Every single one of your customers’ feeds is busy with their friends’ posts, suggested content and your competitors’ ads. With each post competing for your customer’s attention, it is crucial that your ad must stop the scroll and entices the audience to click.
A paid social asset is more than just looking pretty and sticking to strict brand guidelines; it needs to work in the placement and connect with your audience from the very start. With advertising platforms like Meta and Pinterest increasingly using AI and machine learning to target potential customers, creatives now do the heavy lifting in communicating to your target audience.
So, how exactly do you do that? This blog covers 5 best practices that you can use to give your paid social ads the best chance at succeeding.
Design the assets for each placement
There are a variety of placements your ad can show up in, depending on the platform and your campaign setup. This means you must provide the platform with assets in the correct sizes, whilst also accounting for safe zones, because no one likes it when they cannot read text under a like button!
Simply creating an asset in one size and sticking it everywhere is likely to cause important text and content to be cut off due to the placement’s aspect ratio. For example, utilising a 1440×2560 asset on Meta may fit Stories and Reels, but Feeds may crop the asset and limit what the audience can see.
There are also features added on by platforms that may creep in on your asset, so ensure you are aware of the safe zones so no important information is covered by usernames, a repost button or a CTA button.
Have a clear, strong hook from the very start
People say time matters, and that certainly applies to advertising. Your brand has just a few seconds to capture your potential customer’s attention; otherwise, they will simply swipe, and your ad will become history. Given this, the audience should be presented with an element to stop their scroll.
There are a variety of elements you can utilise and test. If you are stuck for some inspiration, have a look below to get you going:
- A rhetorical question
- An irresistible offer
- A shocking statistic
- A strong USP
- A relatable problem
- A review
For example, if your ad has a blue background colour with white text saying your product’s name, many will swipe as it is not visually appealing nor causes excitement or curiosity. A better example would be a content creator holding your product with their review as the text, such as ‘I cannot believe this helped my fatigue’. People typically respond better to seeing other people in ads, and the text highlights the problem that can be fixed.
Speak to your target audience
Gone are the days of advertisers relying on hyper-focused targeting to bring in sales. As social media platforms are increasingly using AI and machine learning to identify people who will be most likely to do the action you want them to do, such as buy your product, platforms now recommend utilising a broad audience to give the algorithm as much room as possible.
With broad audiences becoming the norm, your target audience should feel seen and be made to feel that your brand knows what they are after, even when they may not have realised themselves what they are looking for.
For example, if your brand sells a meal replacement shake, an asset could focus on those with busy lifestyles and have little time to cook. Could the hook be centred around “Always on the go? Get your nutritional needs with one bottle.” This tells the audience about a problem they may not realise they have, not having too much time to cook a nutritious meal, and provides a solution.
Ensure there are no mistakes
More often than not, paid social platforms are targeting people who are unlikely to have heard of your brand before, which means first impressions count. Your ads should be double-checked for any flaws.
A very simple mistake of utilising a different aspect ratio in one placement may cut off the asset and prevent the audience from fully knowing what you are trying to promote. This may cause some credibility issues as you are not presenting your brand in the best possible light. Also, depending on the mistake, this may cause some account health issues and even some advertising restrictions, so it is crucial to minimise mistakes.
Common things to look for before launching your assets include:
- Grammar and spelling mistakes
- Incorrect offers or pricing
- Wrong product information
- Blurry photography or videography
- Poorly cropped photos or videos
Utilise a variety of hooks and angles for creative diversity
If you stick to the same hook and simply plaster it onto every new ad you make, you are likely limiting your paid social performance. The algorithms that advertising platforms use have become increasingly advanced, making creative diversity more important than ever, so give the algorithms enough options to find what resonates with different people within your audience.
New assets should not mean changing only one word or a background colour. While these changes can be important, more emphasis should be placed on implementing new hooks and angles you have not tried yet. Why? Not all your customers are the same. One may respond best to a before-and-after asset, whereas another responds best to being shown reviews.
Some creative angles you could test include:
- Before and after
- Customer reviews
- Us vs them comparisons
- Problem and solution
- Educational content
- Offers
By giving the platform a variety of assets, you provide the algorithm with more options to identify which creative resonates with different sections of your audience. This can increase the likelihood of finding messages and formats that encourage people to take action.
Summary
Hopefully that helps clear things up about what your paid social assets should do when you advertise, but as a quick reminder, check out the list below of what you need to remember.
- Read the platform’s recommendations on aspect ratios and safe zones.
- Give your potential customers a reason to stop their scroll.
- Make sure you connect with your audience in your assets.
- Double-check your assets for any mistakes.
- Don’t make little changes to your existing assets; try unexplored hooks in new ones.
