader. I find far to often (especially in B2B) that they go too corporate, the person reading your Ad is a Human, not a robot. Boring Ads will fail. - Qualify the reader
Most of the time when a Facebook user is scrolling through their news feed, it’s the visual that captures their attention, then they scan the copy to see if it’s worth taking a proper look at. Make your Ad relevant to your ideal customer. For example as a Gardener you could use qualifying copy like “For people who like their Garden to be a place to relax, entertain, somewhere to let the children go wild or even as a resource for growing your own food“. - Include a Call To Action
If you want people to take action then you have to call for it! Having an interesting Ad is great but if you’re not making it obvious what the next step is for example “Click the button below to request a quote” then you will lose clicks. You have to walk people each step of the way. - List Benefits over common features
This is the most common improvement I make. Most of your readers don’t care about the technical aspects of what you’re selling or providing, they want to know exactly how it will benefit them. Listing the benefits over features will yield a huge performance increase…more clicks, more leads, more clients, more money. - Tell a story
I can’t stress enough how important stories are over listing benefits or features, Make your Ads personal! Many businesses are so very generic when it comes to Ad Copy, engage your readers with a personal story of why you started your business and how you or your product help people. - Take inspiration from the competition
I discovered many Quick Wins for accounts by just assessing what the competition is doing and assessing how much engagement they get on their ads. In many cases, they’ve done the hard work for you and can give you a huge head start on what Ad types perform and what placements work best for your industry.
Okay, how do you write Facebook Ads?
I’m not a copywriter, far from it! But I am very resourceful and take inspiration from what I see performing for other businesses. Here’s my simple template for writing winning ad copy:
First I Answer these questions (I can’t take credit for them, I learned them from a PPC blog), that the reader is asking themselves.
- Why me? (How do I know that this is for me?)
- Why you? (Who the are YOU? Why are you telling me this?)
- Why this? (Why is THIS AD/OFFER relevant and interesting to me and my set of circumstances?)
- Why now? (Why do I need to pay attention/ take action RIGHT NOW? Can I ignore this until later?)
I’m not trying to write ad copy that’s going to Win awards, but I do come up with a functional group of words that engage with the reader and get them to take action. That’s enough to be ahead of 90% of the competition.
Here are some extra tips that should take you that extra 10%:
- Make sure you have a clear customer persona per ad, don’t try to sell too many different things.
- Include testimonials. They make authentic, meaningful stories to tell.
- Speak naturally – read the ad out loud and make sure it doesn’t sound awkward or better yet get someone else to read it.
- Avoid big walls of text and break up your paragraphs.
- If you run a local business, then start your ad with the name of the place – i.e. “Hull Gardeners”
