The ones that are truly worth subscribing for, and don’t just leave your inbox clogged with unread messages.

As a practicing marketing expert, I’m reading tens of newsletters every week. And I’m going to share my curated list of those that never fail to deliver original ideas and applicable advice.

Best marketing newsletters at a glance

Keep reading for an overview of each newsletter, links for subscribing, and even more suggestions.

Why should you read marketing newsletters in 2026?

These days, no top marketers learn by reading articles in old marketing blogs.

Instead, they search their LinkedIn feeds for the latest news and discussions.

And they open their inboxes to find new deep dives on growth tactics, social media hacks, and strategic GTM by the leading content creators in industry.

One thing that amazed me while researching the best marketing and growth newsletters is the abundance of excellence.

Two more takeaways:

1. 75% of the big newsletters run on Substack.
2. And their creators make millions of $ annually from subscriptions, courses, and consulting.

Huh, what a world!

So all the more reason for them to pour hours, thought, and craft into the weekly dispatches. And all the more reason to subscribe and get the top-quality articles (mostly) for free.

I’ve listed my top marketing newsletters that I genuinely value and read. They’re my go-to Narnia closet for new ideas, marketing tools, and growth tactics.

Best newsletters for newsletter & creator growth

Let’s start with the best marketing creators that write about building audience and selling products.

1. Growth in Reverse by Chenell Basilio

Subscribers: 40k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Newsletter operators and creators focused on growing their email list

If there’s one newsletter I never let sit unread, it’s Chenell’s. Every week she spends somewhere between 20 and 25 hours reverse-engineering a single newsletter’s growth story. How they got their first 1,000 subscribers, what referral mechanics they built, which lead magnets actually converted, where they plateaued and why.

The format is distinctive: part case study, part teardown, part annotated playbook. You don’t just learn what worked, you see the specific sequence of decisions that got there.

What makes it genuinely useful beyond newsletter creators is that the growth levers she surfaces: onboarding sequences, referral incentives, and audience segmentation advice translates easily to product-led companies too. If you’re building an audience of any kind, this is essential reading.

Start with: “7 Newsletter Growth Strategies From Studying Top Creators”

2. Creator Science by Jay Clouse

Subscribers: N/A (multi-million dollar creator business) · Platform: Ghost · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Creators and solopreneurs building content-led businesses

Jay’s positioning — “helping creators grow through observation, experimentation, and iteration” — sounds calm, but the content is sharper than that. He writes about the decisions behind building a creator business with real rigour: what he tested, what the data showed, what he changed.

Recent issues have wrestled with genuinely hard questions: how to build a content strategy that isn’t algorithm-dependent, when to lean into AI and when it undercuts your value, what it actually takes to get people to pay for a membership.

He’s one of the few people writing about the creator economy who doesn’t make it sound easier than it is.

Start with: “The Barbell Content Strategy”

3. Marketing Fix by Karola Karlson

Subscribers: 15k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Bi-weekly · Best for: In-house marketers and startup founders who want proven tactics and honest takes, not hype

Marketing Fix is written by one of the leading European marketing experts. With her 12y of experience in 50+ tech companies, Karola has plenty of proven tactics to share.

Every issue of Marketing Fix covers one specific, broken thing in startup marketing and works through how to fix it: a landing page that isn’t converting, a Meta ad account that stopped scaling, an email sequence that leaks subscribers.

The angle is practitioner-to-practitioner. No “here are the 7 pillars of” anything. Just what’s worked across 50+ startups and what has failed expensively.

Each issue also includes 3-5 cultural recommendations to build your taste and knowledge. The most valuable marketer skill in the era of AI.

Start with: Free Library: 95 Marketing Audit Questions

4. Newsletter Operator by Matt McGarry

Subscribers: 50k+ · Platform: beehiiv · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Founders and creators running newsletters as media businesses

Matt has spent north of $20M on newsletter growth — buying subscribers, managing lists for The Hustle and Milk Road, building his own audience from scratch. Newsletter Operator is where he documents what he’s learned.

About 80% of the content is directly about newsletter mechanics: paid acquisition channels, deliverability, monetisation models, engagement tactics. The other 20% is candid business-building content — experiments that didn’t work, how he structures his own operation, what he’d do differently.

In 2026 he’s been writing a lot about whether newsletters are still worth building as AI changes content distribution. His answer is nuanced and worth reading.

Start with: “Are newsletters still worth it?”

Best newsletters for GTM, product & B2B growth

If you’re interesting in learning about product growth and grow-to-marketing strategy, these are the best five newsletters to subscribe to.

5. Behind the Craft by Peter Yang

Subscribers: 140k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Product managers, engineers, and tech professionals who want practical AI workflows

This used to be called Creator Economy. It’s now Behind the Craft, and the editorial pivot is significant: it’s almost entirely practical AI tutorials now.

Not the “AI will change everything” think-piece variety, but step-by-step guides: how to vibe-code a working prototype in 15 minutes, how to set up AI agents, how to build an MCP, how to use Claude Code for real work.

Peter has 10+ years of product experience at Roblox, Reddit, Amazon, and Meta, which gives him a useful filter for what’s actually worth your time versus what’s hype. At 140k+ subscribers, it’s clearly resonating, particularly with PMs who want to stay ahead of what AI is changing in their work.

Start with: “7 Advanced AI Prompt Techniques”

6. GTM Strategist by Maja Voje

Subscribers: 33k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Weekly (Fridays) · Best for: Founders and GTM leads at early-stage startups navigating product-market fit

Maja has worked with 750+ companies on go-to-market strategy and wrote the book on it. Literally, her book Go-To-Market Strategist became an international bestseller in 2023. The newsletter is the weekly distillation of what she’s seeing in practice.

In 2026, her content has a heavy AI-GTM angle: how to build GTM campaigns using Clay and Claude Code, how AI agents are replacing SDRs, what content engineering looks like as a distribution strategy. She’s also running original research, her “State of GTM Engineering 2026” survey is the kind of thing you’ll reference for months.

It’s one of the most practically structured newsletters in this list. Every issue has a clear takeaway you can implement the same week.

Start with: “3 Big Ideas for the AI-First GTM Era”

7. Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar

Subscribers: 84k+ · Platform: beehiiv (migrated from Substack, January 2026) · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: B2B operators and founders focused on PLG, pricing, and GTM

Kyle spent 15 years at OpenView (the VC firm that literally coined “product-led growth”) helping software companies scale from $1M to $100M+ ARR. He knows what the benchmarks actually are, not what founders claim they are.

Growth Unhinged publishes some of the most data-rich content in this space: real monetisation benchmarks, pricing teardowns, analysis of which GTM motions are working in the current market. His 2026 reporting on “the state of B2B monetisation” and “who’s actually hiring in GTM” are examples of original research that competitors can’t easily replicate.

He moved from Substack to beehiiv in January 2026, partly a technical decision, partly a signal of where serious newsletter operators are going.

Start with: “The state of B2B monetisation in 2026”

8. How They Grow by Jaryd Hermann

Subscribers: 56k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Irregular (very infrequent in 2026) · Best for: PMs and founders who want deep company growth analyses

Honest caveat first: Jaryd posted once in 2026 (February, “I’m back, but different”) and hasn’t published since. He’s gone through extended hiatuses before and the writing quality when he does publish is exceptional — but you should know what you’re signing up for.

When it’s active, How They Grow publishes some of the most thorough company analyses available anywhere. His teardowns of Canva, PostHog, June, and others go 10,000+ words and surface strategic decisions most observers miss. The “Why They Died” series — post-mortems on failed companies — is equally valuable.

Worth subscribing if you can tolerate irregular delivery.

Start with: “How PostHog Grows: The Power of Being Open-Core”

9. Demand Curve Growth Newsletter by the Demand Curve team

Subscribers: 100k+ · Platform: Custom · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Founders and growth marketers wanting tested, tactical growth plays

Demand Curve publishes its 300th+ issue in 2026 and the editorial focus has shifted noticeably toward AI search and brand discoverability. Their recent issues such as “Why AI ignores your brand,” “How to overtake incumbents in AI search,” “The recommendation layer” are tracking a genuine shift in how people find products that most marketing newsletters are still catching up with.

The original format — three battle-tested growth tactics per issue, sourced from real startup experiments — remains, but it’s now supplemented by deeper strategic questions about what growth even means when AI mediates discovery.

Start with: “Why AI ignores your brand” (May 2026)

10. Lenny’s Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky

Subscribers: 1M+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Product managers and tech career builders at every level

The scale is hard to argue with: over a million subscribers makes this the most-read product and growth newsletter in the world. The quality matches it.

Lenny writes a deeply researched advice column that covers product strategy, growth frameworks, hiring, career development, and increasingly in 2026, the practical implications of AI on product work. He also publishes expert guest posts that are often as good as his own writing. The paid tier includes a 30k-member Slack community that has become a genuine professional network for PMs.

It’s broad by design — which means not every issue will be directly relevant — but the hit rate is high enough that it’s worth staying subscribed to.

Start with: “A guide to advanced B2B positioning” (2026)

11. Elena’s Growth Scoop by Elena Verna

Subscribers: 94k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Senior growth operators and product leaders at B2B SaaS companies

Elena has held growth leadership roles at Miro, SurveyMonkey, Amplitude, and Dropbox. She’s now doing growth at Lovable, which means her 2026 writing has a strong AI-native product angle: how vibecoding changes distribution, what it means when your product’s users include AI agents, how retention thinking changes when software is disposable.

She writes with strong opinions and doesn’t hedge them. “Revenue addiction kills companies.” “IC work is the new career flex.” You won’t agree with everything, but you’ll leave each issue having thought harder about your assumptions.

The 40% open rate on a 94k list is the real signal here.

Start with: “Your product has a new user. It’s not human.”

Best newsletters for social media marketing

Social media and paid social marketers. Here comes your list.

12. Link in Bio by Rachel Karten

Subscribers: 111k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: 2x weekly · Best for: Social media managers, brand social leads, and content strategists at consumer brands

Rachel ran social for Bon Appétit and Epicurious before going independent. That background — a social Webby Award, a National Magazine Award — is part of why the newsletter works. She’s talking to practitioners, as a practitioner, about the realities of doing social at real companies.

The format alternates between long-form interviews with the social managers behind recognisable brands (NASA, FIGS, LA Metro, Fishwife) and shorter strategy-focused issues. The quarterly Brand Social Trend Reports are some of the most widely shared documents in the social media world.

With 111k subscribers after five years, it’s clearly filling a gap that no one else has quite closed.

Start with: “Brand Social Trend Report: Q1 2026”

Recommended reading in this blog: If you’re still deciding whether social is worth your time and budget at all, I wrote about whether brands should go all in or all out on social in 2025.

13. Social Files by Tommy Clark

Subscribers: 17k+ · Platform: beehiiv · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: B2B founders and marketing leads building a LinkedIn presence

Tommy runs Compound Content Studio and writes about what he’s building and observing in B2B social — primarily LinkedIn. The focus is narrow enough to be genuinely useful: executive-led content, founder-led content systems, how to measure whether your social activity is doing anything.

His “State of Executive-led Content” reports have become a useful benchmark for B2B social. In 2026 he’s been writing increasingly about authenticity erosion — what happens to founder content quality as AI makes it cheap to produce.

Start with: “The state of Executive-led Content (April 2026)”

Recommended reading in this blog: If you’re running paid alongside organic, get inspired by these 105+ LinkedIn ad examples from fast-growth brands.

14. The Social Juice by Jaskaran Singh

Subscribers: 36k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Weekly (Sundays) · Best for: Marketers who need a concise weekly digest of what changed in marketing and social media

The Social Juice is a weekly briefing, not a deep dive. Jaskaran covers platform updates, ad tech changes, consumer mindset shifts, and brand campaigns — all in one readable issue every Sunday.

What sets it apart from other news-roundup newsletters is the cultural framing. He’s not just listing what happened; he’s connecting it to how consumer behaviour and brand strategy are shifting. “AI won’t kill marketing. We’ll do it ourselves.” is a good example of the editorial angle.

Start with: “This Week in Marketing: Evidence of Social Media Outrage vs. the Emergence of AI Sloptainment”

15. Geekout by Matt Navarra

Subscribers: 30k+ · Platform: beehiiv · Frequency: Weekly (Fridays) · Best for: Social media teams at enterprise brands who need to track every platform change

Matt Navarra has been covering social media platforms for over 20 years. Geekout is his weekly dispatch of everything that moved in the social media world that week: new Instagram features, Meta’s AI developments, TikTok regulatory news, LinkedIn changes.

If your job requires knowing what every major platform is doing, this is the most comprehensive single source for that. The audience includes teams at Netflix, TikTok, McDonald’s, and Amazon. It doesn’t offer analysis so much as excellent, exhaustive curation.

Start with: Any recent issue, the format is consistent and the value is in the completeness.

Best newsletters for paid advertising

Let’s move on to the dollar land: newsletters for marketers overseeing paid ad campaigns on Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, and more.

16. The Performers by Aazar Ali Shad

Subscribers: 13k+ · Platform: beehiiv · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Media buyers, creative strategists, and performance marketers running paid social

Aazar is a rare thing: a serious practitioner who actually shares what he’s learning from running campaigns. The Performers reverse-engineers what’s working in paid social: specific ad formats, hook structures, creative testing methodologies, brand breakdown. Real examples included.

In 2026 the focus is increasingly on AI-generated ad creative: what’s working, what still needs a human, which AI ad formats are printing results and why. “AI Ads That Are Printing” and “25 Hooks to Scale Your Next Winning Ad” are representative of the practical, no-preamble style.

Start with: “5 Creative Insights from $50M Spend Ad Accounts”

17. Bram’s Buzz by Bram Van der Hallen

Subscribers: 100k+ LinkedIn followers · Platform: LinkedIn Newsletter · Frequency: Monthly · Best for: Digital advertisers and performance marketers running Meta campaigns

Bram is a Belgium-based Facebook Ads specialist, one of the top 25 PPC experts globally according to multiple rankings, and his newsletter is published exclusively on LinkedIn, which makes it unusual in this list.

Every issue covers Meta platform updates: new ad features, algorithm changes, tracking tools, consent mode updates. It’s more news briefing than strategic commentary, but if you run Meta campaigns, the timeliness and technical accuracy are genuinely valuable.

Worth noting: because it’s LinkedIn-only, you need to follow him there rather than an email subscription.

Best newsletters for buyer psychology & marketing ideas

18. Why We Buy by Katelyn Bourgoin

Subscribers: 63k+ · Platform: Kit · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Marketers, copywriters, and founders who want to understand the psychology behind purchasing decisions

Each issue of Why We Buy explains one cognitive bias or psychological principle and shows how it applies to marketing and messaging. Normalcy Bias. The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Framing. The Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The format is deliberately contained — short, specific, immediately applicable. Katelyn doesn’t overexplain. You read it, you understand something about how people make decisions, and you think about where you’re leaving that insight on the table in your own marketing.

It’s one of the most consistently useful newsletters in this list, which is partly why it’s built to 63k without the kind of hype that surrounds larger publications.

Start with: Whatever the most recent issue is. The format is consistent and every issue is self-contained.

19. Marketing Ideas by Tom Orbach

Subscribers: 90k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: 2x weekly · Best for: Growth marketers and founders who want unconventional, psychology-backed tactical ideas

Tom leads a Growth Marketing team at Google and created the Viral Post Generator: a parody product that got 2 million users in a week and was acquired shortly after. He describes his niche as “unconventional marketing,” which is accurate: every idea draws on psychology, behavioural economics, or viral mechanics rather than standard channel execution.

The 2x weekly cadence is generous. A Sunday idea roundup and a Wednesday deep dive. Subscribers include people at Amazon, Meta, Spotify, and LinkedIn, which suggests the ideas are landing beyond the startup world.

Start with: “How to launch like a top 1% company”

Best newsletters for B2B content marketing

There are not that many newsletters for B2B marketers specifically. But the ones that do bring plenty of invaluable expertise to the table.

20. Pierre’s Content Guides by Pierre Herubel

Subscribers: 34k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Early-stage B2B startup founders and marketers building content marketing from scratch

Pierre co-founded a B2B business that went from $0 to $1.5M in 18 months, largely through content. He’s now a consultant who’s worked on 300+ marketing projects and reaches 65k+ people daily. The newsletter is where he documents the systems and frameworks behind that.

The format is unusually visual — Pierre leans heavily on infographics, which makes complex content strategies digestible and shareable. His 2026 content has focused on team-led LinkedIn strategies, podcast-first content systems, and what the “marketing game” looks like when AI is producing most of the content.

Start with: “Our Complete $1M GTM System for 2026”

Best newsletter for AI in marketing

These days, most marketing newsletters cover AI tactics to some extent. This one below is AI only.

21. The AI Marketing Generalist by Kieran Flanagan

Subscribers: 14k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Weekly · Best for: Senior B2B marketers and growth leaders who want to build AI into their marketing systems

Kieran was previously SVP of Marketing at HubSpot and has been writing about AI for marketing longer than most. In 2026, his newsletter has become almost entirely focused on Claude Code for marketing — building GTM systems, creating AI-powered content workflows, setting up second-brain-style knowledge systems.

It’s more technical than most marketing newsletters and is better suited to people who are comfortable getting hands-on with AI tools rather than just reading about them. “I built an AI Second Brain. It’s made me a 10x better GTM leader” and “Agentic-Led Growth: A New Model for How B2B Companies Grow” give a good sense of where his thinking is.

Start with: “The 4 New Claude Code Features for GTM Operators”

Best general marketing newsletters

22. The Marketing Millennials by Daniel Murray

Subscribers: 116k+ · Platform: Workweek + Substack · Frequency: 3x weekly (Sun/Tues/Thurs) · Best for: Marketers at all levels who want a broad mix of tactics, trends, and inspiration

Daniel has built one of the largest marketing communities online — 116k+ newsletter subscribers and over 1 million LinkedIn followers. The newsletter is the written counterpart to his podcast, covering a wide range of marketing topics with a conversational tone.

The 3x weekly cadence means it’s high volume. Not every issue will land for you, but the breadth is the point — it tracks trends across every marketing discipline and makes connections that niche newsletters miss. It’s the most accessible starting point for early-career marketers who want to orient themselves quickly.

Start with: “Get AI to recommend your brand”

23. Deez Links by Delia Cai

Subscribers: 39k+ · Platform: Substack · Frequency: Several times weekly · Best for: Media professionals, journalists, and marketers who work at the intersection of culture and content

Delia is a former Vanity Fair correspondent, and Deez Links is the original links-format newsletter on Substack. It’s now five years old and still one of the most distinctive voices in the space.

It’s not a marketing newsletter in the traditional sense. It’s media and culture commentary: what’s worth reading, what’s happening in the industry, what the internet is doing now. But for anyone whose work involves content, storytelling, or attention — which is most marketers — it’s a genuinely useful lens.

The writing is sharp and often funny in ways that most marketing newsletters aren’t.

Start with: Anything recent, the format rewards just jumping in.

More newsletters worth subscribing to

These didn’t make the extended list above but are worth knowing about depending on your focus:

Behind the CMO — interviews with CMOs at fast-growing companies, useful for senior marketers who want the leadership perspective.

Ahrefs’ Digest — the most reliable SEO and content marketing newsletter from a team that generates a lot of original research.

Buffer’s Social Media Newsletter — solid social media strategy content with Buffer’s characteristic accessibility.

SparkToro — Rand Fishkin on audience research, zero-click content, and the shift away from traditional search. Niche but excellent.

Marketing Brew — Morning Brew’s marketing vertical, 4M+ readers, daily 5-minute briefing covering advertising, brand strategy, social media, and agency news. The best single source for staying current on the marketing industry at large.

Marketing Examples — Harry Dry’s visual breakdown of great marketing copy, landing pages, and campaigns — 130k+ subscribers. Each issue picks one real example and dissects exactly why it works. Invaluable for anyone who writes or designs marketing materials.

Total Annarchy — Ann Handley’s bi-weekly newsletter on writing, content, and marketing craft — 42k+ subscribers. Read it if you want to write better, not just publish more.

ICYMI — Lia Haberman’s weekly Substack on influencer marketing, creator economy, and social platform strategy — 25k+ subscribers. One of the most thorough weekly roundups of what’s happening in creator and brand partnerships.

Stacked Marketer — a daily multi-channel briefing covering paid ads, SEO, social media, and CRO. Practical and fast to read for performance marketers who need to stay current across all channels at once.

Growth Memo — Kevin Indig’s weekly newsletter on SEO, organic growth strategy, and search. Particularly strong on how AI is reshaping organic search and what that means for content strategies.

Really Good Emails — not a traditional newsletter but a curated gallery of excellent email design and copy. Essential for anyone writing or designing email campaigns who needs inspiration from what real brands are actually sending.

Future Commerce — weekly newsletter on the intersection of brand, culture, commerce, and technology for DTC brand leaders. More thoughtful and philosophical than most commerce newsletters, which makes it useful for positioning and brand strategy thinking.

The Daily Carnage — a daily marketing newsletter covering campaigns, tools, trends, and creative inspiration curated by Carney agency. Good for sparking ideas and staying aware of what brands are doing creatively.

Swipe Files — Corey Haines’ newsletter and community around marketing examples, teardowns, and frameworks. For marketers who learn best by studying what’s actually working rather than reading theory.

Frequently asked questions about marketing newsletters

What is the best marketing newsletter in 2026?
It depends what you’re optimising for. For sheer quality and depth, Lenny’s Newsletter (1M+ subscribers) is the most consistently excellent. For tactical growth marketing, Demand Curve and Marketing Fix. For social media practitioners, Link in Bio. For B2B operators, Growth Unhinged. For paid social, The Performers.

Are marketing newsletters free?
Most of the newsletters in this list are free to read, with optional paid tiers that unlock archives, community access, or additional content. Lenny’s Newsletter has the most robust paid tier: it includes a 30k-member Slack community and access to years of archived content.

How many marketing newsletters should I subscribe to?
More than three and your inbox starts working against you. Pick one that matches your primary focus — growth, social, paid, content, or GTM — and one broader one for peripheral awareness. The rest are searchable archives when you need a specific answer.

What’s the difference between a marketing newsletter and a marketing blog?
The writing is often the same; the distribution is different. A newsletter arrives in your inbox on a schedule, which creates a different reading habit than a blog you have to remember to visit. Most of the best marketing writers have moved primarily to newsletters over the past three years, which is part of why this list matters.

Which marketing newsletters are best for startup founders?
GTM Strategist (Maja Voje), Growth Unhinged (Kyle Poyar), Demand Curve, and Marketing Fix cover the most ground for founders specifically — GTM strategy, growth mechanics, and marketing execution for companies that are still figuring out what works.

Which marketing newsletters focus on AI?
Behind the Craft (Peter Yang) for practical AI tutorials. The AI Marketing Generalist (Kieran Flanagan) for AI applied specifically to marketing systems. Growth Unhinged (Kyle Poyar) for AI’s impact on GTM and pricing. And increasingly, almost every newsletter in this list has a significant AI angle in 2026.

Are any of these newsletters inactive?
As of June 2026: tl;dr Marketing by Saijo George is discontinued. The Pipeline by Austin Hughes last published in September 2025. Own Your Category by Josh Lowman last published in October 2025. How They Grow by Jaryd Hermann has been very infrequent (one post in 2026). The rest are active with regular publishing schedules.

The post 35+ Best Marketing Newsletters in 2026, Read by TOP 5% Marketers appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

…

In this article on LinkedIn ad examples, you will find answers to the following questions:

1. How to find good LinkedIn ad examples?
2. What are the key B2B ad design best practices?
3. How to design and write ads that perform better?
4. Which B2B brands to research for further inspiration?
5. How to improve your LinkedIn campaign results and ROI?

All screenshots are 100% original and collected in 2025. The selection is based on my 10+ years of experience as a paid ad expert for tens of B2B and B2C brands.

How to find good LinkedIn ad examples?

To find LinkedIn advertisements, you’ve got two options:

1. Browse your LinkedIn feed to see the ads targeted at you.
2. Go the the LinkedIn Ad Library and search for specific brands’ ads.

Looking for inspiration for my free LinkedIn ad library, I began by scrolling my feed. What I saw was underwhelming: lots of average creatives.

Defeated and bored, I resorted to the LinkedIn Ad Library and checked the high-growth B2B brands. What I found was the day to my LI feed’s night.

There are the good LinkedIn ad examples, and then there’s the remaining 90% that make marketers say “LinkedIn ads don’t work for us.”

While, in fact, many campaigns fail as there are no high-conversion ads nor consistent experimentation.

Here’s what high-growth B2B brands do differently:

1. Experimentation ➡️ 50+ active ad creatives
2. Proven best practices ➡️ top-performing ad types
3. Irresistible validation ➡️ numbers, offers, social proof

Top-performing LinkedIn ad types

After creating LinkedIn ad strategies, and designing 500+ B2B ad creatives, here are the six creative types I’ve had most success with.

Best-performing LinkedIn ad types & layouts:

1. Comparison v.s. competitors
2. Client & partner logos = 10x trust
3. Downloadable reports as Lead ads
4. Case studies, testimonials, ratings
5. Offers & numbers that prove efficiency
6. UGC-style videos w/ humane approach

In this article, you’ll find 105+ excellent LinkedIn advertisement examples in 6 top-performing categories.

If you’re looking for further inspiration, check out these other collections:

• 215+ Best Facebook Ad Examples
• 80+ Top Instagram Ad Examples
• 25 Best Marketing Newsletters in 2025

If you’re looking to avoid LinkedIn ad mistakes, read this article: 10 LinkedIn Ad Mistakes… Made by LinkedIn Itself

LinkedIn Ads with offers & numbers

LinkedIn ad creatives demonstrating the USP (unique value proposition) through numbers is the style I’ve seen perform at a high ROI most often.

For more examples of LinkedIn ad campaigns and designs, look up each brand in LinkedIn Ad Library.

Tip: Check out my 30+ go-to marketing tools and look up their ad images.

#1 Evernote

Best practices used in this B2B LinkedIn ad:

• Communicate a strong number-led value proposition
• Keep your ad design on-brand by using the right colour scheme
• Visualise a simplified version of your product
• Use high-contract colours that make the text pop out
• Make your logo prominent for high brand recognition

#2 Notion

This B2B ad example is great for so many reasons

• It offers a discount to a specific target audience
• It communicates extra features like AI support
• The copywriting is brief but impactful
• The ad visual shows the actual product
• There is a clear call to action button in the ad image

#3 Bolt Business

Apply these best practices to your own LinkedIn ad campaigns:

• Offer special discount to first-time users
• Include a specific promo code for easy conversion tracking
• Use branded illustrations in the ad visual
• Communicate a relevant value proposition to your audience
• Play on emotions and test pshycological hooks

#4 ClickUp

#5 Mailchimp

#6 Klaviyo

#7 Hiring Hub

#8 QuickBooks

#9 Uberall

#10 Reddit

#11 Typeform

#12 WeWork

#13 Lyft

#14 Typeform

#15 Notion

#16 Mailchimp

#17 Reddit

#18 BambooHR

#19 Typeform

#20 Clearpay

LinkedIn ads with case studies & testimonials

See examples of LinkedIn ads using social proof and case studies as a means to create trust.

#21 Shopify

#22 Canva

#23 Clay

#24 Deel

#25 Figma

#26 Grammarly

#27 Intercom

#28 Miro

#29 Shopify

#30 Squarespace

#31 Toggl

#32 Clay

#33 Toggl

#34 Evernote

LinkedIn ads with product features & value propositions

#35 Apollo.io

#36 Beehiiv

#38 Docusign

#39 Evernote

#40 Grammarly

#41 Instantly.ai

#42 Intercom

#43 LinkedIn

#44 Monzo

#45 Pipedrive

#46 Senja

#47 Slack

#48 Twilio

#49 Typeform

#50 Instantly.ai

#51 Webflow

#52 Zapier

#53 Typeform

#54 Zapier

LinkedIn video ads & UGC style creatives

#55 Adobe

#56 Ahrefs

#57 AppsFlyer

#58 Beehiiv

#59 Canva

#60 Clay

#61 Docusign

#62 LinkedIn

#63 Fiverr

#64 Ahrefs

#65 Grammarly

#66 Instantly.ai

#67 Restream

LinkedIn ads with partner & client logos as social proof

#68 Monday.cm

#69 Reforge

#70 11x

#71 AppsFlyer

#72 Job Today

#73 Dropbox

#74 Scoro

LinkedIn Lead ad examples with downloadable content

#75 Amplitude

#76 Bolt

#77 Consensus

#78 Deel

#79 HubSpot

#80 Glassdoor

#81 Hired

#82 Intercom

#83 Klaviyo

#84 HubSpot

#85 Hired

#86 Restream

#87 RippleMatch

#88 Salesforce

#89 Smartly

#90 Stripe

Additional good LinkedIn ad examples & ideas

#91 Adobe

#92 Figma

#93 FreshBooks

#94 Financial Times

#95 Google

#96 Virgin Atlantic

#97 Evernote

#98 Bolt Data

#99 Microsoft

#100 Palantir

#101 Salto X

#102 Adobe

#103 New York Times

#104 WordPress

#105 Slack

The post 105+ LinkedIn Ad Examples: 2025 Fast-Growth Brands appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

This article’s going to answer all these questions. But first, here’s a quick answer to your question, based on research by Revealbot.

Looking at the Facebook ads cost data from April 2020 – April 2021, we can see that the average Facebook ads CPC is between $0.5 – $3,5.

Facebook ads CPC in 2021

Another important Facebook advertising cost metric that many advertisers keep their eye on is the CPM – cost per 1,000 views. 

In March 2021, the average Facebook CPM was between $2 – $20.

Facebook ads CPM in 2021

As you can already see from the two charts above, the Facebook ads cost can vary a lot based on your Facebook ad campaign setup.

After reading this article, you’ll have a much better overview of:

• How much you should pay for a Facebook ad click?
• Which Facebook ad placements have the lowest costs?
• How to lower the cost of Facebook ads?

Quick tip: One of the fastest ways to lower your Facebook ads cost is to improve your Facebook campaign structure and review your Facebook ad metrics. Start with this Facebook ad audit to ensure you’ve got everything set up correctly.

Alright, let’s start with the most burning question:

How much does it cost to advertise on Facebook?

While there is no way to tell exactly how much you’re going to pay for a click or results on Facebook, there are some benchmarks you can follow.

For example, AdEspresso’s research of 2017 Q4 results shows that the average CPC on Facebook is anywhere between $0.20-$0.80.

In-between 2017-2021, the advertising costs have significantly increased. You should now be ready to pay up to $3 per ad click. (Although some ads for broad audiences still deliver $0.20 CPC, even in the US.)

The average CPC is $0.20-$0.80 – Image source

The cost of Facebook advertising depends on multiple factors:

• Your target audience
• The seasonality
• Your marketing objective
• Competition
• Ad placements
• Quality of your ad creatives

Factor #1. The timing of your campaign

When evaluating your Facebook ads cost, it’s important to take into account the time of year.

For example, it’s more expensive to advertise during the holidays when everyone is using Facebook advertising to increase sales.

That’s also what AdEspresso’s data shows: The most expensive months for advertising are October, November, and December.

October, November, and December are the most expensive months – Image source

Key takeaway;

If your product’s sales aren’t affected by the time of year, you could spend less during the Autumn/Winter season and allocate a higher budget to Spring/Summer.

However, if the revenue you earn per sales is lower than the acquisition via Facebook ads, you should advertise all year round.

In case you’re running an online store, see this guide on eCommerce Facebook ads to bring down your CPC and CPA costs.

There is also a difference in your Facebook ads CPC depending on the hour of day.

Different time of day = different CPC – Image source

As the above chart is taking into account the average per all ads analyzed, it doesn’t reflect as well on how the cost in time depends on your product.

For example, when you’re selling pizzas, people are more likely to be interested in your ads during lunch, dinner, and late at night. That’s also when your CPC will be lower.

On the other hand, promoting B2B or SaaS Facebook ads outside of office hours is likely to make those ads’ CPC higher.

Here’s an example of how a Facebook campaign’s click-through rates and CPC changes, depending on the time of day. It’s not a big difference, but when you’re tight on budget, knowing your most profitable advertising times can be a life-saver.

Find your most profitable advertising times

If you want to advertise only during specific times of day, you can use the custom ad schedule feature.

You can set a custom schedule for your ads

If you’re unsure what are the best times for running your Facebook ads campaign, use the automatic scheduling and let Facebook’s algorithms do the heavy lifting.

You can later check your ad reports to discover which weekdays and times of day worked best.

Factor #2. Your target audience

There’s a high chance you’re not selling your product to the entire population.

And your cost of Facebook ads will also depend on who it is you’re targeting. For example, it costs less to reach people aged between 18-24 than those aged 55-64.

What’s your target audience’s age? – Image source

Moreover, the gender of your target audience can make a big difference in your Facebook ads pricing.

Surprisingly, it can cost more to attain Facebook Page likes from women than from men. This could be due to more eCommerce brands targeting women.

Women’s likes cost more – Image source

Key takeaway: The better you know you target audience, the easier you’ll find evaluating (and lowering) the advertising costs.

Factor #3. Your Facebook ad placement

When setting up your Facebook ads campaigns, you can select automatic ad placements or pick specific channels for your ads to be shown in.

For quick reference, here are the currently available Facebook ad placements:

• Facebook Desktop newsfeed
• Facebook Mobile newsfeed
• Instant Articles
• In-stream videos
• Facebook Desktop right column
• Instagram feed
• Instagram Stories
• Facebook Audience Network
• Facebook Messenger home
• Messenger Sponsored messages

Read more about all the Facebook ad types and their specs here: Facebook Ads Specs and Size (Always Up-to-date Guide)

AdEspresso’s data from 2016 shows that the cost-per-click of your Facebook ads variated greatly between different placements.

Ad placement can make a huge difference – Image source

It looks that the Facebook Audience Network is the cheapest ad placement while Instagram ads cost is the highest.

However, remember that this chart only shows the cost-per-click.

What about the cost per conversion? Or cost per signup?

As Facebook Audience Network consists of thousands of different apps and games, there’s a high chance that many clicks from that channel were accidentally made.

Here’s a randomly chosen campaign example that shows the number of clicks and app installs of a Facebook Mobile App Installs campaign.

Not all clicks turn into conversions

Notice that the click-to-install conversion rate in the Audience Network is only 20.8% while in the Facebook Mobile newsfeed it’s 55.4%.

So how to choose your Facebook ad placements and lower the cost?

I recommend that you run your Facebook ad campaigns with automatic placements for some time. After you’ve got some results, you can exclude the placements where costs are highest.

However, if the cost-per-acquisition in all placements is lower than your earnings from sales, keep all of them running to reach more people.

Factor #4. Your campaign objective

When creating a new Facebook ad campaign, you can choose between many objectives.

Facebook offers you many objectives

Depending on your Facebook ad goals, you’ll be paying a different amount for clicks and other types of conversions.

Usually, campaigns with broad target audiences optimized on Reach (Brand Awareness or Traffic campaigns) have lower cost per 1,000 impressions. Conversion-optimized campaigns make it more expensive to reach your audience, but the audience’s quality and engagement are also much higher.

Facebook ads CPM by campaign objective, 2021 data

Conversion-optimized ads may seem more expensive, but they also deliver more results,

This also makes perfect sense – the goal of a Reach campaign is for many people to see the ad, not click on it.

Tip: If your goal is to get people clicking on your ad, use the Traffic campaign objective.

When promoting your blog articles on Facebook, use the Engagement objective.

For example, there’s also a difference between the cost-per-like and cost-per-app-install.

Cost-per-app-install vs. cost-per-like – Image source

As you can see, the different objectives also perform at different rates depending on the placement.

This is getting too confusing?

We’ll learn more about selecting the right objective and optimization methods in the second half of this article.

Factor #5. Your ads’ relevance

In the end, the cost of Facebook ads comes down to THE most important factor: is your product relevant to people?

Do they want to buy it?

Do they want to click on your ad to find out more?

Or are they looking at your ads and thinking…

These ads are soo annoying – Image source

For example, if Hired were promoting these carousel ads to marketers instead of developers, their Facebook ads cost would skyrocket while their campaign underperforms.

This ad is relevant to developers, but not marketers

Or if Teabox were targeting different ads for people liking chai vs. black tea, their ads would probably have higher click-through rates and lower cost-per-click and cost-per-conversion.

Chai lovers are more likely to click on this ad

When analyzing 104,256 Facebook ads, AdEspresso discovered that Facebook campaigns’ Relevance Score successfully predicts both the cost-per-click and click-through rate.

If your ads’ relevance is high (meaning people engage with your ads), the cost-per-click will be significantly lower.

You better make your ads relevant – Image source

Tip: You can see your ads’ relevance score as you break down your Facebook reports by Performance and navigate to the Ads view.

What is a good relevance score?

I would say it’s anywhere between 5 to 10 points. However, ads with relevance score of 8-10 usually have a lower cost than the rest.

Find every ads’ relevance score

How to increase your relevance score?

• Nail your USP – unique value proposition
• Create eye-catching Facebook ad designs
• Make sure your ad targeting is focused on the right audience

Now that you’ve got an overview of some numbers and benchmarks for Facebook ads cost, let’s move on and see how to set up your Facebook ad bidding.

How Facebook ad bidding works?

Facebook ad bidding works like a worldwide auction where every second thousands of transactions are made.

Even while you’re fast asleep, your ad campaigns are participating in hundreds of auctions that determine whether your ads will be shown to the people you’re targeting.

In order to win the Facebook ad auction and keep your advertising costs low, it’s important to understand how the auction works. Or for that matter, how the entire Facebook ad bidding game works.

How Facebook ad auctions work:

First, you need to know that Facebook’s ad delivery is driven by two main goals:

• Creating value for advertisers by helping them to reach the best target audience
• Providing positive, relevant experiences for people using Facebook, Instagram or Audience Network

Read more: Facebook’s official page about ads pricing.

Unlike in a traditional auction, the winner isn’t the one who makes the highest monetary bid.

It’s the ad that creates the most overall value.

Facebook relies on three factors to determine the winner of an auction: Advertiser Bid + Ad Quality & Relevance + Estimated Action Rates

This is how Facebook ad auctions work

Advertiser bid – that’s the bid you place on your ad sets. You can also use automatic bidding, so that Facebook’s algorithms will determine the best amounts to bid at any given auction.

Ad quality & relevance – your ad’s relevance score isn’t only important for keeping your ad. According to Facebook, if your ad has got lots of negative feedback, it may decrease the ad’s total value.

Estimated action rates – The estimated action rate is a Facebook’s calculated measure that shows how likely a person is to take the actions you’ve optimized for. Facebook needs at least a couple of results per day to be able to estimate your campaigns’ action rates. The longer your ad campaigns will run, the better Facebook can optimize them.

Every time a Facebook ads auction occurs on the background, Facebook will standardize the factors and combine them into a total measure. The ad with the highest total value wins and gets delivered to people’s newsfeeds.

Key takeaway: A high bid won’t guarantee your ads will win the auction, unless they’re also relevant to the target audience.

How to win the Facebook ad auction – Image source

How to set up your Facebook ads budget?

You can set up your Facebook campaign’s budget in the in the Budget & Schedule section during your campaign setup phase.

Up next, we’ll take a closer look at all the options you have.

Go to the Budget & Schedule section

In the Budget section, you can select between two Facebook features:

Option 1: Daily budget

This is how much Facebook will spend on delivering your ads every day during your campaign’s set dates.

Note that when setting a daily budget, you’re setting an average. Facebook might still spend slightly more or less each day, depending on the opportunities that arise.

$10 is the average daily expenditure

Option 2: Lifetime budget

By using the Lifetime budget, you’re telling Facebook the amount you’re willing to spend over the duration of your ad campaign.

This means that on some days, you may spend $10 while only $2 on others.

Important! After you’ve published your Facebook ad campaign, you won’t be able to change the budget type, only the sums you want to spend.

Tip: If you want to switch your ad budget from lifetime budget to daily budget or vice versa, you can duplicate an existing ad set and change its budgeting method. Then, pause the old ad set.

Which budget type should you use?

Some performance marketers believe that using a Lifetime budget gives Facebook more room for optimization. However, if your campaign runs for less than a month, Facebook may not have enough data to optimize the ad delivery.

I personally prefer to set daily budgets – they’re more flexible and transparent when changed throughout the campaign.

January 2018 UPDATE

As a recent Facebook update, you can now also set campaign-level ad budgets. The new feature is called Campaign Budget Optimization.

As you publish a campaign-level budget ad campaign, Facebook’s algorithms will start learning, and will allocate your budget between the ad sets so that you will get the most results at the lowest cost.

How Campaign Budget Optimization works

How to set up your ad optimization & delivery?

As you scroll down to the next phase of your Facebook campaign setup, you will see something like this:

Scroll down until you see this

Optimization & Delivery… What is it?

Basically, here’s where you can tell Facebook what is your desired advertising goal and how much you’re willing to pay for it.

According to Facebook, the campaign optimization works like this:

“Your optimization choice tells us what to value when delivering your ad. For example, you could tell us to show your ad to the people in your target audience most likely to click a link to your website (optimizing for link clicks) or to show it as many times as possible (optimizing for impressions).”

Click on Optimization for Ad Delivery section

As you look at all the optimization methods for the first time, it can get pretty confusing.

Mind blown – Image source

Here’s a quick overview of all ad delivery optimization options together with explanations:

Conversions – When optimizing for conversions, Facebook will deliver your ads to the people who are the most likely to convert. The conversion could be a signup, purchase, app install, etc.

Post Engagement – When bidding on Post Engagement, Facebook will show your ads to the people most interested to like, comment or share your ad.

Impressions – Your Facebook ads will be delivered to as many people as many times as possible while staying within the limits of your advertising budget. There’s no algorithmic optimization regarding who is more likely to engage with your ad.

Link Clicks – Facebook will deliver your ads to the people most likely to click on your ad. With this optimization method, you’ll be charged every time someone clicks on your ad.

Daily Unique Reach – Facebook will deliver your ads to your target audience members up to once per day. That’s a good way to keep your ad frequency under control. I personally like to use frequency capping for Facebook remarketing campaigns.

Brand Awareness – Facebook will serve your ads to people most likely to be interested in your offer. You can use this delivery optimization method to make a campaign visible to a large audience. You will be charged on the basis of CPM — you’ll pay for every 1,000 ad impressions.

Should you use Manual vs. Automatic ad bids?

The next step of your Facebook ad budget setup is to select whether you’d like to use Manual or Automatic bid.

If you’re unsure how much your Facebook ads cost, always use automatic bidding.

However, if you’re interested in reaching more people at a higher Facebook ads pricing, you can set up a Manual bid to win more ad auctions.

Manual bidding options

And as you’re setting the Manual bid, there’s another set of options:

The Maximum vs. Average bid.

By now, you may start to get confused… There are TWO types of manual bids?!

Here’s what’s different about Maximum and Average manual bids.

When using the Maximum bid, Facebook’s algorithms stop delivering your ads if there’s a risk that the cost per result will be higher than your bid.

As you set an Average bid, Facebook will use the Pacing method to optimize your ad delivery for the optimal ROI.

Conversions in the box are missed with max bid – Image source

Here’s Facebook’s Pacing explained by Smartly.io:

“Without pacing, the ad set would spend the entire budget in the beginning of the day for more expensive ads and miss the better opportunities in the end of the day. The Pacing algorithm learns the optimal bid over time.”

Here’s an explanatory table by Smartly.io, showing when to use the Maximum vs. Average bids.

Plenty of useful information here – Image source

Pay close attention to the last rows of the comparison table.

With the Maximum bid, you will maximize your profit. With Average bid, you will optimize delivery while sometimes paying more per conversion.

How to set the right Facebook ad bids?

When setting a Manual ad bid, you likely have two main goals:

1. Get as many results as possible
2. At the lowest advertising cost possible

Wouldn’t that be nice… – Image source

So how can you set the right bid to keep your Facebook ad costs low but at the same time, drive enough traffic to your website?

One option is to use the bids suggested by Facebook.

The suggested bid is a sum that Facebook considers to be sufficient to achieve your anticipated result (e.g. a link click or conversion).

In the parentheses next to the suggested bid, you can see the bid range. This number shows a spectrum of bids that are currently winning auctions across the world that reach the same audience as you’re targeting.

Tip: As you check the Manual bidding method, Facebook is usually suggesting a really high bid. Make sure to change the sum in the box.

For example, if Facebook first suggests that you bid €3.10 per 1k impressions and the bid range is (€1.20–€3.40), you could bid €1.60 or even €1.25.

However, there’s an even better way for finding out how much you should bid per result.

Start running a new campaign on automatic bidding. After you’ve collected enough data about your average cost-per-result, you can change the bidding method to Manual and insert your target bid.

How to keep the cost of Facebook ads low?

Now that you’re aware of the average Facebook CPC and CPM, you may be thinking “But I want my ads to cost even less.”

Well, it’s totally possible.

But there isn’t a shortcut to lower ads costs. You need to put in some extra work and time to achieve better results.

Here’s what you’ll have to do.

1. Improve your USP

USP – the unique selling proposition – is what makes your product relevant to its users while also differentiating you from the competition.

Advertising legend Rosser Reeves explained in his book that USP has three parts:

1. Each advertisement must explain a clear and relevant benefit to the consumer.
2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique.
3. The promise must be so compelling that it can move the mass of millions.

For example, App Academy’s Facebook ad offers a clear benefit and also explains how much a person could earn after completing the curriculum.

App Adacemy nailed it!

Sometimes, it’s ok to advertise a message also used by your competitors. But try to find a small differentiator that makes your product more memorable.

There are thousands of companies selling socks in the world. However, through smart branding and great visuals, Happy Socks is able to differentiate its products from the rest.

Happy Socks definitely deserves its name

Key takeaway: Whatever it is you’re promoting try to find the key benefit to the buyer and make sure it’s clearly readable in your Facebook ads.

Check out these 180 best Facebook ad examples for more inspiration.

2. Ensure you’re targeting the right audience

There has been so much talk about buyer personas and knowing your customers that everyone’s kind of tired of it already.

Yea, yea… Don’t come to me with another customer survey talk.

You probably know how your Facebook ad targeting should look like.

But do you really?

Have you checked the Facebook Audience Insights tool to see which demographics are most interested in your product?

No?

You can do it right now.

Facebook Audience Insights tool – Image source

Using Audience Insights, you can get aggregate and anonymous information such as:

• Demographics – Age and gender, lifestyle, education, relationship status, job role and household size
• Page likes – The top Pages people like in different categories
• Location and language – Where do people live, and what languages do they speak
• Facebook usage – How frequently are people in your target audience logging onto Facebook and what device(s) they are using when they log on
• Purchases activity – Past purchase behavior (i.e. heavy buyers of women’s apparel) and purchase methods (i.e., in-store, online)

Later on, you can create interest-based Facebook audiences that reach more people interested in your product. Or you will know what are the best locations for promoting your product.

There’s some fascinating data to be discovered.

3. Target advanced Facebook audiences

When creating new Facebook marketing audiences, don’t let yourself be limited to Saved Audiences (the interest-based audiences that are easy to create).

Saved Audiences will only get you so far – Image source

There are also other audience types available on Facebook: Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences.

And these two audience types go a long way in helping you reduce your Facebook advertising costs.

A Custom Audience is Facebook audience that’s based on the data available from the Facebook Pixel on your website/landing page. You can also create Custom Audiences based on e-mail lists or in-app actions.

If you’re interested in 10+ ideas for using Facebook Custom Audiences in remarketing campaigns, check out this article I wrote for KlientBoost.

Creating a Custom Audience

A Lookalike Audience is a Facebook audience that helps your reach new people similar to your existing customers or website visitors. As a result, you can reach people who are likely to be interested in your product.

… and creating a Lookalike Audience

In the perfect campaign structure, you should be using all of the three Facebook audience types to reach slightly different audience segments.

Here’s a more in-depth article explaining how to create Facebook and Instagram target audiences.

4. Exclude past converters from your audience

A tiny yet super efficient hack to keep your Facebook CPC and CPC low is to exclude from your target audiences the people who have already converted.

You can move those people to the next step in your Facebook marketing funnel instead of delivering them the same ads over and over again.

Different levels require different approach – Image source

Here’s how to exclude the past converters from your Facebook audiences:

• Create a Facebook Custom Audience of people who have visited specific web pages (e.g. your download thank you page or a blog article).
• Use the EXCLUDE feature when setting up your ad set’s audience to stop targeting people in this Custom Audience.

Exclude past converters

5. Create highly converting ad images

Consumer Acquisition has found that images are arguably the most important part of your ads. They’re responsible for 75%-90% of your ad performance.

Goes without saying that your ad’s image plays a key role in its success or demise.

There are ads that immediately catch every viewers’ attention. Like this one by Facebook for example…

This ad is eye-catching, isn’t it?

… And then there are ads that just inhabit the newsfeed without anyone noticing.

Want to make sure your ads look more like Facebook’s and catch everyone’s attention?

Here are the key 8 Facebook ad design commands to follow:

1. Use bright colours – a study by UsabilityTools showed that using highly contrasting call-to-actions resulted in 75% higher click-through rate, compared to a low-contrast CTA.
2. Avoid plain stock photos – If you must use a stock photo, use a colour overlay to make it more interesting.
3. Include icons and symbols – Create simple ad designs that mainly consist of symbols and backgrounds. Simple is efficient.
4. Show your product – if your product can be represented in an image, create a Facebook ad with it.
5. Test multiple ad formats – create Facebook Carousel ads or Slideshow ads to bring novelty to your mix of image ads.
6. Match ad design with landing pages – Make sure that before-the-click and after-the-click have the same branded look about them.
7. Use in-image text – add your value proposition in the ad image.
8. Keep your in-image copy short – people prefer images light in text.

Spotify’s Facebook ad just pop with color.

Spotify Facebook ad example

6. Add videos to your marketing mix

Videos aren’t only a nice addition to your ad sets. They can significantly lower your advertising costs.

Facebook did a case study with Refinery29, comparing the results of two various campaign tactics:

• Campaign A employed creative and images focused strictly on generating subscriptions.
• Campaign B over the same period featured different “sequenced” video-first ads that first told the brand story, next provided product information before inviting people to sign up.

The result?

Refinery29 had an 87% increase in traffic to the landing page and a 56% increase in subscription rate for those people who saw the branding video first.

Numbers don’t lie – Image source

The key to successful video ads is engaging people during the first 3-5 seconds.

Wistia did a research and discovered that as the video length increases, the engagement drops.

Short videos are more engaging – Image source

It makes sense to keep your Facebook video ads under 2 minutes. Even better if you’re able to engage people with a 30-second video.

7. Write stronger ad copy

Imagine you’ve spotted a really cool Facebook ad image in your newsfeed.

Would you click on it right away?

Or would you also read through the ad copy first?

If you’re like most people, you’ll also want to know what the copy is saying before making a click, not to speak of making a purchase.

Your ad copy matters. A lot.

So how can you write great Facebook ad copy?

Here’s what Joanna Wiebe, the queen of conversion copywriting, recommends:

• Write for the click. Your ad headline should be a CTA all of its own.
• Connect “what” with “why.” State what to do – and then say why. What’s the benefit or outcome of acting?
• Focus on a single, specific thought. People can’t save time and money. They can save time. Or they can save money. Simplify.
• Use numerals and special characters. We need to draw the eye. So people won’t save a thousand bucks. They can save $1000.
• Show empathy. The more you’re in their head, the more you’re in their head.
• Use “new.” Nothing puts an itch in people like the word “new.”
• Keep it short. AdEspresso found that a max of 5 words is best for FB ad headlines.
• Mention the offer, including any incentives. That could be free shipping or a downloadable ebook.
• Make a promise. But back it up.

Here’s a great Facebook post example by Intercom that’s both actionable and makes you want to get their e-book.

8. Avoid Facebook ad fatigue

Ad fatigue is like a monster gnawing on your good Facebook ad CPCs.

But it’s main goal isn’t to make you lose the Facebook ad auction and fail miserably. Its goal is to improve the experience for people seeing your ads and bring you more sales.

Looks like ad fatigue to me… – Image source

Ad fatigue means that people have gotten tired of seeing your Facebook ads for so many consecutive times.

Once you hit the ad fatigue, several things will happen:

• People stop noticing your Facebook ads in their newsfeed – this means fewer attention, likes, and shares.
• People stop clicking on your Facebook ads – you will start paying more per every Facebook ad click.
• Your ad campaign’s costs skyrocket – to get the same amount of new sales, you must pay a lot more.

So how can you avoid the ad fatigue?

The easiest way to predict ad fatigue is to check your Facebook ad frequency – how many times an avg. audience member has seen your ad.

To check this metric, go to the Facebook Ads Manager, click on a campaign, and in the reporting section select the Delivery view.

Check your ad frequency

You can check the ad frequency per campaign, ad set or specific ads. I recommend that you check the ad set level frequency.

Here you can see the campaign level frequency

Tip: In most cases, it’s best to keep your Facebook ad frequency under 2-3 points.

However, when working with Facebook remarketing campaigns, you can also let your ad frequency get slightly higher. I’ve also seen great remarketing results at the frequency of 15+ views.

Once you see your ad frequency increase and results drop, you can add new offers and ad designs to your campaign to keep your target audience interested.

For example, Lyft is using tons of different ads to catch their audience’s attention.

Keep adding new designs to your Facebook campaign

You can also change your Facebook target audience to reach new people who haven’t yet seen your ads and won’t have the ad fatigue.

Quick Recap

Alright, folks.

This article has gotten way too long and you’ve probably already forgotten some of the key learnings from the first half of the article.

So here’s a quick overview of everything we covered:

• The average Facebook ads cost-per-click in 2021 is between $0.5 – $3.5.
• However, your cost of Facebook ads depends on multiple factors.
• That’s why, there’s no one Golden Facebook CPC.
• But you must check whether your ads have a positive ROI.
• Meaning that your cost-per-acquisition is smaller than what you’ll earn per conversion.

To keep your Facebook ads pricing low, you can:

• Improve your value proposition.
• Ensure you’re targeting the right audience.
• Start targeting advanced Facebook audiences.
• Exclude past converters from your audience.
• Create highly converting ad images.
• Test adding videos to your marketing mix.
• Write stronger ad copy that converts.
• Prevent Facebook ad fatigue.

Are your average CPCs similar to the ones mentioned in this article? Let us know in the comments!

The post How Much Do Facebook Ads Cost – [2021 New Data] appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

You could either…

1. Create a personal Instagram account and start seeing ads
2. Browse online ad galleries
3. Read this article with 80+ Instagram ad examples

While browsing various ad examples, you will eventually reach another question: What makes the best Instagram ads so good?

There are several aspects:

1. Your Instagram ad design must catch the viewer’s eyes.
2. It’s best to follow Instagram ad size and specs best practices and create ads with the size of 1080×1080 px.
3. Create a different ad for your Facebook and Instagram campaign (1200×628 px vs. 1080×1080 px).
4. You must find a strong unique value proposition (USP).

As marketing legend David Ogilvy put it:

“If your advertising fails to get the message to the heads of people, your money’s wasted. And this is happening to millions of advertisers every day.”

So how can you create Instagram ads that won’t fail? – Check out the 84 ad examples in this article to get tens of new ideas for creating irresistible Instagram ads that will increase your sales.

How to use this article:

The first 10 ad examples come with an explanation of what makes them work – so that you can get a better overview of Instagram ad best practices.

While browsing all these examples, analyze:

• What makes the ad’s design good?
• What copywriting hacks could you copy?
• How to apply these best practices to your campaigns?

If you’re in B2B business, you might want to check out these 100+ LinkedIn ad examples by fast-growth brands.

Ok? Let’s roll!

#1: The Economist

What makes this ad good?

The Economist’s Instagram ad example showcases their magazine covers, letting the viewer immediately know what the product is. But instead of just showing the image, they have used ½ of the ad space to include a headline and a pricing point, making the ad more informative.

Key takeaways:

• Showcase your product – people will immediately grasp what it is that you’re selling.
• Add copy in your ad image – Consumer Acquisition found that images are responsible for 75%-90% of ad performance. It makes sense to add your USP in the image.
• Don’t make your ad too text-heavy

#2: HubSpot

What makes this ad good?

HubSpot’s Facebook ad is super simple – You could create it in under 1 minute by using Paint or Photoshop. However, the bright colours and copy will catch many people’s attention in the Instagram newsfeed. Think about it – the newsfeed is full of photos. This makes this ad example with simple background shine out.

Key takeaways:

• Use bright colours – People’s brains are wired to notice bright colours and associate them with positive feelings.
• Use simple ad design – In the crowded Instagram newsfeed, simplicity is often the key. Test ads that include only background + copy.
• Use the correct ad size – We can’t help but wonder how much more efficient this ad would be when created as a square image… It would take up more space in the newsfeed, and draw even more attention.

#3: New York Times

What makes this ad good?

This NYT Instagram ad is similar to the previous example in that it features a monochrome background with copy. However, this ad has taken a couple of steps further, playing with typography and including the brand’s logo. Also, the ad size is 1080×1080 px, which is perfect for Instagram ads.

Key takeaways:

• Use interesting typography – If you’re planning to include a lot of copy in your ad image, use eye-catching fonts to bring your ad to life.
• Include your logo in the ad image – It will help to create higher brand awareness at no extra cost. Moreover, your logo can serve as a design element.
• Use contrasting font colours – When using the background + copy ad design hack, make sure your background colour and font colours contrast each other. Otherwise, it will be difficult to read your ad’s copy.

#4: MeetFrank

What makes this ad good?

MeetFrank’s Instagram ad example uses a simple custom design which is highly efficient when it comes to Facebook and Instagram advertising. Moreover, the ad design features a growth curve which immediately draws the viewer’s attention. Not to mention showcasing numbers – another element that’s guaranteed to get more eyes on your Instagram ad.

Key takeaways:

• Use symbols in your ad design – Including positive symbols such as a growth curve in your ad design will make your audience remember you with positive emotions.
• Include numbers in your ad design – Research shows that by starting your headline with a number, you’re 36% more likely to have people click on your ads. Numbers draw attention.
• Address your users in the ad – By asking “UI/UX DEsigner” in the image, MeetFrank’s ad gets the attention of everyone who feels themselves addressed.

#5: Rains

What makes this ad good?

Being an apparel brand, it’s increasingly important for Rains to show their product in the best light. To showcase their products, Rains has created an Instagram carousel ad that features 3 different images (notice the three blue dots under the ad image). Moreover, the ad image’s size is in an interesting format, resembling a portrait photo rather than square image.

Key takeaways:

• Create Instagram carousel ads – Include more than one image in your ad to show multiple products within a single ad.
• Use professional photographs – If you’re planning to advertise a photo ad image, make sure these look professional. You can hire a photographer to help you out.
• Test portrait images – Instagram allows advertisers to set up ad images in portrait formats. Use this option to take up more space in the newsfeed.

#6: Zaful

What makes this ad good?

This Instagram ad example by Zaful caught our eye due to the original way of dividing the ad image into several pictures, creating a mosaic effect. That’s a smart idea to showcase different sides/elements of your product in a single ad image. You can also use it as a Facebook advertising hack.

Key takeaways:

• Test mosaic images – If you want to show multiple aspects of your product, test dividing your ad image into multiple image blocks.
• Combine mosaics with carousel ads – You could use the mosaic-style image as the first card in your Instagram carousel ad, and then include each mosaic image in a closeup as individual carousel ad images.
• Use hashtags – Instagram is all about hashtags. Did you notice the #FreeShipping hashtag in the ad text? Using hashtags will make your ad feel more like it belongs on Instagram.

#6: The Dots

What makes this ad good?

The Dots’ Instagram ad combines a colourful background image with in-image value proposition. While the in-image copy is a little bit difficult to read due to low contrast, it looks sleek and in balance with other ad elements.

Key takeaways:

• If you use stock photos, use good ones – Sometimes, it pays off to use a stock photo in your Instagram ads. However, do not include an overused free stock photo. Make sure people haven’t seen your ad image before.
• Mention your customers – Listing your well-know business customers’ names in the ad copy helps to increase trust in your brand. Note that this tactic requires the approval from your clients.
• Select the right call-to-action – Instagram allows you to select between several CTAs. Use the call-to-action that’s closest to your goal (if you want people to buy something, use the “Shop Now” CTA, etc.)

#7: The Kooples

What makes this ad good?

Here’s another Instagram ad example featuring apparel. Notice how the photographs have been taken by a professional photographer, showing the clothes in good light. Moreover, the ad copy lets the viewer know that there’s a SALE going on, increasing the ad’s click-through rate.

Key takeaways:

• Use emojis – Include emojis in your ad copy to make your ads more interesting. Read how to use emojis in your Facebook ads.
• Add up to 10 carousel cards – Do not limit yourself to 2-3 carousel ad cards – you can add up to 10.
• Add a different link to each image – When setting up your carousel ads, you can make each image to direct to a different link. Use this option to direct people to the correct product’s landing page.

#8: 8fit

What makes this ad good?

8fit’s Instagram ad image looks like it’s taken directly from a health blogger’s Instagram page. That’s the key to their potential audience’s hearts. If you’re advertising a lifestyle brand, use images that showcase your product in normal settings, so that people can imagine themselves using it.

Key takeaways:

• Copy successful Instagram accounts – No, we’re not suggesting that you copy their posts one-to-one. That would be plagiarism. But do copy them in terms of style.
• Write actionable ad copy – Use words like “Use,” “Get,” “Start,” etc. to indicate that people are supposed to take action on your Instagram ad.

#9: MindTitan

What makes this ad good?

This Instagram ad example by MindTitan is not here to sell – it’s focused on attracting talent and getting them to join the company. Instagram is a great platform for advertising your job offers – an opportunity that’s often overlooked by companies. Moreover, the ad states a question in the ad image, nudging people’s minds to answer “Yes” or “No,” and getting them engaged in the first few seconds.

Key takeaways:

• Test Instagram ads for hiring – In addition to promoting your product on Instagram, you can use it to reach talented people.
• Ask a question in the ad image – This will get more people hooked to your Instagram ad, and they will also read the rest of your ad copy.
• Use branded ad design – If you want your ads to be associated with your brand, it’s a good idea to create Instagram ad images that use your branded colours and design elements.

#10: Facebook Audience Network

What makes this ad good?

Instead of trying to sell you anything, this Instagram ad starts with a content marketing offer – an informative article. Facebook Audience Network is using the Instagram ad to keep their customers – marketers – informed about the upcoming features and changes.

Key takeaways:

• Use Instagram ads for promoting content – Especially in B2B sales, it’s important to start with a soft sell, and slowly turn your leads into paying customers.
• Mix icons and symbols – An easy way to create a custom Instagram ad design is to download some free icons and symbols and use Illustrator or Photoshop to mix them together into a good-looking ad image.

If you want to learn more about Instagram advertising, check out this in-depth guide: Instagram Advertising – Always Up-to-date Guide (2018 Edition)

#11: UsabilityHub

#12: Airbnb

#13: Blinkist

#14: Poketo

#15: Brooklinen

#16: Foreo

#17: Cofounders Lab

#18: Squarespace

#19: Deloitte Baltics

#20: The Dots

#21: Kickstarter

#22: Facebook Marketing Developers

#23: Workplace by Facebook

#24: Ohheygirl Store

#25: Folsom & Co

#26: Freefly Systems

#27: Getdesignrr

#28: Gurushots

#29: Harvard Business Review

#30: Hisuperhi

#31: H&M

#32: Hyatt

#33: Inch2

#34: Jason Squire smm

#35: Jon Loomer

#36: British Journal of Photography

#37: Aceroix

#38: Architonicag

#39: Asanarebel

#40: Alex la Rigato

#41: Udemy

#42: Alexander Wang NY

#43: Azalea’s Boutique

#44: LIFT99

#45: Makery

#46: Masterclass

#47: Flachsmann Watches

#48: Gagosian Gallery

#49: Nortal

#50: Nosto

#51: Olive Clothing

#52: Onelive

#53: Cbyloredanapinasco

#54: Origin

#55: Out in London

#56: Paradise Amsterdam

#57: Parts of 4

#58: Pelacase

#59: Pexel Photos

#60:Black Mirror Fans

#61: Rains

#62: Reserved

#63: Rise of the Kings

#64: Scoro

#65: Frontrow

#66: Shopify

#67: STAC

#68: Stitch and Story

#69: Studio Living

#70: Bold Tuesday

#71: Sugar and Cotton

#73: Taxify

#74: Tentree

#75: The Horse

#76: Trvl

#77: Two Dots

#78: Udemy

#79: Venngage

#80: Vidcon

#81: Mvmforher

#82: Web Summit

#83: Wizzair

#84: Your Plug Clothing

Conclusion

Now that you’ve quickly scrolled through all the Instagram ad examples in this article, you definitely have some great new ideas.

If you want to learn even more about creating efficient Facebook and Instagram ads, check out this guide: 215+ Best Facebook Ad Examples (2025 Update)

The post 80+ Best Instagram Ad Examples (2025 update) appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

While setting up your Instagram Business account is a fairly straightforward process, it is best if you follow each of the important steps.

In this chapter of the 8-chapter Instagram Advertising Guide, you will learn:

• What is an Instagram for Business account?
• What are the benefits of having an Instagram Business account?
• How to create an Instagram account for your business?
• How to set up an Instagram advertising account
• What are the best practices for account setup on Instagram?

What Is an Instagram Business Account?

Many marketers make the mistake of managing their brand’s Instagram account as a regular account. However, they’ll be missing out on some great features available with Instagram for Business.

By creating an Instagram Business account, you can:

• See real-time insights into how your stories and promoted posts perform throughout the day
• Learn additional information about your followers and how they interact with your posts and stories
• Include more information about your company like business hours, location and phone number
• Set up Instagram advertising campaigns and see your Instagram ad reports
• You can also promote any posts you’ve shared, and include a button like “Learn More”, to reach new potential customers

Up next, you will find the step-by-step instructions for setting up your Instagram Business account.

How to Create an Instagram Account for Your Business

Step 1: Download and launch the Instagram app

Download the Instagram app for iOS from the App Store, Android from Google Play store or Windows Phone from the Windows Phone Store. Once the app is installed on your mobile phone, tap to open it.

Step 2: Sign Up for Instagram

Tap on “Sign Up”, then enter your email address and tap “Net”t, or tap “Log in with Facebook” to sign up with your Facebook account.

Step 3: Create a business profile

Within the Instagram app, find settings, then scroll down and tap on “Switch to Business Account”. Here, you can link your Instagram account to a Facebook Page.

Once you’ve changed to a business account, you can add additional business information like store hours, business address or a phone number.

Note: Currently, a Business Profile on Instagram can only be connected to a single Facebook Page.

Step 4: Start posting!

Now that you’ve set up your Instagram Business account, it’s time to make your first post!

You can also set up Instagram ad campaigns right after you’ve completed creating your Instagram advertising account that’s linked to your Facebook Page.

Read more: 84 Best Instagram Ad Examples in 2018 From TOP Brands

[convertkit_form form=”7742777″]

How to Add Your Instagram Account to Facebook Business Manager

In order to start advertising on Instagram, you need a Facebook advertising account and a Facebook Page.

You do not necessarily need a Facebook Business Manager account. However, if you’d like to review and respond to the comments on your ads, you’ll need to add an Instagram account to your Business Manager.

To add your Instagram account to your Facebook Business Manager, follow these steps:

1. Go to your Facebook Business Manager
2. On the left side of the page, click “Business Settings” and “Instagram Accounts”
3. Click on “Claim New Instagram Account”
4. Add your username and password, then click “Next”
5. To authorize one or more of your ad accounts to use the Instagram Account, check the box next to each ad account and hit the “Save Changes” button

If you don’t have a Facebook Business Manager account yet, here’s how you and set it up.

How to Set Up an Instagram Advertising Account on Facebook

There is no individual Instagram Ads Manager that you can use. Instagram ads are managed with the same tools as Facebook ads:

• Facebook Ads Manager
• Facebook Power Editor
• Facebook’s Marketing API

In addition to these four options, you can also advertise by using:

• The Instagram app
• Instagram Partners

To set up a Facebook advertising account, follow these guidelines:

1. Open your Business Manager Settings.
2. Under the People and Assets tab, click on “Ad Accounts”
3. On the right side of the page, select “Add New Ad Accounts”
4. Choose one of the 3 options: “Claim Ad Account”, “Request Access to an Ad Account” or “Create a New Ad Account”
5. If you choose to request access or claim an ad account, enter the ad account ID. (Learn where to find the account ID)

To add your Instagram account to your Facebook advertising account, follow these steps:

1. Go to your Business Manager
2. Click on “Business Settings” and then “Instagram Accounts”
3. Click on the Instagram account you’d like to assign an ad account to
4. Click “Assign Ad Accounts”
5. To authorize one or more of your ad accounts to use the Instagram Account, check the box next to each ad account and hit the “Save Changes” button

How to Add New Users to Your Instagram Ads Account

If you’re working with a marketing team or an advertising agency, you may need to give them access to your Instagram for Business account.

Note that in order to add new users to your Instagram Business account, you have to have an admin access to the Facebook Page related to Instagram account.

If you’re already using the Facebook Business Manager (which you really should), here’s how to give new people editing access to your Instagram account:

1. Open your Business Manager settings
2. Go to the “People” section and select the person you want to give Instagram account access to or click on “Add New People” to add new users
3. Click on “Assign Assets” and select either “Pages,” “Ad Accounts,” or “Product Catalogs”
4. Select the specific assets you’d like to share access to and choose a role
5. Hit the “Save Changes” button.

There’s a large set of different roles that you can assign to your colleagues and partners.

Team members: If you want to add your team members to your Instagram account, you should assign them the “Page editor” role.

Ad agency: When working with an advertising agency that doesn’t manage your Instagram posts, assign them the “Page advertiser” role.

Once you’ve completed the Facebook Business Manager account setup and invited your team members to manage your Instagram Business account, you’re all set.

Now, all you need to do is nail your Instagram targeting and Facebook ad design to get a high ROI out of your campaigns.

Congrats! You’re ready to go!

Now that you’ve successfully created your Facebook Business Manager account and linked it to your Instagram Business account, you can start seeing more insights and create your first Instagram campaign.

Proceed to learning the step-by-step guidelines for creating your first Instagram campaign by using one of these three tools:

• Facebook Ads Manager
• Facebook Power Editor
• Instagram’s app

Additional reading:

• From 0 to Results. How to Set Up Low-Budget Facebook Campaigns

The post Instagram for Business Guide – 2025 Update appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

In 2018, Instagram Stories exceeded Snapchat in DAU. Facebook had the toughest year ever. (But nonetheless remains the foremost destination for marketers looking to reach a wide audience at arguably low cost)

For me, 2018 was the most eventful year ever. A year ago, I was freelancing for several startups while growing this blog. 12 months forward, my focus has shifted 110% to working with Taxify’s marketing team. (We’ve grown from 10 people to 30 in just one year, and we’re hiring 🤭) From attending for the first time Cannes Lions festival to last-minute panic-troubleshooting a large-scale marketing operation with Taxify’s French team, 2018 presented plenty of opportunities for learning and growth.

This said…

I took a look back at all the marketing projects I contributed to in 2018 and realised there were some interesting key learnings, potentially useful for other marketers.

Heads-up: a lot of what I thought to be efficient in marketing turned out to work the opposite way. And there’s a surprising amount of obvious best practices that no marketing blogs write about. Go figure…

So, without further ado, here are some of my key insights from 2018 that might be useful to you as well:

1. Facebook ads get over-optimized all the time. You’ll get better results when you let them run in peace.
2. Run more-more-more A/B tests about every aspect of your marketing activities. 90% of them fail, 10% will improve your results signifcantly.
3. Measure everything you do. Yes, even things you think will obviously work. Because sometimes, they don’t.
4. Facebook video ads don’t work (a shocker!). It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Read point 4 of the article for further explanation.
5. If you spend your time on marketing campaigns, also spend your 💸 on promoting them. + Focus on one big campaign rather than ten small ones.
6. Create all marketing campaigns, ads, emails, web assets, etc. first for mobile. Get over your desktop-skewed views.

If this list just sounded a bit click-bait-ish, you will find a more in-depth explanation on each of the learnings below.

+ I also did some digging in my notebooks and bookmarks, resulting in a list of the nice stuff I’ve been listening, watching, and reading in 2018. Scroll to the very end of the article for that.

1. Leave ad optimisation to the algorithms

If you’re using online ad channels to promote your product, you likely spend most of your 💸 with Facebook and Google.

Both Facebook and Google have increased their ad placement inventory significantly in 2018. Facebook recently added Facebook Stories ads on top of its existing placements while Google is expanding its Youtube video ad inventory.

Just take a look at all the Facebook ad placement options available in December 2018. A year ago, there were so much fewer ad placements to choose from…

On one hand, advertising on Facebook and Google is getting increasingly difficult.

You need quite a specialised marketing experience to play around with all the targeting, optimization, and placement options of main online ad platforms.

But there’s also good news – 2018 also brought about a wider use of AI and Machine Learning.

So…

Should you build an AI bot to do the Facebook advertising for you? – No.

Should you use third-party online tools that claim to optimise your ad campaigns for you. – No.

Just let Google and Facebook algorithms do their magic.

One of the articles I wrote in 2018 and like most is the one explaining that you don’t need to over-optimise your Facebook campaigns. Just let Facebook’s algorithms do it for you.

What happens if you optimise your Facebook ad campaign’s delivery schedule, placements, narrow down the targeting to 10k people or less?

I’ve mostly seen this happening:

So how can you set up Google and Facebook ad campaigns that will reach a wide audience interested in your product?

Try these best practices:

1. Spend at least $20/daily per every new ad set – algorithms need a lot of conversions to optimise your campaigns.
2. Optimise ad delivery on the right events – if you’re working with low budgets, optimise on landing page views. If you get at least 10 down-the funnel conversions daily per ad set, optimise on signups, etc.
3. Set up a single ad campaign with a single ad set and 1-3 ads while resisting the urge to fragment your campaigns into scattered low-budget ad sets. This applies to low-budget Facebook ad campaigns.
4. Don’t A/B test too many elements at once – you won’t have enough results to conclude the test. Here’s my take on Facebook ad A/B testing.
5. Don’t worry too much about the ad placements, custom delivery schedule, and manual bidding. Use Facebook’s default settings for all these things.
6. Set up Facebook Pixel to track your campaign’s results and optimise your ad campaigns on conversions. (So that algorithms can learn which type of audience converts on your offer and deliver it to more similar people)
7. Don’t make changes to your online ad campaigns too often. Adjust your campaigns 24h after setting them up (in case they’re not delivering yet), then let them run for 7 days minimum before making any further edits.

So, to wrap this up: don’t panic when your Facebook ad campaigns are not delivering amazing results 2h after publishing the campaign. Let them run for a while so that algorithms can start working their magic.

2. Run more A/B tests – 90% will fail, 10% will be game-changers

As someone lately explained to me, having 10 x 0.7% incremental improvements in your ad campaigns’ conversion rates results in 2x total improvement.

If you want to improve your marketing results, keep A/B testing new approaches.

However, be prepared to get demotivated once your tests show no significant improvement.

I ran 50+ A/B tests in 2018 and most of them showed either no improvement or negative results.

Quite disappointing, huh?

But that’s just fine.

The remaining 10% of A/B tests brought learnings that improved our marketing results big-time.

There’s an almost infinite pool of things to A/B test. And if you’re working with considerably low marketing budgets, you’re limited to a small number of tests.

So. What should you and what shouldn’t you test?

In my experience, the biggest improvements will come from optimising your online ad visuals. That kind of makes sense – your ad image is the first thing to catch people’s attention. (Also, the first thing that can cause ad fatigue is when people see the same visual over and over again for 10+ times.)

So, start by testing your ad visuals.

At Taxify, testing new ad visuals goes hand-in-hand with updating our branding.

This nonetheless means that you should ONLY test the visual side.

Think about your online ad campaigns as a collection of many different aspects, each contributing to the conversion – your ad image and copy, but also the landing page and later user experience of your product… And the emails you send out. Be on the lookout for ways to improve each step of the conversion funnel.

And don’t just assume that all the best practices shared across marketing blogs work in your case! We’ve discovered many best practices to be either useless or damaging to campaign performance.

Read more: 10 Best Practices for Facebook Ads A/B Testing

3. Measure EVERYTHING, especially the obvious stuff

“I know this is going to work!”

Of course every marketer thinks that, especially after reading some article about best practices.

Next thing you know, you’ve paused some of your old ads or implemented a big change on your website, without setting up any measurement test to confirm if it really works.

Not good.

Every time you change your email layout, add some new ad visuals or rewrite copy on your website, add to your to-do list a task to come back and check if it improved the results.

E.g. when I set up an A/B test on Facebook Ads Manager, I add to my calendar a note 2+ weeks ahead to return to the campaign and check the outcome.

Same goes about social media posts, emails, website changes, etc. – if you think a change will improve the results, make sure that it actually does.

Most of the time, you won’t probably see an improvement. What should you do in this case?

1. If the old and new version work on the same level (or there’s less than 2% difference) and you think the latest one better reflects your branding and messaging, keep it.
2. If there’s no big difference between the two options, keep the old version and start another A/B test to find another way to improve your results.

Another thing I’ve noticed: the bigger the difference between two tested A/B test variations, the more you will learn. Best to avoid A/B tests with very tiny variations in tested elements.

4. Key Learnings on 2018 about Facebook Ads

All the brands I worked with in 2018 run some Facebook Ad campaigns. It’s the easiest channel to get started with.

Also, having my Instagram and Facebook feeds flooded with ads by both local and global brands has been a perfect chance to learn what’s working.

Seriously – don’t underestimate scrolling your Instagram feed just to learn what other brands are doing.

Try this for 1 week, daily: Scroll through your Instagram feed. Take screenshots of all the ads you see. Put these to a G Drive folder or wherever you store your information. After 1 week, take a look at all the examples and write down the best practices you can use to improve your own ad visuals and copy.

You will end up with a personal gallery of Facebook ad ideas.

PS: If you’re interested, here are 142 Facebook ad examples I collected some time ago.

As this blog’s already full of Facebook ads best practices, I didn’t want to spend too much space listing new hacks & tips. Here’s a quick list of my new observations from 2018:

1. Facebook video ads don’t work – Yes, it’s an exaggeration. But with all the blogs and Facebook itself promoting the video ads to be the golden nugget of online advertising, I have yet to see video ads outperforming static ads. For sure, you should test if video ads work for you. Just make sure to measure their performance against single-image ads.

1. Prefer broad audiences – When setting up Facebook ad campaigns, leave your audience targeting as broad as possible. If you’re selling a consumer-focused product, you can even test targeting entire countries at a time – algorithms will deliver your ads to the most relevant audience.

3. Optimise your Facebook ad sets on right conversions – Whether you optimise your ad delivery on link clicks, signups, or purchases will have a huge impact on your results. If you have a high volume of down-the-funnel events, optimise your ad delivery on those instead of link clicks.

4. Use automatic placements – Yes, there’s an option to exclude some ad placement from your Facebook campaigns. However, it’s much more efficient to use auto-placements and, once again, let the algorithms decide what’s the best channel for showing your ads.

4. Use both illustrations and stock images – When it comes to ad visuals, it’s a good practice to use a mix of illustrations and stock images as different people relate to different images. Pro tip: using numbers in your ads will also help to improve results.

6. Create Lookalike Audiences – If you’re starting to advertise in a new country, it’s a very good idea to create a Custom Audience of your existing TOP customers all over the world, then create a local 5%-10% Lookalike Audience based on that. Simultaneously, set up a broad targeting ad set as it will at some point likely overperform the Lookalikes’ ad set (once you’ve reached all the people in the audience).

5. Value your time more and put 💸 into promoting each campaign

At Taxify, we do lots of fun marketing campaigns to engage with our riders and drivers.

Some of the most recent marketing campaigns include a Halloween giveaway, TOP drivers’ event in France, social media Advent Calendar, and more.

As you might imagine, a lot of time goes into planning and executing some of those campaigns.

But no matter how awesome those campaigns are, you’ll be missing out on a lot of potential if you just execute them without proper promotion.

What I mean by this is that when you’re doing a cool marketing campaign, e.g. a social media post in partnership with another brand, don’t stop by posting to your Facebook page. Make sure that you make enough noise for people to actually notice you campaign. You could do that by informing all your users via email, boosting your social media post for a higher budget, running online ads campaign to support the campaign, or use all of the aforementioned tactics combined. (And that’s so not the definitive list of things you can do to amplify your campaigns’ reach)

On a similar subject, don’t spend your time doing small marketing activities that have a very low reach and ROI.

Rather than execute 10 tiny social media campaigns or partnerships, focus on one bigger campaign that will truly engage your audience and will have a higher reach than all those 10 small marketing activities combined.

6. Create everything mobile first

How much of your work do you do on desktop? Around 100%, right?

This means that you view all the marketing campaigns, emails, websites, etc. that you’re working on from the desktop perspective.

Now, guess where your potential audience spends their time?

Mostly on mobile.

People read your emails on mobile, view your Facebook ads on mobile, browse your website on mobile…

Even this blog has a significant share of mobile traffic.

And you really need to remember the mobile-first approach every time you’re working on a marketing campaign. If you forget about it, here’s what happens:

• Your email visuals that looked amazing in your desktop inbox are unreadable on mobile
• Your website that was built looking at the desktop version is not fully mobile-responsive
• Your online ads with copy in the image look overcrowded on mobile devices, resulting in low CTR and conversions

So really… 📍📍📍 Create for mobile first, and then make sure it also looks nice on desktop.

Cool articles, websites, blogs, books, podcasts and whatever

While it’s difficult to remember all the good stuff I’ve read in 2018, here are some of the nice books, articles, websites, blogs, books, podcasts I discovered.

Books:

• How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know by Byron Sharp – this was recommended by a team member at Facebook’s Marketing Partners team as “the one book that all brand marketers have read.” I’m halfway through it, but it has been really informative this far
• Sprint by Jake Knapp – I read it earlier, but the brainstorming sessions we did in 2018 based on the book’s suggestions all turned out to be amazingly productive
• Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy – written in 1985, still highly relevant. Definitely worth your time more than any of the 2018 books on buyer personas and other random stuff

Most business books are similar in that they take 1-2 really good ideas that could be explained in a couple of pages… And turn those into a 200+ page book.

So what’s the point of reading these at all?

For me at least, the point of business books is not as much in learning a particular best practice. It’s more about the brainstorming that runs on the background while reading a well-written book. It kind of makes your mind wander and makes new ideas on how to improve your teamwork, marketing campaigns, etc. pop up – completely independently of what the book is teaching you.

• Art Is Work by Milton Glaser – As explained by Amazon: “A lavishly illustrated, oversized retrospective of one of history’s most influential figures in international design evaluates the role of art in business today… documenting the creative processes of several of his works.” – note the part about “documenting the creative processes” – the book gives you a nice perspective on how to approach design work – any work for that matter
• Joan Didion & Tom Wolfe – two writers who popularised the literary journalism movement throughout 60s and 80s. My favourite kind of fiction to read.

If you want to grow into a better marketer, reading just business books is not going to cut it. Differentiate your reading list with good fiction and art/design books to build your creative ideation and copywriting skills.

Newsletters & podcasts:

• Benedict Evans, Andrew Chen, Next Draft (newsletters) – three main newsletters I actually open and read. I’m sure there are plenty of other good ones I’m not aware of tho. Please share!
• Tim Ferriss (podcast) – not all of it is worth a listen, but check out the conversations with Seth Godin (another one), Nick Kokonas, and Naval Ravikant
• The Design Better podcast by DesignBetter.co – I just got started with this one and while it’s about UX and UI design, a lot of the principles used in design are applicable to marketing and teamwork in general
• Overtime Design podcast by Dribbble – If you feel like you’ve already heard everything discussed in marketing podcasts, switch to design podcasts

Online marketing resources and design galleries:

• Facebook Active Ads (Facebook ads run by any brand) – In case you missed the train, Facebook added an option to see all the ads run by any advertiser in any country. Just go to your competitors’ Facebook pages and check out what ads they’re running. 👀
• Really Good Emails (online email design gallery) – a super informative overview of the marketing emails sent by well-known brands
• Land-book (online web design gallery) – I worked on two website design projects in 2018. Both times I returned to Land-Book for inspiration and latest UI hacks
• Good Web Design (online web design gallery) – Another amazing gallery for anyone working on website design, This one’s more focused specific UI elements, e.g. CTA buttons, Pricing pages, and so on
• Dribbble, Designspiration, Behance (online design galleries) – for fresh ideas whenever u run out of them

Blogs & magazines:

• First Round Review (blog) – one of my favourite blogs featuring interview-style articles by managers and CEOs from top companies
• The New Yorker, The Atlantic, (magazines) – if reading amazing reportages and essays from some of the best writers in the world is not a good enough reason for you, consider it an investment in perfecting your English copywriting skills. Best read on paper. 👌
• The Purple Magazine, Frieze (magazines) – artsy magazines for great interviews (The Purple) and art inspiration (Frieze)
• IdN Magazine – I spotted an issue of the magazine in a Paris museum bookstore, ordered a bunch of these when back at home, and found some nice design and campaign ideas. These magazines look sooo beautiful.
• Trendhunter – I check this site way too rarely, but it’s a great go-to place for the latest cool stuff happening in branding

As you might have noticed, I didn’t read much marketing blogs. I’ve come to a conclusion it’s best to learn by doing.

Which is the perfect note to wrap up this year and this article.

But before that… the “I’d like to thank my mom” moment… To the marketing team at Taxify and guys at MeetFrank and MindTitan – I’ve had a truly great year together with you! 🙌

The post 2018 In Review – Key Learnings on Facebook Ads & Marketing in General appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

The potential audience of 2.19 billion monthly active Facebook users suggests that it is.

Can bad social media copywriting lower your chances of reaching more potential customers across Facebook’s platform?

Yes. It can.

There’s even a big difference in how mediocre v.s. well-written social media posts perform.

Thing is, you’re probably not spending half as much time on writing copy for social media posts than you would spend on developing a print campaign’s messages.

If you’re already going to say something as a brand, why not do it well?

Tens of Facebook ads and social media posts will eventually contribute to the general perception of your brand. The messages you use across your Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns can make a big difference in your ads’ ROI. (Naturally, there are also other important factors to your campaign’s success such as design and ad bidding, but copy is liable for part of the success.)

To make a point here, compare these two (hypothetical) ads:

They both look ok. I bet the ad on the left would get the company some results.

However, by adding some small extra touches and making your copy more user-focused, you’ll have a chance to increase your click-through-rates and conversions.

I mean… Nobody cares that your tool is New and Awesome. 🙄 (This line was taken from an actual SaaS Facebook ad.)

So how can you write copy that people will care about? That they will click on? That they’ll remember?

1. Know what you want to say

Kind of obvious, isn’t it?

However, take a look at the branded posts in your Facebook newsfeed. Many of them sound like someone just wanted to fill the box with “some copy.”

Here’s what often happens: By the time you’re posting a social media post or a Facebook ad, you’ll have an image/URL ready and you just need to add the copy + hit the “publish button.”

What’s wrong with the image-first kind of approach is that…

1. You won’t have an ad/post design that delivers your messages in the most efficient way.
2. Your ad copy won’t be focused on delivering the most important message.

As I don’t want to focus on negative examples, here are a couple of GOOD Facebook ad examples that have the messaging and design in place:

Why is this Sonarworks ad good?

• It has the key value proposition right in the ad image – the first thing people will read
• It clearly states what the advertised product does
• It focuses on a benefit that people care about
• It has a clear call-to-action

Here’s one more example:

Why is this Virgin America ad good?

• It focuses on a special deal and it’s already advertised in the ad image
• This ad features an offer people care about
• It lists all relevant information about the offer

Both designing and copywriting for social media posts should start by defining your key message – that’s something that also many marketing books emphasize..

Here’s the best way to plan your social media post’s content:

• Step 1: Plan what you want to say
• Step 2: Plan the exact wording
• Step 3: Develop the post’s design
• Step 4: Upload and publish your message

I think it’s an appropriate moment to recall one more important rule…

2. If you have nothing to say, don’t say anything

If you have to choose between quality v.s. quantity, opt for quality.

Of course, in the perfect world, you would have a lot of important things to say about your brand, product, and its users.

So what should this message be? And how to make people care about it?

3. Make it about the customer, not your company

Many marketers make the mistake of writing about their product’s features.

People don’t care about your product per se.

They care about how it will benefit them.

As the marketing legend D. Ogilvy put it: “Each advertisement must say to each reader: “Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.””

He definitely followed his own principle when writing this advertisement for Sears. Furthermore, notice that the ad focused on savings and the ad image also calls for the attention of people who are interested in monetary savings.

Once you know the value proposition that you want your ads to focus on, you’ll have a clear path for writing relevant copy.

How to find a good audience-message fit?

Interviewing your existing users can give a good overview of what people care most about your product. You can also A/B test various ad messages to uncover what resonates with your audience.

For example, we tested many different ad messages with MeetFrank until we found one that people were most interested in: potential raise on their new job position.

4. Address various audiences

Remember that you may have more than one target audience that you want to address with different messages.

For example, you could advertise/communicate in social media to potential new customers, your existing customer base, your fans, etc. All of these target groups have various interests and thereby require a different messaging strategy.

• New potential customers (a cold audience that hasn’t heard about your product before) need to be informed about your product’s main benefit to them.
• Existing customers might be more interested in how to get additional value out of your product, they’re also more prone to react to upsell and discount offers.
• Your brand’s diehard fans will engage with branded posts, even if it’s just a fun fact/post about your company.

For example, this Facebook post by Slack is not relevant to people who don’t know about their work collaboration software. However, it engages their existing users and fans.

When it comes to Facebook ads, you can set up multiple campaigns that target different audiences. Similarly, you can publish social media posts and boost them to specific audience segments.

Read more about Facebook retargeting campaigns here.

5. Include important information only

Copywriting for Facebook is different from typing an email or a blog article. You’re limited in the real-estate for copy.

A general rule applies to 99% of marketing copy (website, blog, email and ads, included: You should only focus on what’s relevant and avoid fillers lacking a real meaning.

For example, Intercom’s Facebook ad mentions their product’s benefits first thing.

How to catch people’s attention with your ad copy?

• Mention the key value proposition fast.
• Ask a question to get the reader hooked.
• Avoid long intros and get to your point fast.

And then there’s the option to get people to click on your ads/posts with clickbait.

However, do you want your brand to sound desperate or trustworthy?

6. Place your key message in the first sentence

Read this copy for a Facebook post:

As the summer’s right behind the corner, it’s time to update your wardrobe with some color! For the next 24h, everything’s 20% off in our online store. Wait no more!

Sounds legit, right?

However, what’s the key message of this post? – “The summer is near.”

That’s not what the company wanted to inform you about. So why did they place this information into the first sentence? Careless copywriting alert.

Let’s try to rephrase the ad copy:

Flash sale! Get 20% off everything in our online store! Time to bring some color to your summer wardrobe.

Now, the reader will immediately get the most important message.

7. Keep it short

One of my favourite website conversion rate optimization rules (I think it might have come from Peep Laja) is that every element on your website must contribute to the conversion. If it doesn’t, remove it.

The same rule applies to social media copywriting.

If a word/sentence doesn’t contribute anything new to your message, leave it unwritten.

As a result, you will have a clear copy that takes less time to read while delivering the key message faster. That’s pretty useful considering that people don’t have a remarkably long attention span these days.

Once you’ve written the first version of your ad/social media post copy, take a break, then review to remove any unnecessary wording. Also, reword complex sentences to make them short and easy to grasp.

The above sentence actually started as a longer version:

Another simple hack to make your copywriting more engaging is to…

8. Use active language

Intercom’s Facebook ad that you saw above had one key message that can be framed in several ways:

• Your customers can now be supported faster and smarter
• You can now support your customers faster and smarter
• Intercom helps you support your customers faster and smarter
• Support your customers faster and smarter (original)

If I had to choose, I would go with the original version. Why? Because it almost tells you to go and do it.

Using active language suggests that there is a logical action the reader should follow, nudging them to take that step.

Airbnb is using a question to get people’s attention and as they answer “yes” in their mind, they’re told to “choose from …”

This is a good formula for Facebook copywriting: Question + a logical solution.

9. Organize and format your copy

Sometimes, you’ve got a lot to tell. If you can’t cut anything out, look for ways to turn a long paragraph into well-structured copy.

For example, take this copy from a BarkBox Facebook ad:

1 day left! Get a free upgrade and get a bonus toy in every BarkBox for your entire subscription (up to a $150 value!) As a member of the Extra Toy Club, you’ll receive a monthly delivery of 3 mind-blowing toys, tailored to your dog’s size, 2 full bags of drool-worthy treats, and an all-natural chew.

That’s a looong copy to put into a single paragraph.

But then again, all of this information is potentially relevant to various readers.

What do? 🤷

Here’s how BarkBox solved the issue – by using caps lock, parentheses and a lot of numbers (easier to read than words).

Another way to accommodate more copy into the Facebook post format is to use bullet points (or emojis as bullet points) to list several benefits/services.

If MindTitan had listed all their services in a single line, separated by commas, it would be one hell of a difficult ad to read. It got a lot better as we organized the information into a formatted list.

Here are a few simple formatting-related copywriting hacks:

• Use caps lock to outline words like LIMITED TIME and FREE. (Too bad Facebook does not support bold copy in ads and posts.)
• Use line spacing to split long paragraphs into multiple text blocks.
• Use bullet points for listing several benefits or products.
• Insert emojis in Facebook ads/posts to catch more attention.

10. Write as if you were talking

Many people hear a voice in their head while reading.

If you’re one of them, know you’re not alone. According to one study, 82.5% of contributors said they did hear an inner voice when reading to themselves, 10.6% said they didn’t, and the status of the remaining contributors was unclear.

To make your copywriting easy to read, make it easy to pronounce.

You can literally read your Facebook post’s copy out loud to yourself (or use that inner voice) to see if it sounds natural in spoken word.

For example, this Facebook ad by MOO sounds natural when read out loud.

This Facebook ad by Harvest not so much.

How to make your ad copy sound more natural:

• Use short sentences that would be easy to read out loud.
• Use questions and exclamation marks to make your copywriting sound more alive.
• Use natural wording that’s not too complex (and avoid industry jargon)

Additional social media copywriting hacks

To focus on the benefit for the reader (you), to cut straight to the point, and to follow other best practices listed above, I’ll just share some small yet effective hacks as a list.

11. Make it interesting to read – use fun and irregular wording.

12. However, never sacrifice the meaning over fancy wording.

13. Avoid double meanings – your message should be straightforward.

14. Be consistent in your brand’s tone of voice across all messaging.

15. Have someone proofread your copy before you hit publish.

16. End with a strong call-to-action

Last not least, end every social media post and Facebook ad with a call-to-action. Let the reader know what’s the next step.

For example, Squarespace tells people to start a free trial. The New York Times might have benefitted from adding a “Sign up today to save 60%…” at the end of the ad copy.

Don’t leave the reader hanging there after seeing your ad.

Successful Facebook copywriting starts by knowing your audience, your message, and how to best frame it.

It ends by taking the reader one small step ahead in your marketing funnel.

The post Copywriting for Facebook and Social Media – How to Make Sentences Make Sense appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Campaign optimizations hacks like “A/B test a lot of different ads” or “set up a custom ad delivery schedule” sound awesome in theory, but do they really work in practice?

As someone who has managed hundreds of Facebook ad campaigns, my answer is “no.”

Or rather, “not exactly.”

That’s where this article is coming from, intended as…

1. A rant about micro-level ad optimization (from a previous advocate of such a practice)
2. A comforting guide to any marketer thinking that they’re not optimizing their campaigns enough (success lies elsewhere than optimization)
3. A warning sign to marketers who are overthinking their Facebook campaigns (to the extent that might ruin your campaign’s success)

But first, let’s make one thing clear…

I’m guilty as hell of promoting micro-level Facebook ad optimization.

I’ve written on this topic for a handful of business blogs, including Entrepreneur, Content Marketing Institute, AdEspresso, KlientBoost. The top Google Search results for “facebook ads optimization” are the cherries on top of my Facebook ads optimization articles cake.

The logical question to follow is… Are all these articles BS?

That’s not true either.

There’s the right place and time for each and every of those Facebook ad hacks.

Thing is, all Facebook ad hacks are not relevant to ALL campaigns.

How over-optimization may damage your Facebook campaigns

To make things a bit clearer, here’s a list of popular Facebook ad optimization hacks that marketing blogs suggest:

1. Set up a custom ad schedule, e.g. show your ads only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 5pm to 10pm.
2. Optimize your ad placement, e.g. let Facebook show your ads only on desktop or mobile, or remove the Audience Network placement.
3. A/B test your ad ideas, e.g. first test 10 different ad variations and later use the best-performing one.
4. Set up many different Custom Audiences, e.g. target people who are on your email lists.
5. Create Lookalike Audiences who are similar to your existing clients.

There are so many more of those! These three I found from a Social Media Examiner article that’s also a top Google Search result on the topic.

1. Set up a sales funnel and create a different campaign and messaging for prospects, clients, retargeting audiences, etc.
2. Monitor your ad frequency and when you see the frequency exceed 1.7, you better be careful!
3. Select the right bidding option, e.g. optimize for Link Clicks at the beginning of your campaign, then switch to Conversions.

Every time I read about such hacks I’m thinking “OMG I have to try them!”

And, well… I have tried them – tens of different optimization hacks.

Do they work?

Yes and no.

Sometimes, no optimization is better than over-optimization

Here’s the caveat – many Facebook ad optimization hacks are relevant only to high-volume campaigns.

In some respects, it would make sense that if you’re running a low-budget Facebook ad campaign, you need to save more money and optimize more.

That’s when over-optimization happens.

If you apply 10 different Facebook ad hacks to a campaign with a $100 – $1000 budget, you’re probably going to damage your campaign’s delivery and results.

Why?

Because you’re limiting your ad delivery to a way-too-small audience or ruling out potentially good ad placements.

Also, you’re likely to make frequent changes while optimizing your campaign (more than one change per every 24h) that are impairing the work of Facebook’s auto-optimization algorithms.

Not good.

So what is the silver bullet here?

A year ago, I would never have thought I’d come to saying this, but…

You should test running a campaign without using any optimization hacks.

Just test it for once.

Also, whenever you’re unsure what an optimization hack is meant for, don’t apply it to your campaign.

And while you’re not getting worked up about small things like which call-to-action buttons to test or which campaign placements to use, you’re going to save a lot of time!

The time you’re going to spare by not puzzling about campaign optimization, can be put into a lot better use.

Here are the two TRULY MAGICAL TRICKS that will make your ad campaign perform better than any micro-level optimization hack:

1. Figure out your product’s unique selling proposition (USP)
2. Create 2-3 (not 10) high-quality ad images

Believe me, both of these are easier said than done.

Figuring out your USP is a difficult task in today’s competition-heavy business world. The advertising legend David Ogilvy had some pretty good suggestions on this topic up his sleeve.

Regarding high-quality ad images, you can start by learning what’s working for other brands and gathering inspiration. Also, I suggest that you read this article about top Facebook ad design hacks. For inspiration, check out these Facebook and Instagram ad examples.

! No Facebook ad optimization hack is going to make your campaign succeed if you have boring ad messages and your images fail to catch attention.

Focus on initial campaign setup rather than optimization

The key to successful Facebook campaigns lies in well-done homework.

Before you go to the Facebook Ads Manager to set up your campaign, figure out what your campaign’s goals are.

Do you want to increase brand awareness or boost sales? Who is your most potential target audience? And so on…

Based on your campaign goals, you will know what kind of messaging and campaign objectives to use.

For example, if your goal is to get mobile app installs, you should use Facebook Mobile App Installs campaign objective.

I have explained my recommended Facebook campaign setup process in this article. Just a few key takeaways that you should keep in mind:

1. Spend at least $100-$200 per every new campaign – for less, Facebook auto-optimization algorithms won’t be able to optimize your ad delivery.
2. Set up a single ad campaign with a single ad set and 1-3 ads while resisting the urge to fragment your campaigns into scattered low-budget ad sets.
3. Don’t A/B test too many elements at once – you won’t have enough results to conclude the test. Here’s my guide to Facebook ad A/B testing.
4. Don’t worry too much about the ad placements, custom delivery schedule, and manual bidding. Use Facebook’s default settings for all these things.
5. Set up Facebook Pixel to track your campaign’s results and set up Facebook retargeting campaigns. IT’S A MUST-HAVE!

Once you’ve hit the “Publish” button, let your Facebook campaign run for at least 6h before making any conclusions. (In the perfect world, you’d let it run for at least 24h, but you probably can’t make yourself wait that long)

Optimizing you Facebook ads based on results

When it comes to optimizing your Facebook ads after publishing your ad campaign, it’s a whole different story.

Naturally, you should keep your eye on campaign results and if you don’t like what you’re seeing, take action.

In addition to other ad metrics that you consider important, you should definitely measure the COST-PER-RESULT. This is the one KPI that will tell you if you campaign’s doing well or not.

(I am not going to explain in this article how to save a badly performing campaign. But it’s for sure a topic I’d like to cover in the future.)

Ok… But returning to the discussion over Facebook ads optimization, there’s one last question I’d like to answer.

What about third-party Facebook advertising tools?

Today, there’s a software tool for everything, especially in the profitable industry that is Facebook advertising.

These tools are meant to help you with campaign setup and ads optimization.

Facebook ads management tool – Image source

Should you use a third-party Facebook advertising tool such as AdEspresso or Smartly?

The answer is a big “no.”

If you come to think of it…

• You don’t need a third-party tool for setting up your Facebook ad campaigns – Facebook has been adding new features to the Ads Manager and that it the fastest tool on the market for campaign setup (especially for small campaigns)
• Third-party tools also offer you suggestions for optimizing your campaigns, e.g. “pause this ad as it has a lower CTR” or “automatically increase the best-performing ad set’s budget.” Facebook’s auto-optimization algorithms do the exact same thing for free and they have thousands of times more training data than any third-party algorithm.

So instead of paying for a third-party Facebook ad management tool and hoping it will improve your campaign results…

Pay this money to copywriters and designers who will help you improve your ads and landing pages. You will get a significantly higher ROI out of the process. Also, check out this guide on copywriting for Facebook to write better Facebook ad copy.

P.S. if you have other arguments that I’m not aware of that justify the use of third-party advertising tools, I’d love to have a discussion.

When to use Facebook ad optimization hacks?

Look I’m not overly grumpy about Facebook ads optimization.

As I said before, there’s the right place and time for different hacks.

Here’s a list of popular Facebook ad hacks together with potential use cases. I hope this will help to clear up the picture.

Set up a custom ad schedule

This hack is relevant to products that people generally use at specific times of day. For example, a pizza delivery service could schedule their ads to show on Friday and Saturday nights, when people are most likely to order a pizza. If your product is used by people on a daily basis, there’s no point in scheduling your ads.

Optimize your ad placement

I would say that there is really no need case for this hack. That’s because Facebook will automatically show your ad on the most effective channels, optimizing for best results. This might be handy when your desktop landing page has a lower conversion rate that your mobile landing page or vice versa. In this case, you could show your ads either only on desktop or only on mobile.

Set up A/B tests

Split testing new ad ideas is definitely something you should do in the long term. However, if your campaign budget is lower that $100, it is best to use a single ad variation, so that Facebook’s algorithms can focus on optimizing the ad delivery, not the visual.

Set up Custom & Lookalike Audiences

Advertising to a Custom Audience is worth the effort when there are at least 100 people in it. Also, do not create Lookalike Audiences from Custom Audiences smaller than 100 people – less is usually not enough data for Facebook to identify the key characteristics of your Custom Audience and make relevant matches.

Monitor your ad frequency

There are other ad metrics more important than ad frequency, e.g. your cost-per-result. Checking your ad frequency is relevant when targeting small audiences (less than 10k people) while having high budgets – you likely don’t want people to see your ads more than 5 times per week.

Select the right bidding option

There are campaigns where optimizing for Link Clicks at the beginning of your campaign, then switch to Conversions is a good option. Switch to Conversion-based optimization once you have at least 50 conversions per ad set. If you’re planning to run a long-term campaign with high budgets and many conversions, you can select “optimize for Conversions” option right from the start.

Conclusion?

To sum this all up, here’s the verdict:

Facebook ad optimization hacks can be of huge help when applied to correct use cases.

Just use them responsibly – not piling them up on a single campaign but using them as fairy dust that you sometimes sprinkle on campaigns in need.

The post The Best Facebook Ad Optimization Hack is… No Optimization appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Why?

Imagine this scenario…

You’re advertising your product to a large group of people. But although they clicked on your ad and checked out product, they weren’t willing to make a purchase right away.

Now if you’re not running a retargeting campaign to bring those potential buyers back to your website, here’s what happens:

A competitor who’s more advanced in Facebook advertising will show their ads to your potential buyers and snap them away from right under your nose.

“Alright,” you say… “I get it. I’m in. How can set up a Facebook remarketing campaign?”

That’s exactly what this guide is for: to help you understand…

• … why Facebook remarketing campaigns work
• … how to set up your marketing funnel for remarketing
• … how to use Facebook ads for efficient marketing
• … how to set up Facebook retargeting pixel
• … how to create Custom Audiences on Facebook
• … and what are the best practices for Facebook retargeting campaigns

But in case you need some more convincing, here’s some additional proof.

Do remarketing campaigns really work?

Put briefly: they work 95% of the time.

And there’s plenty of proof that Facebook retamarketing ads can be highly effective.

An eMarketer study showed that 30% of consumers show a positive reaction to retargeted ads, while only 11% feel negative about retargeting campaigns.

Moreover, 58% of people surveyed said that they usually notice online ads for products they have previously checked out.

But there’s more to it…

A comScore study with ValueClick Media revealed that retargeting tactics generated the highest lift in trademark search behavior at 1,046%, compared to other targeting strategies.

To give you more Facebook-related examples, here are some key takeaways from some campaigns I’ve worked on:

• When promoting Aggregate blog’s Facebook posts to a warm audience vs. cold audience, our CPC for remarketing audience is usually 40% lower.
• When we advertised an HR application to an audience that had already read about the app, the CPI (cost-per-install) was 32% lower compared to a cold audience.

Facebook ads are highly efficient and applicable in almost every industry.

But in order to get the best results, you’ll need to build a marketing funnel with different offers for each stage.

How to create a (re)marketing funnel?

Marketing funnel is a technique used by marketers for getting a better overview of different audiences they have.

As Johnathan Dane from KlientBoost put it: Some of your audience members are ice cubes while others are hot as lava.

When running marketing campaigns for the first time, you will reach people who know nothing about your brand (ice cubes). After a while, there will be a new group of people who are already slightly familiar with your product and offers. People who are ripe to buy from you are the hottest (lava).

Each of the stages in your sales funnel requires a different set of messages and remarketing campaigns.

You can add as many steps into your marketing funnel as you please.

Here’s an example you can use as a model.

Let’s break down the stages in the traditional marketing funnel one by one.

Awareness – In the first stage of your advertising funnel, your Facebook campaign will be targeting people who have never heard of your product or service before. This is a regular ad campaign, not yet remarketing.

Prospects – Your first-stage Facebook retargeting campaign should be directed at people who have seen your ad or visited your website at least once.

Leads – This is an optional stage that includes people who have engaged with your website/posts/emails many times. You can but don’t necessarily need to set up a separate Facebook ad campaign for targeting this stage of the funnel.

Customers – In this funnel stage, you’re going to run a retargeting campaign that’s focused on engaging your existing customers. E.g. you could upsell or cross-sell something.

Promoters – This is also an optional stage that you can use to segment your brand’s fans and loyal users. From Facebook marketing perspective, you could advertise to them some special offers or promote news about your brand.

Ok, now that you’re aware of how to set up a marketing funnel for your Facebook retargeting ads, here’s what we’ll do:

1. We’ll learn how to set up the Facebook retargeting pixel and create Custom Audiences.
2. We’ll take a look at 8 efficient ad strategies that cover all the stages of your marketing funnel.

You can skip the first part if you already know how to set up Facebook remarketing campaigns, and go straight to the section with ideas and examples.

How to create a Facebook retargeting campaign?

To set up an ad campaign on Facebook, you need to know how the setup process works.

We’re not going to stop on it longer. But you can check out this guide on how to set up Facebook campaigns.

Assuming that you already have Business Manager and Facebook Ads Manager accounts set up, you will need to take the following steps:

1. Add the Facebook remarketing pixel on your website or app.
2. Identify your Facebook campaign’s goal.
3. Create a remarketing audience using Facebook Custom Audiences.
4. Set up an advertising campaign in the Ads Manager.

After all is said and done, you can sit back and wait for the sales to come in. And, if you do everything correctly, the sales will follow.

Tip: To add a retargeting campaign, you need to create a new ad set with a Custom Audience. You can create new Facebook campaigns or add new ad sets into a current campaign.

We’ll also cover the setup process for remarketing audiences later in this article.

How to set up Facebook retargeting pixel?

Facebook pixel is a tool that helps to track all your website visitors and on-site conversions. Without the pixel, you can’t create any remarketing audiences.

Facebook pixel allows you to target your ad campaigns on the people who have previously visited your website or a specific landing page.

To set up a Facebook remarketing pixel, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Facebook Business Manager, and navigate the top-left menu to find the “Pixels” section.

2. Click on the green “Create a Pixel” button to set up your first pixel.

3. Name your Pixel and click “Next”.

4. Add the pixel code to your website. Usually, it’s easier to copy-paste the pixel code to your website’s header section, just above the tag.

5. Verify that your pixel is working and recording on-site events.

If you want to learn even more about the Facebook pixel, here’s an in-depth guide I recently wrote for the AdEspresso blog.

After you’ve set up the pixel, Facebook will start tracking your website visitor data, and you can start targeting your website visitors.

Tip: Note that it may take a couple of days or even weeks until you have an audience big enough to create a Custom Audience.

According to Facebook, you need at least 20 people in your audience. In my experience, it’s better to have at least 1,000 people per target audience – otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of time creating a campaign that only reaches a handful of people.

How to create Facebook retargeting audiences?

The next big question you’ll run into is “How to set up my audiences?

First of all, it’s important to know that all remarketing audiences for your Facebook campaigns are targeting Custom Audiences.

What is a Custom Audience?

It’s a Facebook audience that’s based on people’s engagement with your brand.

For example, your Custom Audiences could include people who…

• … engaged with your Facebook Page, Facebook ads or Facebook posts
• … visited your website in the past 30 days
• … watched your videos on Facebook’s platform
• … read one of your blog articles
• … made a purchase on your website
• … added sth to their shopping cart on your website
• … signed up for a free trial on your website
• … took a specific in-app action in your application

There are many more options.

Are you already getting excited about all these low-hanging fruits?

Let’s see how you can set up all of these Custom Audiences from scratch.

How to create Facebook Custom Audiences?

To create new Facebook audiences, go to the Ads Manager and from the top-left menu, select “Audiences.”

On the Audiences page, you can see all your existing target audiences and create new ones.

From the “Create Audience” drop-down menu, select “Custom Audience.”

Next, you will have plenty of different options for creating a Facebook retargeting audience.

There have recently been many Facebook updates that made new audience types available to all advertisers.

As of January 2018, you have the following options:

You can create Facebook Custom Audiences based on:

Customer Files

Add a file with names and email addresses of your leads/customers that Facebook will match with their user base.

Website Traffic

That is the most widely-used option for Facebook retargeting campaigns. You can target…

• … everyone who visited your website
• … people who visited specific pages
• … users that spent a specific amount of time on your website

App Activity

This Custom Audience is relevant for advertisers running Facebook Mobile App Install campaigns. You can target…

• … the most active app users
• … users who made in-app purchased
• … people who have installed your app
• … users that have taken specific action in your app
• … users with a specific number of sessions

Offline Activity

You can also upload or import via API offline conversions to Facebook and match them with people on the platform.

Engagement

This audience type is based on how people engaged with your branded content on Facebook’s platform. You can target…

• … people who watched your videos on Facebook for specific time or % of video
• … people who opened/completed your Lead Ads’ lead form
• … people who engaged with your Facebook Canvas ads
• … people who engaged with your Facebook page/posts/ads
• … people who interacted with your Facebook events

Phew, that’s A LOT of options for retargeting on Facebook!

And we didn’t yet mention the fact that you can also exclude people from your Custom Audiences by using advanced targeting options.

However, the fact that you can use all of these Facebook remarketing options doesn’t necessarily mean that you need all of them.

A couple of well-defined Custom Audiences will do the job.

8 Facebook retargeting ideas that work

As said before, all advanced Facebook advertisers run some kind of retargeting campaigns.

Depending on your business type, there are many options to choose from, one more efficient than the other.

Up next, you will find 8 retargeting campaign ideas I’ve seen succeeding repeatedly.

#1: Start with a brand awareness campaign

The first step of every remarketing campaign is making the first touchpoint between people and your brand.

Before you can start campaign setup, you need to have an audience. And that’s why it’s good to start off with a brand awareness campaign.

The goal of your Facebook brand awareness campaign is to introduce your product to potential buyers and arise their interest.

For example, Packlane’s Facebook ad simply explains what their product is: Custom branded packaging.

You could also advertise a media article about your product, and later retarget the people who engaged with your Facebook page.

Do not try to immediately sell in the awareness stage. First, you need to get people’s attention with softer marketing tactics.

For example, MeetFrank’s advertising a Business Insider article about their secret recruitment app before launching other Facebook ad campaigns.

Need more ideas? Check out these 84 best Instagram ad examples.

How to set up the audience for awareness campaign?

Target a wide audience of 100,000+ people, and let Facebook’s auto-optimization algorithms find the best audience for you. Create a Saved Audience where you target people based on demographics, interests, and location.

How to increase your success rate:

• Make sure your Facebook ad clearly says what your product or service is.
• Lead people to your website, where you can track them with Facebook pixel.
• When sharing an article, write a fascinating headline that catches attention.
• Run the awareness campaign for 1 week or until you have a big enough remarketing audience.

This tactic works best for: All types of businesses, i.e. consumer products, business services, eCommerce, SaaS, mobile apps, etc.

#2: Retarget all your website visitors

After running a brand awareness campaign, you have a set of website visitors who have shown some interest in your product (or service).

That’s an opportunity for setting up your first retargeting campaign.

Important note! If you’re already getting thousands of daily web visits, you can get more specific with your remarketing audience segmentation. (See the next point.)

However, if you’re a small brand, you can start by showing the same ad to all your website visitors.

But what should you advertise?

If your product is consumer-facing and people make the purchase quickly, you could offer a slight discount to drive people back to your website/e-store. Here’s an example by TopShop:

When you’re doing marketing for SaaS or other B2B services, your sales funnel can be a little more complex.

Before a company purchases your product, they need to understand its value to their business. In this case, you could advertise a webinar introducing your product or a free trial period.

AdEspresso ran a 10-day Facebook ad campaign targeting Custom Audiences made of past 30-day website visitors.

As a person visited AdEspresso’s website, they were added to the retargeting ads campaign, and were offered a free eBook. As someone downloaded the eBook, they gave AdEspresso their email, and were entered into an email marketing campaign.

AdEspresso’s campaign is a good example of a multi-step lead nurturing strategy that turns cold leads into customers via constant Facebook advertising. Also, they managed to keep down their Facebook ads cost.

How to set up this remarketing audience:

To target all your past website visitors, create a Custom Audience based on website visits, and simply target all the people who have visited your domain.

How to increase your success rate:

• Advertise a compelling offer, e.g. a free giveaway, a discount or a free trial period.
• Make sure that your remarketing campaign’s frequency won’t get too high (keep it at the maximum of 10 ad views per every two weeks).
• Advertise blog articles, eBooks or webinars to make people more familiar with your brand and product.

Works best for: Consumer products, B2B products/services, eCommerce, SaaS.

#3: Retarget specific landing page visitors

If your website is getting a lot of traffic, you have a big enough audience pool to divide it into multiple segments.

By segmenting your remarketing audiences, you can create more relevant Facebook campaigns for each.

For example, if you’re selling multiple products, services or use cases that each have a different landing page, you can set up different ads with different messaging.

Let’s take MOO, for example – they sell business cards, branded stickers, notebooks, etc.

Instead of creating one remarketing campaign that tries to sell everything, they could…

• … advertise business cards to the people who visited a landing page about business cards.
• … advertise stickers to the people who visited a landing page about stickers, etc.

How to set up remarketing audience:

Create Facebook Custom Audience based on website visits, but instead of selecting all website visitors, only include the visitors of specific landing pages.

How to increase your success rate:

• Make your campaign’s offers specific to particular landing pages.
• Indicate what’s the next step – what do you want the person to do after clicking on your Facebook ad (Buy something? Start a free trial?)
• Exclude the people who have already converted on your offer, so that they won’t keep seeing your ads.

This tactic workd best for: SaaS and B2B products/services.

#4: Set up dynamic remarketing ads

If you’re running an eCommerce store, you don’t have to set up a different campaign for every single product on your website.

You can completely automate your campaign, and show people the exact product in your online store that they have previously looked up.

This Facebook feature is called Dynamic Product Ads.

The Dynamic Product Ads feature allows you to create an online product catalogue, and automatically create ads based on the products people check out on your website.

This makes it super easy to deliver super personalized Facebook ads. For example, like this ad by The Kooples:

According to a Facebook case study, the Honest Company saw a 34% increase in CTR and a 38% reduction in cost-per-purchase when using Dynamic Product Ads.

To create a Dynamic Product Ad, you’ll need:

• A Facebook Page
• A Facebook ad account
• A Facebook pixel installed on your website
• A Facebook catalog or another catalog of your products that’s hosted online through Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, or Magento.

How to set up this remarketing audience:

Facebook will automatically create a personalized ad for every person visiting your online store. You will need to set up a product catalogue and a campaign with the Catalogue Sales objective.

How to increase your success rate:

• Make sure your product catalogue features high-quality product photos.
• Make attractive offers, e.g. a limited-time discount.
• Make sure that you have the advertised products in stock, so that people won’t be left empty-handed.

This remarketing campaign type works best for: Large online stores with a wide selection of products.

#5: Advertise to your blog readers

In case you’re actively working on a branded blog, you can retarget people who have read particular blog articles.

For example, if you’re a grocery brand, you could first promote a blog article on Facebook, and later advertise your products to the people who read the blog article.

Here’s another example: Grammarly could promote an article about copywriting, and later advertise their grammar correction tool.

But what if you want to retarget to people who read other blogs?

With a third-party tool, this is possible as well. You can use a tracking tool like PixelMe that lets you retarget anyone who clicked on your link – even if it leads to another website. These tools are far from perfect in tracking all the clicks – you will get around 30-40% of people to your Facebook Custom Audience.

So basically, you can first create a high-quality audience by promoting another publication’s story, and then show these people your Facebook ads.

How to set up remarketing audience:

To set up a target audience of your blog visitors, create a Facebook Custom Audience based on website traffic, and target people who visited your blog page (use the slug “/blog” or whatever link best refers to your blog).

To remarket to people who clicked on your links to third-party blogs/websites, use a tracking tool.

Tips for retargeting blog visitors:

• Target people who have read more than one blog article – they are more engaged.
• Target readers of a specific blog article.
• Make sure that your Facebook ad is related to the article or blog that your audience previously read.

This tactic works best for: All brands with a blog, nut also brands that want to remarket to people interested in specific articles/websites not their own.

#6: Bring back shopping cart abandoners

Shopping cart abandoners are users that have been shopping in your online store, even added some things to their cart, but then abandoned your website without completing the purchase.

Tip: The concept of cart abandoners is also applicable to other types of services. For example, people who almost completed a signup form or a survey on your website.

Shopping cart abandoners are a highly valuable segment as they have shown clear interest in buying your product. According to Statista, as many as 80% of people abandon their shopping carts. What if you could use some Facebook advertising hacks to bring back even 20% of them…

One of the easiest ways to convince cart abandoners to return to your website is offering them a discount or a coupon. Even better if you can make the offer personalized and limited in time.

For example, Nespresso is promoting a limited-time free delivery. This offer could be directed towards all potential buyers or only used as a remarketing ad.

How to set up remarketing audience:

To make your Facebook ads reach people who have abandoned their shopping cart, create a Custom Audience based on online events. You can set up an event on your website that records a person clicking on the “Add to Cart” button.

How to increase your success rate:

• Don’t just advertise your products as you would to a new website visitor.
• Make your remarketing ad’s offer worthwhile of returning to your website – add a discount or coupon to nudge people to complete their order.
• Advertise rather aggressively on the first 7 days after the person abandoned their shopping cart, then pause, and advertise your products again to them after 30 days.

Works best for: eCommerce, all other types of online stores, mobile apps.

#7: Turn free trial users into paying clients

Are you marketing a SaaS (software as a service) or some other type if subscription business?

On top of your marketing funnel, you’re likely offering a free trial / subscription period, so that people can learn more about your service.

After the trial period, the user has two options: to continue paying for your service or discontinue using it.

In my experience, it is not after the trial period that you should convince the person to sign up for a paid subscription. It is more efficient to get a person’s readiness to pay during the test period.

During the free trial period, your number one goal should be to delight the user with great user experience. However, you can also convince people to continue using your paid service by advertising an attractive offer.

You can run a Facebook retargeting campaign and…

• Offer to the user a nice discount if they sign up for a longer time period. E.g. “sign up for 12 months instead of 1 month and save 40%.”
• Offer to extend the free trial for users who haven’t been active this far.
• Share helpful materials such as guides and eBooks on how to get more out of your product.

For example, Litmus has created a series of blog articles around email marketing to help their customers succeed at work.

How to set up this remarketing audience:

The easiest way to remarket to your free trial users is to set up a Facebook Custom Audience based on the “Free Trial Signup” website conversion event. Another way to target your existing users is to upload a customer list with people’s emails and names to Facebook, and create a Custom Audience based on that.

How to increase your success rate:

• Differentiate the free users’ ad messaging from your top-of-the-funnel value offers.
• Think what would make you to start paying for your service/subscription. Outline that value offer in your ads.
• Educate your free trial users – offer them guides, webinars, etc.

This type of Facebook marketing strategy works best for: SaaS and online subscription services, but also for delivery services and publications.

#8: Re-sell and upsell to past customers

According to WordStream, the remarketing CPC is significantly lower to than that of regular search and social ads. Display and social remarketing ad clicks by contrast might cost anywhere from 2-100x less.

The same applies to advertisng to your existing customers. Once someone has already bought something from you, they’re a lot more likely to purchase again.

Targeting your existing customers on Facebook is a powerful way to remind them of your product line and show them your latest products.

For example, a fashion brand could advertise their new collection while a software vendor could use Facebook advertising to introduce their upgraded services.

GoPro uses another interesting tactic to get their product owners upgrade to the latest device. Instead of just promoting the new GoPro model, they offer to trade it for $100 off when a client returns an older model.

You can also use Facebook ads to inform your clients about ongoing discounts, e.g. like this ad by AllSaints.

So here’s the key takeaway: Once a person has purchased something from you, don’t move them out of your Facebook marketing funnel. Keep showing hem relevant offers (e.g. discounts) once in awhile.

How to set up this remarketing audience:

Set up Facebook Custom Audiences based on customer lists or website purchase events.

How to increase your success rate:

• Find ideas for cross-selling. For example, if someone bought coffee, advertise a coffee machine to them.
• Use Facebook ads to notify your clients about discounts and other offers.
• Support your campaigns with regular Facebook posts. For example, share a blog article on Facebook that your clients will find helpful and interesting.

Here’s another interesting thing to know about Facebook retargeting. While people will easily get tired of seeing your regular ads, it’s the opposite when doing remarketing.

People will still act upon your retargeting ads even after they’ve seen it for over five times.

Final suggestions

If you’re going to take away five key insights from this article, remember these:

1. Facebook retargeting campaigns can really benefit any type of business, both B2C and B2C.
2. Don’t be lazy about setting up your campaigns, they’re usually highly efficient and well worth the effort.
3. Your ads should deliver a slightly different message from your main ad campaigns – their goal is to engage people who are already aware of your brand and product.
4. Let your remarketing campaigns reach people for more than five times, but don’t keep them running infinitely. Ten ad views during a 14-day retargeting period is sufficient.
5. Combine Facebook ads with other online marketing channels to bring more people to your marketing funnel, and then use Facebook ads to convert them to customers.

Alright. You’ve got it! Good luck with your remarketing campaigns!

The post Facebook Retargeting Campaigns – The Practical Guide for 2018 appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Sometimes, the only way to find out about new Facebook features is to spot the blue “New” sign next to an updated feature.

But how can you find all of them?

For instance, did you know that…

• You can set up an ad with multiple creatives and copy; and Facebook will determine the best combination.
• You can dynamically optimize the language of your ads.
• Facebook is looking to restrict like-to-win posts’ reach.
• You can now customize your ad creatives based on placement.

You had no idea these features exist?

Well, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. In the past three months, Facebook has made many updates to its advertising platform.

Here are the 12 most important Facebook updates in Q1 2018 that could have a huge effect on your results and ad cost:

1. You can create Facebook ads with a Dynamic Creative to find top creatives.
2. Facebook ads now have dynamic language optimization.
3. Facebook now has a Creative Split Testing feature.
4. You can verify your domains on Facebook and keep editing link previews.
5. You can now customize your creative assets by placement.
6. There are new multicity and multicountry targeting features.
7. Facebook is clamping down on engagement bait.
8. You can customize the Thank You screen of your Lead Ads.
9. Facebook is launching Sound Collection – a set of free video sounds.
10. Facebook is testing a new type of Messenger ads.
11. Facebook is adding click-to-WhatsApp messaging ad buttons.
12. You can now invoice buyers via PayPal’s Messenger extension.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these updates, and see how you can benefit.

UPDATE: On January 9, Facebook launched its latest new feature: Campaign Budget Optimization. Check it out!

1. You can create Facebook ads with Dynamic Creative

Have you ever run a Facebook ads A/B test to find out which ad image works best?

Maybe you also wanted to test some ad copy variations alongside your ad images. As a result, you had 10+ ad variations in a single ad set.

That’s a little bit messy.

Luckily, you can now have Facebook’s algorithms find you the best combination of ad images, headlines, and main text.

This feature is called the Dynamic Creative

Dynamic Creative allows you to create a single Facebook ad that includes up to 30 creative assets. After you publish the ad, Facebook will mix and match your ad to find what performs best.

In addition to the overall limit of 30, Facebook caps the number of individual creative variations that can be submitted.

You can include up to…

• 5 headlines
• 10 images or videos
• 5 texts
• 5 link descriptions
• 5 CTA buttons

Note that you can’t submit images and videos to the same Dynamic Creative ad.

How to set up Dynamic Creative ads

To create an ad set with Dynamic Creative ad, you’ll have to use the Facebook Power Editor or updated Ads Manager and select the Quick Creation workflow. (Not the Guided Creation workflow)

Currently, the new Facebook feature is available for three campaign objectives only:

• Conversions
• App install ads
• Traffic

As you’re setting up your new ad set, look for the Dynamic Creative box and turn on the option.

After you’ve made all the selections in the ad set phase, move on to your ad and upload all the different creative elements you wish to test.

FYI, here’s a list of supported ad placements for Dynamic Creative ads:

• Facebook Newsfeed on desktop and mobile
• Right hand column
• Instagram feed
• Audience Network classic
• Audience Network In-stream video
• Audience Network rewarded video

As you’re creating your Facebook ad, you should see the “+ Add” button and be able to add several variations of images, headlines, and copy.

After you’ve added all the ad element variations you need, it’s time to publish your new campaign.

Up next, Facebook will start to show people different variations of your Dynamic Creative ad, learning what people prefer. Note that you won’t be creating multiple ads, just one ad with Dynamic Creatives.

After a while, you’ll be able to see in your campaign reports which images, text, headlines, etc. performed best in various combinations with other tested elements.

To see how your dynamic creatives performed, click on the “Breakdown” menu at the top right of your ad reports and select “By Asset.”

Running some Dynamic Creative ads will help you easily find out what your best-performing ad creatives and headlines are.

Tip: You need at least 20 conversions per creative to draw meaningful test results. That’s why, it makes sense not to submit 30 different elements, but test up to 10 elements per ad. I personally prefer testing ad images and the main ad copy, as these two Facebook ad elements make the highest impact.

2. Facebook ads now have dynamic language optimization

Note: This Facebook feature is still in beta, and will be gradually rolled out to all advertisers.

However, it’s a really helpful feature, making many Facebook marketers’ life easier and also lowering the Facebook ads cost.

Here’s how it works:

If you’re advertising to people in several languages, Facebook’s dynamic language optimization allows you to deliver multilingual ads to the right audiences.

Instead of having different ad sets with translated ads for different languages, you can create one ad with up to 6 different language versions, and Facebook will auto-optimize your campaign budget to deliver your ads in the right language to the right people.

This is highly beneficial when:

1. Advertising in a single country to people speaking multiple languages
2. Promoting your product to a group of countries, regions or worldwide

How to set up a Facebook ad with multiple languages

Step 1: Create a new Facebook ad campaign.

Use the traffic, mobile app installs or conversions campaign objective.

Step 2: Set up your new ad set.

Note that this Facebook feature only supports ads placement in Facebook Newsfeed (web and mobile), Instagram and Audience Network.

Step 3: Set up your Facebook ad with multiple languages.

To create your ad in more than one language, click the “Create in Different Language” button under Multiple Languages.

Step 4: Select your Default Language.

Choose a default language that you think will be the most spoken language in your target audience.

The ad in the default language will also be served to people who don’t match any other languages your ad includes. Next, add a headline and text for your default ad.

Step 5: Add additional languages.

Up next, you can add up to five more language options to your ad. Add the headlines and copy for your ads in other languages.

Tip: If you are using the website clicks and website conversions objective, you can also include language-specific website links.

After you’ve added all the language variations you need, hit the “Create” button to publish your new language-optimized ad.

Tip: When showing a Facebook ad in a specific language, you should also make sure that your landing page is in the same language to avoid a high drop-off rate.

3. Facebook now has a Creative Split Testing feature

Facebook Ads Manager has had a built-in split testing feature for almost a year now.

This feature allowed advertisers to A/B test different delivery optimizations, ad placements, and audiences to see what works best.

As a recent update, you can now also split test your ad creatives.

(Do not confuse this with Dynamic Creatives that we covered in step 1. With Creative Split Testing feature, you will create more than on Facebook ad while there’s only one dynamic creative ad.)

For example, if Google wanted to A/B test what background color works best, they could set up a creative split testing campaign in the Ads Manager.

How the Creative Split Testing feature works:

Previously, when you wanted to A/B test your Facebook ad copy or images, you needed to create multiple ad sets that contained all your ad variations.

This meant multiple ad sets, all targeting the same Facebook or Instagram target audience.

This was a bit messy and most definitely time-consuming.

Moreover, people in your target audience saw all the variations of your Facebook ad. This could get annoying pretty quickly.

One of the main benefits of Facebook Creative Split Testing feature is that it helps to avoid the audience overlap – the same people won’t see multiple different versions of your Facebook ad.

To set up a creatives split test in the Ads Manager, create a new ad set and let Facebook know you want to A/B test your ad creative.

Up next, you can select your ad placements and set up the Facebook ad bidding.

Note that your split test has to be running for at least three days. This is required so that Facebook can get the minimum sample size necessary to determine a winner. The maximum duration of a Facebook split testing campaign is 14 days.

You can also ask Facebook to complete the split test once it has enough results to draw conclusions. Simply tick the box.

To set up all tested ad variations, create your first ad as you normally would with image, link, headline, text, link description, CTA button, etc.

When you click the “Test Another Ad” button, Facebook will copy your ad and you can create a slightly different variation of it.

You can split test up to five different creative variations.

After you’ve hit the “Publish” button, Facebook will create several ad sets with your ad variations.

The good thing about this Facebook update is that the audience members for your split test’s ad sets won’t overlap – something you couldn’t achieve when setting up a regular A/B test.

4. You can now verify your domains on Facebook

At the beginning of 2017, Facebook marketers were able to edit the link description of every link they published on their Facebook page.

These golden days are long gone.

Now, when adding a new link to Facebook, you won’t be able to edit the headline nor link description (text under your post’s headline) – it’s just static and Facebook takes it from your link’s meta description.

And sometimes, it’s super annoying.

Luckily, Facebook only recently added a new feature – Domain Verification.

By verifying your domain ownership on Facebook, you can edit the link previews of your website links again. Thank god.

What is Facebook Domain Verification?

Domain Verification provides a way for you to claim ownership of your domain in Business Manager.

This ownership allows you to control editing privileges of your links and other content to prevent misuse of your domain and to keep bad actors from spreading misinformation. Basically, it’s a new feature to fight fake news and other faulty content.

How to add a new domain to your Facebook Business Manager

Step 1: In Business Manager, click on the Business Settings button.

Step 2: In the Business Settings, make sure you are in the People and Assets tab, and select Domains from the left side navigation list.

Step 3: Click on the Add New Domains button, and enter your domain in the Add a domain pop-up dialogue.

Step 4: To implement domain verification, you can choose between two different methods:

1. Add a DNS TXT entry to your DNS record to confirm that you own the domain
2. Upload an HTML file provided by Facebook to your web directory and confirm domain ownership in Business Manager.

Personally, I find the second option easier.

1. Download the HTML verification file.
2. Upload the file to the root directory of your website. You will be able to see that it is uploading at the link provided in the HTML File Upload tab.
3. Once it is done, click the Verify button at the bottom of the HTML File Verification tab for the selected domain.
4. Leave the HTML verification file in your website’s root directory as it may be checked periodically for verification purposes.

You can also associate multiple Facebook Pages with your verified domains. Here’s a step-by-step guide by Facebook.

Key takeaway: By verifying your domain in the Business Manager, you can edit your domain’s link previews on Facebook.

Read more: How to Promote Your Blog in 2018 With Facebook Ads

5. You can now customize your creative assets by placement

First of all, what is a creative asset?

Well… A creative asset it’s your ad image, text, headline, link description or CTA button.

Now, let’s take a look at all the different ad placements provided on the Facebook ad network.

Facebook:

• Desktop Newsfeed
• Mobile Newsfeed
• Instant Articles
• In-Stream Videos
• Right Column
• Suggested Videos

Instagram:

• Feed
• Stories

Audience Network:

• Native, Banner and Interstitial
• In-Stream Videos
• Rewarded Videos

Messenger:

• Home
• Sponsored Messages

The problem with som many different placements is that they all have slightly different ad formats and image sizes.

For example, the ads in the Mobile Newsfeed have the measure of 1200px x 628px.

However, on Instagram, your ads size can be 1080px x 1080px, making your ad image a square instead of a rectangle.

So what should you do? Create multiple ad sets for different placements?

In the past, this was the only option to optimize your ad creatives based on placement. Not anymore.

Now, you can simply use the new Facebook feature that lets you add multiple ad creatives for different placements – all in a single ad.

How to customize your creatives based on placements

You can currently customize creative assets for the following placements:

• Facebook Desktop Newsfeed
• Facebook Mobile Newsfeed
• Instagram Feed
• Instagram Stories
• Audience Network (Native, Banner, and Interstitial)

As you upload a new image to your ad, you will see an option to add different creatives for additional placements.

By uploading different creatives for all your ad placements, you can optimize the size and font size of your ad images, making them a better match for each ad placement.

I personally like to create different visuals for Facebook and Instagram advertising – this way, you can have larger square images show up in people’s Instagram feeds.

 Tip: When creating placement-based creatives, make sure to follow the aspect ratios for all Facebook ad placements:

• Facebook News Feed: 254 x 133px minimum (1.91:1 aspect ratio)
• Instagram Feed: 500 x 262px minimum (1.91:1)
• Instagram Stories: 500 x 889px minimum (.56:1)
• Audience Network Native, Banner, and Interstitial: 254 x 133px minimum (1.91:1)

6. New multicity and multicountry targeting features

Many Facebook advertisers are showing ads across the world.

For example, if you’re running an eCommerce or SaaS (Software as a Service) business like Asana, you can serve the very same ad across borders.

For advertisers looking to expand their ads’ reach to new horizons, Facebook recently added two helpful features:

1. You can create multicountry Lookalike Audiences
2. You can create multicity audiences

Let’s take a closer look.

Multicountry Lookalike Audiences

Previously, when creating a new Lookalike Audience, you had to select one country to target. That’s not the case anymore.

However, note that if you’re targeting countries with different populations, the distribution of audience members may not be equal between the countries you’re targeting.

Multicity targeting

Often, advertisers want to target people living in cities as they’re more likely to be interested in specific products.

Now, you don’t need to type in all the cities in a specific country. You can simply select the multicity targeting option.

And it keeps getting better. You can also target cities based on their size, meaning that you can only reach people in small or big cities if you’d like.

Tip: Use this feature when entering a new country to uncover all the largest cities. You can break down your ad reports by city to see where your most engaged audience lives. Moreover, you can use multicity audiences to create Facebook retargeting campaigns that reach several cities at once.

7. Facebook is clamping down on engagement bait

As reported by TechCrunch, Facebook will soon start to limit the reach of posts that ask people to like, share or comment in exchange for a chance to win something.

“A new tweak to the Newsfeed algorithm will mean “stricter demotions” for Pages, and/or individual, who adopt engagement bait tactics. Starting in a couple of weeks, offenders will have the total reach on all of their posts reduced if their content is begging or baiting users to interact.”

Facebook did specify that there are some exceptions to this clampdown, including examples like a missing child report, raising money for a cause, or asking for travel tips.

8. You can customize the Thank You screen of your Facebook Lead Ads

If you’re regularly running a Facebook Lead Ads campaign, here’s good news: you can now customize your Thank You screen that users see after submitting their contact details.

Here’s an example by Jon Loomer of how the new feature works:

9. Facebook is launching Sound Collection

Facebook is launching video editing tool Sound Collection for inserting into Facebook and Instagram clips “songs, vocals, noises, and instrumental tracks spanning genres like hip hop, pop, jazz, country, and more.

According to Facebook, the Sound Collection gives you access to thousands of high-quality audio tracks and sound effects from all over the world to spice up your videos.

These sounds are owned by Facebook, and are free and clear to use in any videos you create and share on Facebook and Instagram.

So basically, the Facebook Sound Collection is a set of free audio files that you can add to your ads running on Facebook and Instagram.

Check it out!

10. Facebook is testing new Messenger ads

As reported by TechCrunch, Facebook is developing and internally testing a new ad product called Messenger Broadcast.

Messenger Broadcast is a self-serve mass-messaging interface that lets businesses send marketing messages to users.

Once this Facebook update goes live, brands could send Messenger messages to thousands of people. This could look similar to the push notifications marketers can send to app users.

However, users will still have to opt in before brands are able to message them directly.

11. Facebook is adding click-to-WhatsApp messaging buttons

If you’re running Messenger ads in a country where WhatsApp’s the most popular chatting tool, here’s a recent update you should know about:

Click-to-WhatsApp messaging buttons are now rolling out in Facebook ads.

This new feature is not yet available everywhere. Facebook started to roll it out starting first with North and South America, Africa, Australia and most of Asia.

12. You can now invoice buyers via PayPal’s Messenger extension

With thousands of eCommerce stores popping up every day, there war a significant pressure on Facebook to make the buying experience on their platform ever more pleasant.

The new PayPal chat extension allows a seller to create and send their invoice without leaving their conversation, so the buyer can act on it immediately.

Like other PayPal transactions, those taking place over Messenger are covered by PayPal Purchase Protection for Buyers.

Now that you’re aware of all the latest Facebook updates, head on to the Ads Manager, and put your new insights into good use.

Note: We’ll be updating this post as new Facebook features are launched on a quarterly basis, so keep coming back for more news!

The post TOP Facebook Updates in Q1 2018 Every Marketer Should Know appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.