Facebook hit a huge milestone recently – 2 billion monthly users. That’s over 1/4 of the population of planet earth, logging in to Facebook every month.
Your customers are on Facebook (yes even B2B customers). The question is – do you have a plan to reach them? (No, the answer is not posting organically and hoping someone sees it. In fact, there’s a convincing argument out there that digital marketers should abandon all organic Facebook efforts.)
The answer is Facebook Ads. Facebook’s Ad platform offers more precise targeting and more customer data than any other platform. Nothing else even comes close.
Let’s take a look at some samples of Pages that are doing great Facebook Ads, and what makes those ads work:
1. Southwest Airlines – Low Airfare Promotion
What makes this ad great :
- A compelling offer – Southwest has a nearly irresistible offer – The $49 flight. This ad appropriately makes that offer the centerpiece in both the art and the copy
- Scarcity – You can only book this offer during a 2-day timeframe. This has the effective creating scarcity which drives urgency for the potential buyer.
2. SumoMe.com – Signup Promotion
What makes this ad great:
- Visuals tailored to the audience – SumoMe.com knows their audience – digital marketers. They know digital marketers see graphs similar to this every day when looking at analytics screens. Showing a graph like this with such a strong upward trend creates a powerful vision of the future to SumoMe’s target customer.
- Bonus: Social Proof – The description copy that says “Over 175,000 websites grow their traffic with SumoMe is using a social proof as a persuasion technique. This creates an additional layer of comfort and security for the viewer.
3. Shutterstock – Design Smarter
What makes this ad great:
- Visuals that evoke curiosity – This is a clever use of Facebook’s carousel ad format that allows for multiple square ads in one display ad and gives the user the ability to scroll through horizontally. Connecting all the ads to one image creates intrigue and curiosity. It gives the viewer a reason to scroll through and discover the rest of the image.
4. Quip – Work Less Dumb (this one is my favorite)
What makes this ad great:
- Irreverence – This is brilliant ad creative. Facebook is a noisy place and you have to really stand out to get attention. Quip does just that with irreverent copy and a headline that’s nearly a curse word. The #FML in the graphic is also another wink in this direction. This approach is a bit more risky and it should always line up with your brand and your image (a funeral home probably couldn’t do this) – but when done appropriately this approach can cut through the clutter like a hot knife.
5. Slack – Make Work Better
What makes this ad great:
- Visuals that stand out – Again, Facebook is noisy. Sometimes you have the ride a pink pony over a rainbow to grab attention.
- Ad copy that goes directly to the pain point – In 10 words, this ad copy highlights a common pain point for workers in corporate jobs (endless meetings) – AND – brings Slack forward as a tool that can solve that pain. And it even puts a specific number to how much pain they can solve – 25%, making it even more believable. That’s some heavy lifting for just 10 words.
Conclusion
Great Facebook Ads are great on purpose. The key to success is learning what works, then experimenting with A/B tests, then adjusting. Rinse and repeat.
Here are a few more resources to learn more about how to create killer ads on the #1 PPC platform on the internet:
- “How To Set Up An Effective Facebook Ad Campaign” – Social Media Examiner
- “Beginner’s Guide to Running Facebook Ads That Convert” – Neil Patel
- “The Beginner’s Guide to Writing Facebook Ads” – CopyHackers