Creatives Your Ad Agency Should be Testing

Facebook’s algorithm has killed the old way of running ads. Gone are the days of running hundreds of ad sets in order to determine which tiny variables achieved marginal increases in ROAS in the right audience. Using CBO, automatic placements, and dynamic ads, Facebook has become better at guessing who will be interested in buying than any human media buyer.

But that doesn’t mean humans are out of a job. It has actually made the human element more important.

In 2020, the important levers on your Facebook ads account are your offer, the pricing and deals on your website, and what story your brand is telling. These are the elements you need to be testing, and they are elements only humans can create.

The most important factor to test in your ads in 2020 is creative testing. What images and videos are you using and what type works best for your audience? Creative testing > audience segmentation.

Whether you are holding your agency accountable or running ads yourself, here are some ad types you should be testing:

User-Generated Content

Shortened to UGC, these are organic (or organic-looking) videos shot with a phone that show your product in real life.

There are many types of UGC, and many ways to do it. The most effective videos don’t necessarily use influencers — what tends to work best is authenticity and using people who look like your target audience.

Whatever model you use should look like the people you want buying your product or service. And they should be using the product in the context it would actually be used. If you’re selling pre-workout mix, don’t have someone with their hair and makeup done; show someone about to go to the gym. If you want to show off a camera or tripod, don’t have some influencer talk about it in their living room. Use a photographer at a shoot.

Highlight testimonials. Get people who are using it to talk about how great it is — few psychological forces are more powerful than social proof.

The best results tend to follow videos that don’t look produced and are genuine. How can you get your audience to generate these videos organically for you?

Unboxing Videos

Take it out of the box, put it on, show off how it looks. There’s something exciting about experiencing a product for the first time.

Unboxing videos are so popular that there are YouTube channels dedicated solely to them. These are technically a type of UGC, but they often perform better than someone talking about a product.

If you’re not getting much traction with testimonials, try unboxing videos and capture the excitement of trying the product for the first time.

Stop Motion and Rendered Ads

Instead of using models and getting the perfect shot, why not create it using the right software? Render a video or use stop-motion.

Some of the biggest brands will use these types of ads. It’s a great way to show off the product in an artistic and attention-grabbing way.

Closely related are gif ads or “boomerang” ads. Having an artful design or mesmerizing motion repeat itself continuously is enchanting and helps grab attention and increase ad recall, if it’s flashy enough. Definitely worth trying, if you haven’t. These types of ads can be great for a shoe-string budget if you have the right video editor.

Carousel Ads

On Facebook, you can create carousel ads that show off multiple products in one ad. These are the ones that allow you to scroll sideways through a product line.

Graphic designers and ad agencies are taking carousel creatives to a new level by having one slide bleeds into the next, thus “pushing” the viewer through all their slides, or even telling a story.

Another powerful use for these ads is in conjunction with Facebook’s algorithm. When you can attach your store inventory to Facebook and run a carousel ad, Facebook can tailor the products shown to each individual, choosing those products that will be of most interest to that person. Talk to your ad agency on how to set this up if you sell a lot of physical products e.g. if you own a clothing brand.

Split-Screen

Many agencies use split-screen ads because of how powerful they can be to audiences.

Contrast is one of the keys to persuasion. If you can contrast your product vs competitor’s, or even better, your target audience’s life with your product vs without your product, this is a powerful motivator even for cold audiences.

Even if you aren’t drawing such contrast, having a still image on one half of your ad and video playing in the rest grabs attention. Many agencies actually split the screen into four quadrants and run stills in two parts and videos in the rest.

These ads are a great way to grab attention and persuade while still imparting a lot of product info.

Produced Ads

If you have the budget and scriptwriting skills, creating a heavily produced ad can be very effective. Ads in this area that have the greatest impact grab attention in the first few seconds and keep you hooked the rest of the way. How can you make your product seem novel and exciting and different for a minute or two?

Answering that question requires someone with great copywriting skills.

These ads do best while incorporating humor. The viewer is going to pick up that you're selling them, and no one likes to be sold to. You have to entertain them to get them to keep watching. I’ve seen some super funny ads that I knew were ads, and yet I couldn’t stop watching because of how hilarious the content was.

One of the ways Facebook decides which ads get shown is by ranking how the content will better a user’s Facebook experience. If you can create an ad that is basically a funny video, not only will you get people to keep watching, but you’ll be able to get Facebook to push your ad for you as well.

Conclusions and Caveats

This is not a comprehensive list, it is merely meant to get your mental juices flowing! No type of creative is always the best. Each audience is different. The important thing is to keep testing different creative strategies to see what works best for your audience.

A couple guidelines to never lose sight of when testing your ads:

• Clear is better than clever. You may have made a hilarious ad, but did you really showcase your product?
• Grab attention in the first three seconds.
• Always have a plain call to action.
• Always include your product in the very beginning so the audience knows what the ad is about.

Thanks to Facebook’s new power tools, you have more time for creative testing — it’s still something an algorithm can’t do!

Maybe you’ll find none of these creative types worked, and that’s ok. Do something completely different! They’re called creatives for a reason. What’s important is to keep testing your audience because that is the biggest ads lever in 2020.