Informative

Why does Copy matter for a Successful Facebook Ad?

Sanne Kruis

The Marketing Manager of The Next Ad.

Dec 18, 2017

A successful Facebook ad campaign consists of the right targeting, right placement, image and/or video, and a compelling copy. In this blog post, we’ll focus on the importance of copy for a successful Facebook ad campaign. The good thing is that you don’t have to be a novelist to write good copy for an effective ad. This is why copy does matter.

Scrolling through Facebook became part of our day-to-day habits. With 1.37 billion daily active users on average, I’m definitely not the only one that incorporated Facebook into my habits. These users offer huge potential for marketers in both B2B and B2C businesses. In the past few years, organic reach on Facebook has declined which increased the importance of paid advertising on Facebook. How do you make sure you stand out in the crowd, reach your goals and get the best performance out of your ad campaigns?

How to write good copy for an effective ad

A successful Facebook ad campaign consists of the right targeting, right placement, image and/or video, and a compelling copy. In this blog post we’ll focus on the importance of copy for a successful Facebook ad campaign. The good thing is that you don’t have to be a novelist to write good copy for an effective ad.

Besides the image or video being extremely important in an ad, copywriting is also essential to the success of your ad campaign. A Facebook ad consists of two important goals/actions: 1. The appealing image or video is most of the time being used to grab users’ attention and entertain, while 2. great advertising copy can keep users interested in the ad. The ad copy makes connections with the image/video and encourages them to proceed to your website. Good copywriting functions as a guide and shows people where they need to go.

How can you make sure your ad copy is that guide you’re looking for? I’ve collected some useful tips you should take into account:

1. Tie your text to your visual –
   An ad creative is only the first step. This means that the image/video and your ad copy need to complement each other, but also be powerful enough to individually tell your story.
2. Speak to your audience –
   You probably have created multiple personas. While on your website you try to speak to your entire audience group, Facebook allows you to speak to individual audience segments. Use Facebook targeting to narrow your audience down and then address that segment.
3. Create different ads for different people –
   This topic goes along with Facebook targeting, which allows you to segments audiences. Tailor your ad campaign message to your audience segments with separate ads. This means that having one single piece of copy is not enough!
4. Keep it short and sweet –
   Decide on one short message that you would like your audience to take action on. Use simple language that’s easy to understand. When someone sees your ad, they should immediately know what you’re offering, how it benefits them and what to do next. The average post text is only 14 words long, while the link description is around 18 words based on research of 37,000+ Facebook ads. Finally, the Call to Action should be clear and help your audience to get to that what you are promising in your ad. Want to know how you can edit your copy and metadata? Read our blog on Facebook’s recent solution.
5. Stick to one call to action –
   The supporting copy should include the benefits that add context to your offer, explaining how easy and effective it is. Use your ad copy to guide your audience to the action you would like them to take. Make sure your visual, ad copy and call to action are aligned with each other.
6. A/B test regularly –
   A/B testing is key to finding out which ad copy, combination and visual work best together for your audience segments. Run an A/B test – each with the same image, but different copy – to see which resonates most with your audience segment. Rate your ad performance on the goal you’ve set. This can be reached, awarding the ad getting most reach, or clicks, then award the one which resonates in the most clicks.

Write copy that drives results on Facebook

Keep your goal in mind when driving ad campaigns on Facebook. Make sure you’re combining the right elements to create an ad that reaches that goal. Do you need more tips on Facebook ads? Check out these The Next Ad resources:

• To prevent ad fatigue – especially during seasonal periods of time such as Black Friday and Christmas – we’ve created a cheat sheet including 7 tips how to prevent ad fatigue.
• Did you know about the Facebook Learning Phase and how it influences optimisation? Check out our blog on how the learning phase influences optimisation.
• Did you A/B test your ad copy and still feel like you can get more out of your ad campaigns? 9 points why your ad campaigns may ‘fail’ and what you can do about it.

This blog also appeared on Intellyo.