7 Best Practices for Increasing Facebook Ad Engagement

This blog post ran as a news article on Inside Facebook yesterday. You can read that article here.

With clear objectives laid out and an understanding of your target audience, Facebook represents a vast and truly global advertising opportunity. But getting the most out of your ad creative might require a little help. Marin Software works with some of the world’s most recognizable brands and Facebook advertisers, and has a deep understanding of what components make Facebook ads relevant, engaging, and ultimately successful.

Creative Best Practices:

• Ensure that your creative is relevant to the audience you are targeting. For example, if targeting recent graduates with travel ads, use pictures of smiling young travelers on a beach. This will build empathy with those who see your ad.
• Use bold colors that stand out from Facebook’s blue color scheme. Why choose a light blue when you could attract more attention with a bright red or your brand’s color scheme?
• Take advantage of Facebook’s social endorsement option. This type of ad will get more clicks by capitalizing on Facebook’s strengths of crowd wisdom, personal connections, and positive social pressures.
• Make use of well-known brand imagery. Try prominently displaying your logo, mascot, or brand colors.
• Creative rotation is key. Combat ad fatigue by swapping out old ads for new. We recommend using an automated creative rotation tool to keep things fresh and to capture as much of your target audience as possible.
• Facebook offers a variety of advertising options including standard ads, page post ads, mobile app install ads, sponsored stories, etc. Try a blend of different ad formats for best results.
• Try a Facebook promotion to reward users for interacting with your brand. Contests, giveaways, discounts, and coupons are all great options.

If you need some inspiration, reference your own Facebook experience and see what ads attract your attention and which ads you ignore. Here are some examples to get you started:

Brand: Zipcar

Targeting: Zipcar aced their targeting strategy when they showed this ad to a young professional who recently moved and is without a car. Zipcar knew they could find their audience on Facebook, and they selected their targeting criteria carefully to reach potential new customers.

Creative: The bright red car stands out and draws attention to the ad. Zipcar also does an excellent job of using their popular brand name. Their logo is visible both on and to the right of the car, and their snappy header references the brand as well.

Promotion: This ad increases the chances that people will click on it by offering something valuable to potential consumers: $50 in free driving.

Brand: Amazon.com

Creative: Amazon.com is making the most of their popularity and brand with the ad creative above. The logo dominates the ad and the message is simple and concise, asking viewers to “Like” the Amazon.com Facebook page. This ties in well with their strategy of increasing awareness and driving Facebook fans.

Social Endorsement: This ad works because it uses the social power of Facebook to show which friends already “Like” the Amazon.com Facebook page. We trust our friend’s opinions and often have a lot in common with them; therefore we are more likely to click on ads with social endorsements than those without.

For more examples, be sure to download our Facebook white paper, “The Marketers’ Guide to Driving ROI from Facebook Advertising.”



Next Week: Stay tuned for more Facebook best practices in our weekly blog series! Next week we’ll discuss how advertisers can engage and retain existing Facebook fans.