How to Design Effective Facebook Ads for Business

Maximize your business's reach and boost sales with Facebook ads that convert! In this article, we'll share insider tips and expert strategies for designing effective Facebook ads that captivate your target audience. Whether you're a small business owner or a marketing professional, these tips and techniques will help you take your Facebook advertising to the next level

Facebook ads

Facebook Ads is one of the most important broadcasting platforms. It has one of the largest user bases in the market, it has relatively inexpensive options for advertising, and it offers you the possibility of reaching the audience you want. That's why no brand or business can ignore Facebook ads!

The area that most marketers want to learn is how to create original visual assets, partly, to create better Facebook ads. While many companies see a decrease in engagement and reach in social networks, smart companies are taking advantage of their ads. Not all businesses are benefiting from this growing channel.

On the other hand, 24.2% of Facebook Pages are using paid media, and that number is likely to grow and many marketers are looking to increase their use of visual images, so the ability to create original visual content is essential, and we believe there is no better time to give every marketer and small business owner the tools and the knowledge to design effective Facebook ads for business.

Are you clear on how you want to advertise? Surely any of the formats offered by Facebook Ads will suit your needs:

• Photo: Clean and simple format with a brief space for the text that gives all the prominence to the main image of the campaign.
• Video: The ideal option for brands that need movement and sound to convey their message. It is one of the options that generate more engagement on Facebook.
• Sequence: A single ad hosts several images or videos, showing several products or services at the same time. They are those in which users can navigate between different options, horizontally.
• Presentation: They have the potential of video ads, but at a much lower production cost. They are similar to.gif files, with a programmed sequence of images.

Advantages of using Facebook Ads

• Audience segmentation: this is the strongest point of Facebook Ads as it allows us to reach with our ad the socio-demographic user profile that coincides with our ideal client. And a community of more than 1.3 billion active users. Whatever business you are promoting, you'll have a niche market and a high number of people interested in what you offer. All this helps you to promote your services automatically and constantly. 
• Integration: Facebook Ads format integrates within the rest of the content as if it were publications made by friends.
• Viralization: Facebook Ads work like publications, so you can share, comment and "like" them.
• Analysis: Another great advantage of Facebook Ads is that any investment you make is fully recorded. You can assess the performance of your campaigns. As a result, you can perfectly analyze which ads are working best and which are more profitable. The analysis of advertising campaigns is key to making future decisions and changing certain aspects that are not working. 

How to design Facebook Ads effectively

1. Get attention with graphics

When designing advertising for Facebook, it’s important to remember the principles of any advertisement; relevance, value proposition and a simple call-to-action, something you can get with creative graphics. Whether adding text to an image, icon, or logo, getting attention is the first thing to do with any ad.

• Images with filters. If you use Instagram, you should already know the value of filters in photos. They can make a dull image look great, change the mood of an image, or even add excitement. Although perhaps more importantly, filters can give your ad a chance to grab the attention of your target audience. Observe how the following ordinary photos become more attractive with a filter.
• Multiple images. While individual images are effective, using multiple images can make your ads perform better, especially when they are e-commerce brands. Another advantage of using multiple images is that they allow you to tell a story.
• Relate with people. If you look at many of the ads on social networks, you will see that they show people. We don't mean that it is mandatory to use people, in fact, many ads don’t use them, but including photos of people makes the ad have a better result, even better if they are photos of people we recognize.

Obviously, not all of us have access to a celebrity, although that is the least of it because social proof or "social proof" works when we see someone with whom we can relate. So, if you decide to use people in your ads, you can use those who best represent your clientele.

You can also segment your ad by demographic, so that male customers see a man and female customers see a woman. You can accomplish a lot with targeted ads, and this is why Facebook advertising grows so quickly. If you have a business with a Facebook page, we suggest you try Facebook Ads. Many brands are taking advantage of this channel and there is no reason why you should not. 

• Logos and icons. Consider using logos and icons to express your message. Ads can have logos within the images so that they link the product and your brand. When you see an ad on Facebook, your gaze goes first to the most valuable property of the ad, the image. Of course, remember that when you add logos, it is best to keep them clean and minimalist so that they do not take away from the image and the message.

2. The copy on Facebook Ads

Now that we have managed to attract attention with our ad we have to write a text that will persuade them. A successful ad should make clear the following:

• It lets you know how you benefit
• It lets you know what to do

The truth is that copy for Facebook Ads is a must, and if we want our ads to convert, you can't write the first thing that comes to your mind. On the contrary, you have to research.

Making advertising on Facebook that converts and translates into sales depends on many factors. One of them is the copy we use in our ads. Now, how much does the text influence the success of an ad? What if I told you that images are responsible for 75-90% of an ad's performance? The image or video will attract the attention of the potential customer, but with the copy, we will get them to make the conversion we want.

How do you write the perfect copy for Facebook Ads? Adapt it to your ideal client and not to your brand. A big mistake when copywriting for Facebook Ads is to talk only about your product. People don't care about product features and what they care about are the benefits they get from the purchase.

How to turn features into benefits

The characteristics give credibility to a project but are not the reason for making a purchase. Through benefits, we explain to people how we can improve their lives and explaining the benefits is what connects with customer desires. People want to save more, reduce expenses, get more money, have more security, feel better, etc. That is what you must reflect on the copy.

Make your value proposition clear and attack the pain points. At this point, we have to be very clear about who our ideal client is, what their pain points are and what problems they want to solve.

Tips for writing ads on Facebook Ads

• Use capital letters for the most important words such as FREE
• Use emojis to highlight the benefits
• Use line spacing to avoid feeling overwhelmed
• Use the brackets to highlight words for example: [Free Guide]
• Create clickable headlines with a hook
• Tell them about our value proposition
• Use clear calls to action

Words to include in your copy

For Facebook Ads, you can emphasize the most important words. Think that people have a limited time and we don't like to waste time. This means that we only focus on the words that catch our attention, and according to Copyblogger these are some of the most persuasive words:

• You
• Free
• New
• Immediate
• Because
• Gift
• Incredible
• Win
• Opportunity
• Social Test

Include social proofs

Have you ever been in front of two restaurants, one completely full and one empty? I'm sure your brain told you that if one of them is empty, there’s a reason and you decided to go to the full one. This is basically what social proof does, it triggers our credibility. As Robert Cialdini says in his book Influence: the psychology of persuasion:

"We consider that a behavior is more correct in a concrete situation to the extent that we see that others carry it out".

In short, when we have doubts about something, what convinces us is the behavior of other people, and these types of words and phrases can help you show social proof in Facebook Ads.

• Join the more than 50,000 people who...
• Already 6875 people have downloaded...

3. Add a call to action 

Another key when writing the copy for Facebook Ads is in the call to action. The call to action (CTA) of Facebook ads influences very considerably the success of a campaign. Surely you have your target audience more than clear and you know that what you have to offer them is of their interest. But this is not enough, you have to tell them what to do and for that, you have to use action words that incite them to carry out an activity.

A good CTA is responsible for users clicking on your ad. You can attract their attention with a good image but it is because of your CTA that they will finally click. You have to make it clear what you want the person to do when they see your ad. The best Facebook ads are relevant, have an original proposal and a clear call to action. Moreover, most of them have a very good design.

If your ad is eye-catching, but your audience doesn't know what to do or doesn’t understand how it benefits them, it’s useless, that is why it’s essential to add a CTA. 

key tips to avoid being rejected by Facebook Ads

• Image Ratio: Facebook favors images that meet the 1.9:1 ratio
• Text on images: Although Facebook allows it. Take into consideration that the text shouldn’t occupy more than 20% of the image
• Size of the images: The recommended size is 1200 x 628 pixels
• Text: Outside the image, Facebook Ads recommends using about 90 characters.
• Title: It shouldn’t exceed 45 characters or Facebook may reject it
• Call to action: Try to use the button that Facebook offers for this, and don't include other false calls inside the image, which are not buttons
• Facebook policies: Ads must comply with Facebook Ads guidelines, just like other content on the social network. They must not promote anything related to sex, tobacco, unproven results, etc.

Concerning this last aspect, and in general, to all the campaigns in this social network, it is good to update yourself about the policies and requirements of the social network. This is evolving according to the use we make as users and as brands, so knowing the changes avoids possible future rejections.

If you are still doubtful, check some examples of running ads in the Facebook Ads Library. Don't try to reinvent the wheel and focus on what's working now.  

Better late than never!

Making Facebook Ads campaigns isn't difficult and if you follow the advice we mentioned here, it will get even easier. The main thing is to stand out from your competitors, and attract the attention of users. In any case, don't forget to promote coherence with the brand, so that your campaigns are easily recognizable and positively accepted by users.

Try to play with all the elements and options offered by Facebook. By trying new things, you will get new results. We’ll help you knock out your competition with awesome Facebooks Ads and optimize your social network strategy. Just contact us!