Did you know the average person scrolls through 300 feet of mobile content every day? That’s equivalent to the size of the Statue of Liberty! (According to Andrew Keller, VP, Creative and Experiential at Facebook)
So how do you stop the scroll? It all comes down to the creative itself. 56% of a brand’s sales lift from digital advertising can be attributed to high-quality creative. It’s simple, better creative will get you more conversions per impression.
In this post we’re going to break down exactly how creative impacts your Facebook ad conversion rate.
Creative and the Facebook Ad Auction
The Facebook Ad Auction
Everyone wants a good ad conversion rate — whether you’re a small business running your own Facebook ads or an agency managing large-scale campaigns.
Creative impacts your ad conversion rate during the Facebook ad auction at every stage of the customer journey. The type of creative you choose — GIF, video, static, or carousel — as well as the actual substance of that creative heavily impacts your campaigns from the top of the funnel to the bottom.
Facebook’s ad auction is a combination of three criteria:
Advertiser Bid x Estimated Action Rate + User Value = Total Value
The advertiser bid is the max you are willing to pay, but not necessarily what you will actually end up paying. What you actually pay is impacted by the action rate. After the auction has run, you’ll pay the outcome of the equation.
The estimated action rate is how often we predict your desired outcome to occur. Good creative will increase this action rate and decrease costs for you, but bad creative can decrease action rates and increase costs.
The user value is any positive or negative impact that might influence the user experience. This factor is also influenced by the quality of creative as a general relevance to the user. For example, the creative might be great, but the product might not be relevant.
The Impact of Creative
The quality of your creative drives the estimated action rate, which impacts your overall ad conversion rate — good creative makes it better, poor creative makes it worse. Creative can impact your estimated action rate by up to 50% the user value by up to 10%.
Your estimated action rate is heavily influenced by your creative. Facebook’s algorithm does what it can to optimize your ad placement for optimal conversion, but your creative does the rest of the legwork. Clear, engaging images or short, informative videos can make or break your ad conversion rate.
The user value is primarily dictated by the relevancy of your product or service, but your creative certainly still has an impact. If your creative isn’t relevant, it won’t convert the customer. For example, if you show your product being used on a woman, but the ad was being served to a man, that could negatively impact your ad conversion rate — even if the product itself is relevant.
Aligning Creative to the Customer Journey
The customer journey is absolutely critical for any marketer or advertiser. Copy, CTAs, and audience are all impacted by the funnel — so why shouldn’t your creative?
Your creative impacts your ad conversion rate at every step of the customer journey. The type of content you choose to show, as well as the quality, can and should be directly related to where your customer is at in the funnel. Let’s get into some specific creative types for each step of the customer journey.
Awareness
Awareness campaigns usually focus more on the brand itself. Many brands choose to serve video ads that give an overview of the brand ethos. Because these campaigns are designed to generate buzz and define differentiation, metrics like ROAS are not tracked. Metrics such as video completion rate, time on site, and reach of ad are usually tracked instead.
At this stage, your creative (video) should speak to who your brand is as a whole. Think about what differentiates your brand:
- Sustainability initiatives
- Product ingredients
- Diversity
- Give-back initiatives
Consideration
In the consideration phase, consumers know who your brand is thanks to your awareness video campaign. Now, they’re ready to learn more about your product or service through how-to videos, your ingredient or technology story, or a value proposition. Clickthrough rate and web traffic are typically tracked at this stage — you want to drive people to your website.
Your creative should be designed to drive clicks to your website. Provide relevant, specific details about your products; imagery that shows texture, movement, or packaging; or the main value of your product.
Conversion
This is the culmination of your entire ad campaign — conversion! The moneymaker ad unites! Since you’re seeking to drive sales with these ads, you’ll most likely be looking at ROAS, sales, and conversions for your success metrics.
Whether you’re serving evergreen retargeting or dynamic product ads, your creative should pack a punch to move your consumer over the finish line. Reviews (5-stars, etc.), user-generated content, and promos should be utilized at this stage to drive conversions.
Learn more about common ad creative mistakes and what 10 types of content you need to be testing with our Conversion Creative Checklist. Watch below!
Creative and Results Data
Data should drive almost every aspect of your advertising — you’ve likely tested your copy and imagery and determined what works best for which stage of the customer journey. But have you ever leveraged data to inform which type of assets work best for which campaign type?
At Blue Wheel, we use this approach to identify which specific ad creative types have the biggest impact on ad conversion rate and ROAS. Take a look at one particular client’s data:
As you can see, different types of creative perform better at different stages of the customer journey, and this often varies by client and industry. For this client, videos have the highest ROAS during the prospecting phase. But at the retargeting stage, GIFs generate the highest return on ad spend.
By analyzing our clients’ content and determining which type of asset to use at each stage of the customer journey, we help transform their ad campaigns and can reallocate budget accordingly!
Looking for someone to help create content that actually converts? We shoot, edit, design and manage ad creative and campaigns that drive sales. Turn to the experts at Blue Wheel for your digital advertising needs!
