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.

I actually did go off the platform, only checking a few times to see where the discourse was headed.

It has felt great. No despair from seeing the stupid AI prompt clickbait posts, more time to work on my clients’ marketing projects, blog, and creative writing.

I’m going to stay off LinkedIn for a while.

How LinkedIn went from “less is more” to “more is less”

Back in May 2024, my LinkedIn feed was a waterfall of grindset and broetry.

“Five things I wish I’d known when starting my first company…”

“Once I learned to say no…”

“Never say never.”

Over the next months, while Instagram was having its brat summer, thousands of aspiring business influencers were sweating out three LinkedIn posts per day in content-creator bootcamps.

Had it not been for so many content programs, simultaneously producing self-proclaimed authors (many of whom went on to launch their own programs, oh the downwards spiral), it’s unlikely the cringy posts would have pulled so much traction.

The reason why the posts featuring selfies and life-changing yet mysteriously identical stories of dropping out of college, landing dream jobs, and talking to strangers on streets got all that engagement is that commenting, too, was a checklist exercise towards LinkedIn stardom.

In hindsight, the definition of brat—accepting your imperfections while embracing chaos—seems also like a pertinent descriptor for the pre-ChatGPT era LinkedIn zeitgeist.

Perhaps, 2024 will go down in the annals as the height of civilisation LinkedIn.

Ruminating about my recent LinkedIn fatigue which covers all the available forms of the sensation (physical, mental, emotional, social, moral), I thought of a concept that applies to any social media platform.

In the early days, there’s the online forum-like stage of less is more, where a small community of users engages in a genuine conversation.

This is followed by the general-adoption phase of more is more, where still few enough people publish quality posts, resulting in high engagement, rapid follower growth, and, ideally, income.

Finally, as the barrier of entry gets lower (new tools, free guides) and becoming an influencer is democratically available to anyone, we arrive at the era of more is less, a.k.a. the end of civilisation.

This made me think of the final sequence of Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970) – just beautiful!

Swimming drowning in online slop

Obviously, I’m not the first to note that AI-generated content is shaping the world for worse by impoverishing it of original ideas and intelligent meaning.

​Research published in late 2024 reported that as of October 2024, ca 54% of long-form posts on LinkedIn were AI-generated.

In a recent New York Magazine article, Max Read wrote about the “rising tide of slop [that] has begun to swamp most of what we think of as the internet, overrunning the biggest platforms with cheap fakes and drivel, seeming to crowd out human creativity and intentionality with weird AI crap.”

In my LinkedIn feed, the slop overtake manifests in thousands of posts promising AI prompts, cheatsheets, and breakdowns of X-billion revenue success stories.

Yes, you can do all three in a single post.

The awful thing—or at least what’s so disgusting about it for me—is not that 90% of these posts are copies of other posts, rewritten with AI.

It’s that thousands of people are commenting “prompt” to get access without ever questioning whether the author has ever achieved anything other than 1,000 comments under a LinkedIn post.

It’s that everyone now believes that accessing a half-page Google Doc with an AI prompt will make them rich and famous in 10 minutes instead of hours of real hard work, not to mention thought.

Comment “Vibe marketing”

What really got me was the flood of posts promising AI prompts for auto-generating ad creatives with the latest ChatGPT version.

According to the so-called vibe marketers, you can make millions by selling anything. All you need is AI-generated ads.

Under a single LinkedIn post, 14,260 people decided: Me, too, can create 20 GREAT ads in 10 mins WITH JUST VIBES.

Sorry but LOL.

​

Here’s what’s ironic about this.

As someone who’s spent millions on Meta ad campaigns for 30+ brands, I can tell in 10 seconds that none of the creatives featured in that post would perform well.

All lack a strong value proposition, a promo offer, and a big fat CTA button, to point out only three most obvious shortcomings.

Sometimes, I’ve commented “prompt” out of sheer interest.

Whenever I test those prompts, the resulting ad images are worse than what I could design on Figma in 10 minutes. They’re literally useless.

One more rant and then I’m done, promise.

Last week, i saw a LinkedIn post by a marketing expert saying she booked 20 new leads by commenting under 100 LinkedIn posts over 5 days.

I checked her past 5 days’ comments. (Yes, I do regret wasting my time on this.)

There were eight (not 100), and I can’t possibly imagine which one of the “Exiting news!” or “Thanks for sharing your insights” exclamations got anyone interested in hiring her.

As I couldn’t find the post for this essay, I searched LinkedIn for “20 meetings booked” and realised it was yet another post in yet another copy-and-AI craze.

This is depressing in so many ways.

One of them being that shitposting 5-7 times per week works.

Or does it?

It works for getting likes, comments, and followers.

Does it bring new leads, deals, and clients? – Not in the world I’m living in. (More on this later.)

Preach without practice

What happened to “Practice what you preach” – a LinkedIn post opener that just 12 months ago, one would regularly encounter?

It was flipped into preach without practice.

The overwhelming tsunami of LinkedIn content has led to a point where seeing a LinkedIn post that claims 20 new leads in 10 minutes, instead of questioning the author’s sanity we skip to the comments and type “cheatsheet.”

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all awful.

There are brilliant subject matter experts using LinkedIn as their primary marketing & growth channel.

Like Maja Voje and Kyle Polar. Like Emily Sundberg and Rachel Karten.

What makes a difference—what makes these authors’ posts authentic and useful—is that they all have 10y+ experience in the industry, and writing a business newsletter is (mostly) their full-time job.

The problem is people with no real experience framing themselves as industry experts at 10min per day.

And who can blame them?

They’ve paid for a content creator workshop.

They’re following the exact checklist & AI prompts catalogue provided by their (self)-qualified coach.

They’ve commented “prompt” under a LinkedIn post with hundreds of comments and must now use it to create more, more, more content—a horrible word in itself.

Most importantly, the posts they generate with Chat GPT or Claude AI or whatever will get hundreds of likes and comments from real people. People like you and me.

No wonder, Sherlock, that this economy of fantastical proficiency leads to content that

a) focuses on cheap virality;

b) is a copy of someone else’s post, which is a copy of someone else’s post, which is… written by AI.
​

I just can’t (do LinkedIn) anymore

I haven’t been able to post on LinkedIn for about two weeks.

It’s not that I’ve lacked ideas.

Rather, I’ve felt a sort of vertiginous revulsion every time I open it in a Chrome window.

The feed is full of false promises, fake expertise, and thousands of people engaging with these.

Why would anyone want to participate, or even contribute?

To learn the latest best practices, build industry relationships, get new clients… You know why!

And all the hours spent on posting, commenting, and liking do pay off, don’t they?

Not in my experience.

Goodbye to all that

I tried active LinkedIn posting from January to April 2025.

Perhaps I didn’t try hard enough – I never reached the 7 posts + 50 comments per week schedule. In a way, I admire the people who can spend several hours daily on the platform. Superhuman stamina.

Posting on LinkedIn helped to grow my newsletter readership, albeit slower than writing a guest article for another newsletter did.

The positive thing about creating these free resources is that they were genuinely helpful for other marketers & founders.

But I might as well have shared them in this newsletter or my blog.

Meanwhile, all my course sales and consulting requests over past 6 months came via referrals and my newsletter (mostly pre-2025 readers).

Not a single new consulting project or course sale came via Linkedin as the first touchpoint.

Instead of spending hours on brainstorming and creating “comment for access” free checklists and libraries, plus more hours designing, writing, and publishing LinkedIn posts…

… I would much rather spend 10h writing a long-form blog article. Or a guest post. Or a newsletter. Or working on an actual project for a client.

Another observation: At least for me, LinkedIn posts got much higher engagement 5-6 months ago compared to April-May 2025.

Every marketer I’ve asked about their LinkedIn engagement confirmed it has dropped.

With more posts and less value, it’ll soon be more efficient to run LinkedIn ads (vs spending billable hours chasing organic reach).

I’m giving up on LinkedIn but… Should you?

In a time when we’re told “you can be doing it all,” doing it all means you can’t do any of it well.

One of the mantras I kept repeating to the participants of my DYI Marketing Audit course was to choose 2-3 marketing channels and focus on scaling them.

As I wrote in a Marketing Fix issue on social media, you should either go ALL IN or ALL OUT on any marketing channel.

We’re surrounded by so much noise.

There’s too much of everything.

The only reasonable response—at least one that I can think of—is to decide what genuinely matters.

The rest you just filter out.

I’m not going to delete my LinkedIn account – I’ll need it for keeping in touch with peers, clients, and colleagues.

But I’m not going to create anything for merely posting on Linkedin.

When I publish a new blog article or newsletter, I’ll share it on LinkedIn as well.

When I have a hot take on something, e.g. Bolt’s brand team flopping their latest campaign because of laziness and cultural ignorance​, I’ll rant about it.

I returned to the crossed-out lines after an evening walk, having realised that I should go full cold turkey on LinkedIn. It only adds anxiety to my life. So I will, at least for the next 3 months. (I use the Texts app on Mac for my LI inbox, so I won’t miss any messages.)

I expect to have a lot more focus time for writing newsletters & blog articles, creating LinkedIn ad strategies & visuals for my clients, planning online courses & conducting marketing audits.

Perhaps, you too have something more meaningful to do with your time than competing with AI and human bots for second-rate attention.

Why not do it?

The post  I Gave Up on LinkedIn. Should you? appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

There were so many good examples.

Part of my bad-examples-draught problem was that I’d been looking up the top B2B brands’ ads directly in the LinkedIn Ad Library.

Once I switched to my own LinkedIn feed, the quality of creatives dropped significantly.

Hurray, there are still plenty of B2B brands making awful mistakes, I thought.

Once my thumb stopped at a LinkedIn ad by LinkedIn itself, I knew I had hit the goldmine.

LinkedIn’s LinkedIn ad mistakes

Take a look at these three ad examples.

Not necessarily awful, you say?

Well, yes. They look like something of a mediocre B2B brand’s ads from 2010.

But if you’ve looked at some excellent LinkedIn ad examples, you can see what I mean.

Not awful is not great.

No good performance marketer would accept a ROAS (return on ad spend) that’s “not awful.”

Adding insult to injury is the fact that Reddit is absolutely killing it with their LinkedIn ads.

Here are some more LinkedIn for Marketing ad creatives that popped up in my LI feed.

Can you tell the mistakes they’re making?

Let’s take a look at some key mistakes – and ensure you will avoid them in your own paid ads game.

My bet is that if LinkedIn’s paid advertising team would fix these 10 mistakes, their ROAs would improve 2x or more.

The first ad creative is in landscape format, meaning it uses up only about 60% of the total available LinkedIn feed real estate.

The colour scheme is faded and boring; it doesn’t convey excitement.

And the in-image text blends into the background; you have to make an effort to read it.

The other two examples are slightly better. 

However, now they’re missing a call-to-action button.

And there is no illustration of the product or the benefit.

There are too many colours for a single ad creative: dark grey, light green, vintage green, three different blues, and white.

Batch two.

In addition to ad design issues, you can also recognise some copywriting mistakes: weak value proposition and abstract propositions (“shape perceptions”), no social or number-led proof in in-image or ad text.

Speaking of design problems, you shouldn’t be using stock photos in your paid ad creatives. 

Especially in 2025 when it’s incredibly easy to create unique illustrations and images with a little help from AI image generation tools.

I always recommend to my B2B clients not to use stock photos – or images of people in general – on their landing pages and paid ad creatives.

Why?

Whichever picture you select, even if you do make an attempt at diversity, will only be relatable to 5% of all people who see it.

For example, even the diversity-positive pictures in Stocksy – my go-to photo gallery for high-quality pictures – represent a minuscule part of society.

I, as a marketing strategist working with brands with glossy offices, should relate to the people in these photos. It is likely that so should you – a fellow marketer.

But these people are not like me: they recall a generic Netflix office series, not a realistic day-to-day office life.

So what visuals should you use instead of stock images?

To find out, join my B2B ad creatives course here.

But before, copy and save the list of 10 LinkedIn ad creatives mistakes to save your own team from making these blunders.

10 LinkedIn ad creative mistakes to avoid

Don’t make these obvious mistakes:

1. Boring ad image layout
2. Missing call-to-action button
3. No illustration of product or benefit
4. Eclectic colour scheme
5. Generic stock photos
6. Overcrowding ad image with text 
7. Impractical information overload
8. Hidden or missing value proposition
9. Tiny product screenshots
10. No bold headline in ad image

Thanks for reading!

This article first appeared in the Marketing Fix newsletter. 

Join 15,000+ strategic marketers who get bi-weekly secret-sauce growth strategies, free templates, and growth hacks that I’ve learned by consulting 50+ tech and consumer brands.

For more trendy and practical paid advertising advice, subscribe to some of these top marketing newsletters.

The post 10 LinkedIn Ad Mistakes… Made by LinkedIn Itself 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.

Ok, getting to the article now…

—

How to get good results with your eCommerce Facebook ads?

Based on most blog articles on the topic, you’re supposed to mess around with complex ad formats and set up a Facebook ad campaign structure based on a five-level conversion funnel.

But in reality, the key to successful eCommerce Facebook campaigns is to keep them simple.

If you’ve ever looked at the Facebook and Instagram ad creatives used by big-name brands, you should already know that most of them run basic single-image ads. No Collection ads, no dynamic remarketing, no carousels.

In the past couple of years, I have audited many online stores’ Facebook ad accounts and helped them to scale the results while lowering Facebook ads cost.

What we’ve seen s that detailed customer segmentation and exotic campaign objectives only damage the performance.

So in order to succeed, how should you set up your eCommerce Facebook ads and how to create world-class Facebook ad visuals?

GIF source

🍩 Here are 12 suggestions to keep in mind:

1. Keep your marketing funnel simple
2. Use a minimal Facebook ad campaign structure
3. Avoid creating new ad sets for each new promotion
4. Keep your target audiences broad
5. Do not over-optimize your campaigns
6. Optimize on conversions, not clicks
7. Perfect your Facebook Pixel setup
8. Use the optimal number of ad creatives
9. Use a mix of static and video ads
10. Create ad visuals in two formats: feed + stories
11. Copywrite the perfect headlines + texts
12. Experiment strategically and document key learnings

We’re gonna expand on each of these suggestions in a moment. 

In case you’re rather interested in perfecting your eCommerce ads design, scroll ahead until you reach the 20 eCommerce Facebook ad examples that I personally consider to be smart and inspiring (and that I assume are bringing good results to the brands using them).

Rule #1: Keep your marketing funnel simple

One of the main mistakes I have seen eCommerce businesses make with their Facebook ads is that they tend to overcomplicate their marketing funnel and customer segmentation.

You don’t need to create an ad campaign for every one of your 5 marketing funnel stages:

• Awareness
• Consideration/lead
• New customer
• Existing customer
• Churned customer

You can’t have it all as it will spread your budget too thin and each campaign and ad set will collect too few conversions to perform optimally.

You can’t have it all – GIF source

Setting up Facebook ad campaigns for three different audiences is enough:

• Prospecting
• Remarketing
• Retention

Also, you should split your campaigns per country or per region, so that countries with similar behavioral patterns and cost of advertising are bundled together.

For more detailed suggestions, read more about my approach to Facebook ad campaign structure.

Rule #2: Use a minimal Facebook ad campaign structure

Another big mistake that many brands fall upon when setting up their Facebook campaigns is creating a separate ad set (or even a separate campaign, even worse) for each customer segment.

Sometimes, companies end up with 5-10 different target audiences, each having different ad sets with specific creatives and messaging.

While hyper-segmentation works well in some areas of marketing, it doesn’t perform well in the Facebook Ads Manager.

Always keep the number of your Facebook ad campaigns and ad sets minimal.

I usually suggest the following approach to my eCommerce clients:

🍪 One Prospecting campaign with up to 3 active ad sets:

• One value-based LAL (lookalike) audience of your past 60 days top purchasers (start with 2% LAL and expand up to 8% LAL)
• One broad audience of all people living in your target area, aged x-x
• One interest-based audience that signifies one of your more specific customer segments (you can switch these over time, but don’t have 5 different ones running at the same time)

🍪One Remarketing campaign with up to 2 active ad sets:

• Past 30 days website visitors
• People who added something to the shopping cart in the past 60 days

If you also run Awareness video ad campaigns (which I do not recommend), you could add a third remarketing ad set for video viewers.

🍪 One Retention campaign with up to 2 active ad sets:

• Past customers who haven’t bought anything for 30 days
• Past customers who haven’t bought anything for 90 days

Sometimes, a single retention ad set is also enough.

You can multiply the above campaign structure for each target country or region.

Rule #3: Avoid creating new ad sets for each new promotion

Continuing with eCommerce Facebook ad mistakes, here’s another one: creating a new ad campaign or ad set every time you want to promote a special offer or a new collection of products.

Facebook ad sets work in a way that the algorithms learn based on your conversion data. If you create new ad sets all the time, you will lose all your historical data (and will have higher CPA costs).

GIF source

It makes much more sense to collect all your Purchase conversions under one ad set so that Facebook’s algorithms can learn more about your target audience and deliver ads to increasingly relevant people in your audience.

Instead of creating new campaigns and ad sets, try to re-use the existing ones. 

You can even change an existing ad set’s audience and fully replace all the creatives inside it, should you want to advertise a different offer to another audience.

Rule #4: Keep your target audiences broad

Facebook Prospecting-level ads bring the best results when you keep your ad sets’ targeting broad. 

And by broad I mean at least 5% of a small country’s population and 2% of a large country’s population.

For example, when setting up Prospecting ad campaigns in the US, I like to keep the audience size 3M or broader.

Don’t forget to exclude the past 60 days’ purchasers

You can go a bit more narrow when using lookalike audiences and use a 2% LAL audience even if it means reaching fewer people.

When it comes to Remarketing campaigns, each ad set’s audience should have at least 1,000 people in it. Facebook won’t usually deliver good results for an audience smaller than that.

Rule #5: Do not over-optimize your campaigns

Facebook Ads Manager offers unlimited options for optimizing every single detail of your campaigns, from custom ad placements to hourly scheduling of your ad delivery.

But in fact, the fewer special optimization features you use, the better job Facebook algorithms will do.

This is especially important when creating Prospecting campaigns (which probably take up 60% or more of your budget).

• Use campaign-level budget optimization
• Use automated ad placements
• Do not use customized ad scheduling

And while it’s tempting, do not make changes to your ad sets more than once a week. Otherwise, your ads will remain in the Learning Phase forever and won’t deliver optimal results.

It’s a best practice to do all the changes to your ad campaigns at once. So if you want to update the budget, audience, and upload new ad creatives, do it simultaneously and not on separate days.

Less work = better results – GIF source

This doesn’t mean that you should leave your eCommerce Instagram and Facebook ad campaigns running for months without a single change.

Keep working on new ad creative ideas and experiment with new ad visuals at least twice a month.

Rule #6: Optimize on conversions, not clicks

Companies that do not have their Facebook Pixel set up often tend to optimize the campaigns on link clicks.

And I’ve also seen the Facebook ad accounts with perfect Pixel setup still running Traffic campaigns instead of Conversion campaigns.

Here’s the problem: if you tell Facebook that you want to get clicks from an ad campaign, the algorithms will deliver just that: clicks. 

But those clicks rarely turn into conversions.

That’s because Facebook doesn’t know that you also want Purchase conversions. It is bringing you cheap clicks from people who are in the habit of browsing the websites but not buying.

You reap what you sow, as they say – GIF source

If you optimize your ad campaigns on conversions (website Purchases), you are signalling to Facebook that you’re interested in reaching people who’d make a purchase. And that’s what you’ll get.

Which scenario would you rather prefer:

1. You spend $500 to get 2000 website clicks at $0,25 cost-per-click + 10 purchases at $50 cost-per-purchase
2. You spend $500 to get 500 website clicks at $1 cost-per-click + 50 purchases at $10 cost-per-purchase

Always optimize your eCommerce ad campaigns (Prospecting, Remarketing, and Retention campaigns each) on Purchase conversions.

Rule #7: Perfect your Facebook Pixel setup

Setting up the Facebook Pixel takes about 1 hour and there’s no excuse for skipping this.

Essentially, you can’t get proper results from Facebook advertising without passing important website events like Add-to-cart and Purchase to the ad platform.

To ensure that your Pixel is correctly set up, compare the event count in Facebook Events Manager with your other website data sources, e.g. Google Analytics.

There might be small discrepancies in the data, but it shouldn’t fluctuate more than 20%.

Review the most important event’s count on Facebook v.s. other reporting platforms on a weekly basis to ensure that your Pixel receives correct data.

Rule #8: Use the optimal number of ad creatives

Let’s move on to the fun part: the ad creatives.

The rule that ad visuals contribute hugely to your results doesn’t only apply to eCommerce brands but any other industry as well.

But there’s a limit to how many active ad creatives you should have per ad set. 

If you have too few, there won’t be enough variety. If you have too many, it’s going to hurdle your campaign performance due to a time-consuming learning curve.

💎 The optimal number of active ad creatives per ad set is 6-8 visuals.

Rule #9: Use a mix of static and video ads

When working on my clients’ ad campaigns, I like to set up a varied selection of creatives in each ad set:

• 2 single-image static ads in one style
• 2 single-image static ads in a different style
• 2 video ads with different lengths (15 sec and 30+ sec)
• 1 carousel ad

Based on the initial results, you can either create more static or video creatives and keep experimenting with new ideas.

The main reason for including a mix of static and video ads is that they often appear in different ad placements. If you only use single-image static ads, you will miss out on video-only placements.

People often complain that creating video ads is super difficult. That’s not necessarily true. You don’t need to film original content in order to have video creatives. Use stock videos or animate some static product images and mix it with animated typography.

You can slightly animate your static ads to get a video ad

For creative inspiration, see these collections of Facebook ad examples:

• 195 Best Facebook Ad Examples (2021 Edition)
• 84 TOP Instagram Ad Examples (2021 Update)
• 40 Instagram Story Examples – Static + Video 

🔥 P.S. When reading a couple of blog articles on eCommerce ads, I came across recommendations to use all of the following ad formats:

• Collection ads 
• Video ads 
• Domain ads
• Instant Experience ads
• Lead ads 
• Carousel ads
• Facebook Dynamic ads

In fact, I have never seen an eCommerce brand get good results with Collection ads, Instant Experience ads, Lead ads, and Dynamic ads. 

As far as I’m concerned, I do not recommend using them (or first testing as an experiment).

Rule #10: Create ad visuals in two formats: feed + stories

Quite often when auditing Facebook ad accounts, I see brands using only the 1:1 (square) format ad creatives.

This means that they’re missing out on good-looking visuals in the portrait-format placements: Facebook stories, Instagram stories, Messenger stories.

And a large share of Facebook ad views happens exactly in-between the stories.

Here’s a comparison of how an ad visual in 1:1 format v.s. Story format will appear in the Instagram stories placement:

That’s probably not the brand image you’d want to cultivate. Rather, you’d want to have something looking like this:

When creating and uploading creatives to your Facebook ad campaigns, always add a special format for the story placements.

Upload both 1:1 and Story format visuals

🍊 Pro tip: Make sure to leave the top and bottom 20% of your story-format ad designs empty of any content and Instagram will add automatic overlays on top of your ad visual.

Read more about Facebook specs and size.

Rule #11: Copywrite the perfect headlines + texts

While the ad visual is the make-or-break element of any Facebook ad creative, the texts you use still contribute to the overall performance.

The most important text of your Facebook ads is the in-image headline.

I almost never upload a Facebook ad creative that only includes an image without adding a short headline with the USP (unique value proposition) on top of it.

If people aren’t attracted by your ad visual, they will never read the ad text. That’s why, you should include the most important slogan in the image itself.

When it comes to eCommerce ads, there might be some use cases where you wouldn’t want to include an in-image text. For example, if you’re advertising an image from a photoshoot. But if possible, I’d still recommend testing both options: with and without a headline.

You can also mix a text, logo, and photo

Another important principle to keep in mind: do not expect people to know your product.

Avoid catchy slogans and ad texts that do not explain what your product and its main benefits are. Think of Facebook ads rather as your website, not on-street brand ads.

Here are a couple of additional tips for perfecting your Facebook ad copywriting:

1. Keep it short and simple
2. Talk about the most relevant product benefits and value props
3. Address the user instead of talking about your brand (“we did X”)
4. Use active language: do, get, make, create, be, etc.
5. Assume that most people only read the first 2 lines of your ad text (the one that appears above or under the image of in-feed ads)

Read more: 16 Copywriting Tips for Facebook Ads and Social Media Posts

Rule #12: Experiment strategically and document key learnings

Most brands that I’ve worked with do not have a well-documented ad experimentation strategy. The PPC Manager just runs various experiments and keeps the results in their head.

If a new person were to join your Marketing team, would you be able to point them towards a document that gives an overview of all the Facebook ad experiments and top-performing creatives?

Or what if the agency or team member managing Facebook ad campaigns leaves the company? You would lose a lot of valuable information…

Unless you’ve properly documented all the experiments.

Whenever I start working with a new client’s Facebook ad account, we establish a spreadsheet for documenting all ongoing and completed experiments.

How the experiment tracking sheet looks like

I also like to keep track of all the Facebook ad creatives that we’ve created and tested.

Creative reporting could either be done:

• On a Figma page where you design your ads
• On a dedicated page in Notion, Confluence, or other documentation platform
• On a spreadsheet together with the PPC experiments log

Personally, I use a mix of all three + sometimes also write quarterly reviews that look back into all past 3 months’ experiments and tested ad visuals.

If I’m setting up a specific Facebook ad campaign for testing new creatives each in a separate ad set, I like to later add the test results to a Google Sheet, so that it will be easy to catch a quick overview in the future.

Example creative test report (with dummy data)

I have written about Facebook ads A/B testing in this blog before. Check it out for some ideas for your next experiments.

Or if you’re looking for inspiration specifically for your eCommerce business, gather new ideas from the 20 brands below. 

🍋 20 eCommerce Facebook ad examples

When browsing the following ad creatives, notice the following best practices used by almost all of the showcased brands:

1. They use a mix of video and static ads
2. There’s almost always an in-image text in the ad visual
3. All ad creatives are brightly colored and eye-catching
4. All photos and images used are of the best possible quality
5. There’s a lot of variety between the ad creatives by the same brand
6. Many eCommerce Facebook ads feature a promo offer
7. Almost all ad creatives use the “Shop Now” call-to-action
8. The focus is on the visual, not the ad text

While I have included a wide mix of various ad formats like Collection ads, in general, single-image ads, carousel ads, and simple video ads tend to perform the best.

But you can never know, so test with a variety of creative ideas and ad formats.

#1 Made.com

See the full video ad on this link.

#2 Nike

#3 AirBaltic

As you can see, there’s a different ad visual for the story placements.

#4 COS

See the full video ad on this link.

#5 NARS Cosmetics

#6 NARS Cosmetics 

See the full video ad on this link.

#7 & Other Stories

#8 Finnish Design Shop

#9 The Sill

See the full video ad on this link.

#10 Starbucks

See the full video ad on this link.

#11 La Roche-Posay

#13 Teabox

#14 Vagabond Shoemakers

#15 Sandqvist

#16 Click & Grow

#17 Ferm Living

#18 Goli

#19 Pärla

#20 Mytheresa

Thx for reading, thx for watching!

If you’d like to be notified about upcoming blog articles, subscribe to my newsletter (max 2 emails per month.)

In case you’d like to work together on your Facebook ad campaigns, reach out at marketing@karolakarlson. I’m booked with ongoing projects until the end of 2021, but then again I’m bad at saying no to brands with cool products.

The post 12 Rules for eCommerce Facebook Ads + 20 Ad Examples appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Cool. I’ve been doing that a lot recently, too.

That’s because video ads have become an indisputable requirement for any Facebook advertising campaign.

When researching Facebook Ad Library for good examples, I noticed that 80% of the TOP brands’  Facebook ad creatives were videos.

Facebook video ads have become a necessity in 2025. You can’t go on running static ads only.

Read more about social media advertising trends in 2025.

Fun fact: Facebook algorithms deliver static and video ads to different audiences, depending on what a user is more likely to react to. So if you want to reach the people more susceptible to video content, you’ll need attractive video creatives.👀

The #1 obstacle that marketers come across when creating video ads for their Facebook or Instagram campaigns is the lack of skill and know-how.

For additional inspiration, you or check out what we’ve published on this blog – including 180 Best Facebook ad examples and 84 Best Instagram ad examples.

Meta video ad best practices

Before I created my first video ads, I had a number of questions:

• What are Facebook video ads’ best practices?
• How long should the ad videos be and what’s the correct size of Facebook video ads?
• What should the Facebook video ads feature?
• What tools are used to create video ads?
• Do we need an agency to create the ad videos for us?

I’ll do my best to answer all of these questions for you in this article.

Let’s not drag this intro too long and get to the Facebook video ad examples!

Best Facebook video ad examples,  2025 update

I found the following video ads while browsing the Facebook Ad Library – I like to regularly check my selected 100 brands’ ad creatives to keep my creative know-how up to date.

#1: Oreo

I envy whoever produced this video ad for Oreo as it’s perfectly executed, having a high-quality sleek look, fast-paced movement, and eye-capturing shifting patterns.

#2: Deliveroo

Deliveroo is running tens of similar Facebook ads, each featuring various city districts and relevant restaurants. Such automatically customized ads are usually created with a creative automation tool, e.g. Smartly. 

​#3: Spotify

Similarly to the previous ad, this Spotify looks a lot like it’s created using an automated Facebook video duplication tool.

Be it as it may, they have managed to create an engaging Facebook video ad with very few resources: An album cover, mixed colorful elements, and on-point typography.

#4: Restream

Working with Restream, we created a set of Facebook video ads that are essentially an animated version of their static ads. 

Bringing your static ads to life is a good way to get started with video advertising on Facebook. You just need a motion designer who can help to make your existing design assets move.

#5: Airbnb

The first four ads that you saw were all around 15 seconds long or even shorter. In contrast, this one by Airbnb is a brand awareness ad: it runs for 40 seconds and tells an inspiring story.

It is a best practice to use a mix of performance-oriented and brand awareness ads. Both need a slightly different approach:

• Performance ads should direct the viewer to make a purchase or take some other action. These ads usually end with a clear call-to-action.
• Brand awareness ads’ goal is to create… well… awareness about a brand and drive positive brand perception. These ads do not usually ask people to take an action immediately.

#6: Milka

Pardon my French. This ad by Milka is essentially reminding people to be nicer to each other. A simple and on-brand Facebook video ad.

#7: Sephora

This ad looks like it took a lot of work, so it is likely to be part of a big global Facebook campaign. 

You can create a mix of Facebook ads – some that take less time to create and that you run in the short-term + the branding ads that you invest more time and money into and will run for a longer period, e.g. for 3 months. 

#8: Klarna

I am a big fan of Facebook ad creatives that follow closely the brand’s CVI. That’s why I’ve always liked Klarna’s ads – they stay true to their pink color palette and as a result, their ads are easily recognizable in the news feed.

# 9: Snickers

Take notice of how this Facebook ad is pairing filmed video content with colorful background and typography.

By using highly contrasting sections throughout your Facebook video ad, you can assure that it will capture your audience’s attention while they scroll through their Instagram or Facebook feeds.  

#10 Moo

One more Facebook video ad effect to test out is the “endless loop” technique.

Repeating motion effects are especially helpful if you have interesting video content that lasts only a few seconds. To make sure your ad gets shows for the full 15-second story ad length, make it repeat on a loop for 15 sec.

#11: Nars

#12: Mailchimp

#13: Dior

#14: Grammarly

#15:Wrike

Facebook video ad examples, 2020 edition

Below, you will find the Meta ad examples that I collected for the previous release of this article. 

Looking at some of them made me think that we’ve come a long way from the time when only a few brands were able to produce high-quality video content.

I should probably start to learn video editing…

#16: VSCO

The Instagram video ad by VSCO showcases their product features in a simplified 15-second video. Here are some key takeaways for you to consider:

• The first 3 seconds matter most – Notice how the first few frames are using a bright color to lead people’s attention to the the ad copy “transformative tools” and get them hooked to watch the rest of the video.
• Video ads ≠ no copy – In fact, it’s a good idea to keep copy in your ad video to better explain what’s going on.

#17: Facebook

Yeah, Facebook is advertising on their own platform and they’re pretty good at it. Here’s what they’re doing well:

• The ad asks a question – there’s a highly visible question always visible in the ad video that catches the viewers’ attention.
• Video & message match – Notice how the message “Need a push?” matches with the moving car’s message.
• Simplicity – a video ad does not have to be 30-seconds long and take days to create. You can start testing with simple animations that are simple yet catch people’s attention.

#18: Monese

Monese’s video ad explains how their product works and shows their app in action. Here’s what’s noteworthy about this ad:

• Display your product – on the one hand, you won’t need as much new content. On the other hand, people will get familiar with how your product looks and feels. It’s a win-win.
• End with a call-to-action – don’t leave people hanging after watching your video. Tell them what’s the next step to take. In this case, it’s “download the app.”

#19: Squarespace

This Instagram video ad by Squarespace is another nice example of simple video design in action:

• Show small changes – showing small changes such as the growing numbers’ count in this ad is a good trick for catching the viewers’ attention.
• Show you logo – It’s a commonly known best practice to show your logo throughout the video ad (that’s also a suggestion in Youtube’s video ads’ playbook)

#20: Nike

If you’re working with a lifestyle or eCommerce brand, your audience might appreciate more story-focused ads. Nike’s ad would make for a great branding video.

• Make it look high quality – if you plan to film your Facebook video ads, make sure you’re using a high end camera.
• Mix video footage & copy – seriously, having some copy in your video ads makes them a lot more comprehensible and having a powerful impact on the audience.

#21: Web Summit

Here’s another example of a story-specific ad, showing how a conference venue is being set up in the matter of hours (being compressed into a 30-second video).

• Tell a story – our brains are hardwired to look for patterns and follow stories, leading your audience being hooked to your video ad
• You don’t need a fancy agency – Web Summit’s video ad could easily have been recorded by a camera set up by a crew member and edited by another crew member. Easy.

#22: AppSumo

This ad is not really a video ad but a Slideshow consisting of AppSumo’s product reviews. Here’s what I like about it:

• Creating it took 5 minutes max – you can create a similar ad by uploading 3-5 images to Facebook and creating a Slideshow ad.
• Showcase testimonials – third-party testimonials increase trust in your product. This ad could be shown in a Facebook retargeting campaign to nudge people to make a purchase.

#23: Mango

Mango’s Facebook ad is like a tiny movie that combines nice views, a celebrity model and the brand’s products.

• Use video ads for branding – while this ad doesn’t invite you to buy any specific product, it reminds you about the brand.
• Work with influencers – if you’ve got enough cash, having an influencer (that’s loved by your target audience) in your ad videos doesn’t hurt.

#24: Reedeshop

• Animate simple messages – even making a word blink or change color can help increase your ad’s click-through rate.
• Use the right ad formats – when creating video ads for Facebook and Instagram, you can upload ads in multiple sizes. Check out all the current Instagram ad specs here.

#25: The New York Times

This is one of my all-time favourite video ads. Seriously, I think it’s genius.

• Create unique ads – The NYT video ad is unique in that it only uses text to tell a story, But it’s super catchy at that.
• Know your tools – I created a similar video ad for a client by using Photoshop only (creating video ads is easier than you think).

The top 10 Facebook and Instagram video ad examples were my favourites. Up next, you will find more video ads for even more inspiration.

But before you check out the rest, here’s a list of tools that you can use to create video ads:

• Photoshop for GIFs + Illustrator to create icons, etc.
• Sketch + Flinto/Kite
• Adobe After Effects
• Record videos on your own
• Buy video footage on Stocksy or other stock photo sites

#26: BeUnsettled

BeUnsettled’s video ad is quote basic in terms of video content. However, they’ve combined video footage that looks like stock videos with copy, giving it more substance.

The nature-movie-like frames also fit perfectly into anyone’s Instagram feed, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on whether the ad manages to catch the target audience’s attention.

#27: Pelacase

This is another example of a Facebook video ad using average video footage, but using the correct medium to tell the story.

#28: Facebook

Here’s a good Facebook video ad example for marketers with small budgets that want to test our some kind of video animation.

You could basically take a static image and pair it with an animated loading icon – you’re guaranteed to get people look and wait for your ad video to load, without this ever happening. But then again, you’ve already got their attention, so they might as well read the rest of your ad.

#29: Okia

Playing around with text is the easiest way to create video ads. You could do a similar video on Photoshop in around 10 minutes. (+ the hours you’ll spend to come up with a good message and unique value proposition ideas for your ad).

#30: BetterMe

If you saw this ad as a static image v.s. a GIF ad, which one would catch your attention?

Try turning some of your existing static Facebook ad designs into GIFs to find out if it helps to increase the CTR and lower the cost-per-result.

#31: MyTheresa

Here’s an example of an Instagram ad that probably required a high budget to create. This is definitely appealing to a lot of luxury goods buyers.

However, spending tens of thousands of dollars on video creation does not always mean your ad is 10 times more efficient. Make sure to think who your target audience is before buying a video from an agency.

#32: Stuudionahk

For a leather goods brand like this one, creating a video ad to showcase their products makes a lot of sense. However, I would always suggest that you pair your video ads with image ads to see what works best.

#33: DRM Bracelets

This is a completely random campaign by some drop shipping brand. But I have to give it to them – using the country name in the ad is a nice personalised touch.

#34: Trvl

Notice how this Instagram video ad example by Trvl combines images, copy and colorful backgrounds to create a video-like effect. In fact, there’s no video footage in this ad – another proof that you don’t need a large budget to create marketing videos.

#35: Monese

I’ve always been a fan of slightly animated video ads (we also test a lot of them in Taxify). The reason these animations work is that they catch people’s attention but don’t lead the focus away from the ad’s main message.

Alright… We’ve reached the end of our video ad showdown.

Here are some key takeaways to remember:

• You need to test video ads – there are brands whose audiences love video ads. But there are also Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns where image ads work best.
• Creating video ads doesn’t have to be expensive – many of the examples above could have been made in just a few hours. With help from one of the many great unlimited video editing companies, you can keep production fast and affordable. Expenses do not equal results in the case of Facebook ads.
• There are many video ad hacks – from catching the attention in the first 3 seconds to ending the video with a clear call-to-action, there’s a lot you can do to double or even triple your video ads’ conversion rate.

P.S. if you’ve got some cool Facebook or Instagram video ad examples, send them over and we’re happy to include them in this list.

The post 35 Facebook Video Ad Examples – 2025 Update 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.

As there were so many great questions and a surprising variety of topics, it felt like a good idea to also document ‘em in this blog. I also reviewed the answers and added bits and pieces to give more context + suggest further reading.

Up next, you’ll find a mix of marketing advice, career confessions, and opinions on a range of marketing-related subjects, from how to get published in TOP marketing blogs to the “agencies vs in-house team” debate.

The Q&A is categorized under a few headlines, so feel free to navigate to the sections that interest you the most.

• Growth hacking
• Learning as a marketer
• Online advertising
• Reporting and measurement
• Rebranding (from Taxify) to Bolt
• Content marketing
• Career and work-life

P.S. if you have any additional questions, you can still submit these on the GrowthHackers AMA page.

One last thing… I’ve had a few people reach out to me and ask how did I get picked out by GrowthHackers for the AMA. I just wrote to them saying I’d like to do one. They said yes.

🚀 On growth hacking

Q1: Can you talk about an experiment that was a really big win or led to some breakthrough insights at Bolt? – Taavi Kalvi

When I joined Bolt in 2017, one of my first tasks was to come up with better creatives for our Facebook ad campaigns. So I figured what people care about most when ordering a ride… Duh, the cost of the ride, of course!

I created a new type of Facebook carousel ad that no other app in the industry was using yet. The carousel ad included 5 cards with popular routes in a city and showed the average cost of the specific ride (which was much lower than with regular taxis).

These ads picked up super well and are still one of our top performers. We even see some competitors using the same ad format now. 😄

Q2: What has been your number one learning/lesson from your entire marketing career? – Liis Laisaar

One of the things I learned early on is that you should always try to go a bit wild and test things that others haven’t tried yet. A lot of the best-performing marketing hacks/projects are not shared in marketing blogs.

So, you should make up your own.

For example, when working on content marketing and SEO in the project management software startup Scoro, I had an idea to compile a list of 50+ project management tools, include Scoro as #3, and thereby be listed as the first Google search result for the “best project management tools” keyword.

First, my manager was strongly against the idea: why would we promote our competitors?

However, I kept pushing to test out the idea and it worked: our listicle soon ranked as #1 result on Google and we got thousands of website visits and tens of new leads from there every month.

Today, Scoro has published more than ten similar list articles and these make up a huge part of their website’s organic traffic.

A good starting point for coming up with original ideas is to first define the goal you want to achieve. As you know the outcome, it’s much easier to figure out how to get there.

I also like browsing Facebook ad examples or graphic design galleries such as Behance, thinking how I would use some ideas I see on the brand I’m working for.

Q3: If you were giving a lecture at university to a group of MSc. students in a marketing/entrepreneurial class, what philosophies, tools or books would you share with them? – Taavi Kalvi

I recently wrote a blog article on how to learn marketing where I shared all the advice I wish someone had given me when finishing high school.

I’d say that the most crucial skills for every marketer are creative problem-solving and critical thinking, as well as writing skills and understanding the basic foundation on how human psychology works.

You can find the list of my all-time favorite marketing and branding books here: 49 Best Marketing Books – New and Classics

Q4: Have you ever a situation where you had been skeptical about some idea, but as a result, it proved a great move? What was that? – Maksymilian Plociennik

My manager at Bolt who taught me to be a lot more critical and always question the ROI of different projects. Whenever my team proposes something that I don’t think is a good idea, we talk it through and see if we can run a small-scale test to check the ROI.

For example, we tested animated Facebook ads some time ago and they performed worse than static ads. So we paused the ads and didn’t waste any more time scaling the video ads to additional Facebook campaigns.

Fast forward 6 months, we tried different a type of video ads (longer ones, another design) and they performed much better. So it’s always worth to test all ideas you think may bring results and even revisit some tests multiple times.

On the other hand, there have also been many cases where I’m skeptical about an idea but still agree with the team to run a test. Even if the test fails, it’s still a success in the sense that we’ll know it in the future and won’t do the same mistake twice.

NB, make sure to document your tests!

Read more: Facebook Ads A/B Testing – Why, What and How to Split Test

Q5: What do you recommend for someone getting started from scratch on building their personal brand? – Saura Johnston

Based on my experience, a good way to get started is by creating a blog and writing about the topic you want to be known for. This can also be some other channel, e.g. Instagram. Also, guest blogging and interacting with people on LinkedIn or closed Facebook groups doesn’t hurt.

For the past few years, I’ve received all my job offers via this blog or LinkedIn as people have read my blog or know me via a network of mutual marketer friends.

I recently started an Instagram account project about our houseplant hobby with a friend.

The key takeaway from this Instagram project is that it’s HARD to grow followership.

It takes a lot of persistence and continuity to build up an extensive following on the platform. To push through, you must be truly passionate about the topic you’re building your personal brand around.

Another good starting point is to look at the websites or social media profiles of people who have already made it. Scroll down to their very first posts and see how they got started and which parts of their content gained traction.

 ⭐ On building a marketing team

Q6: What has proven to be the key deciding factor when recruiting new people to your team? (Which qualities make the best team members and employees in marketing (e.g. experience, willingness to learn <– how to validate this, etc.?) – Liis Laisaar

Having interviewed tens and tens of people while growing the team in Bolt, I realized at some point that you will get the right feeling during the interview if a person is a good match to the team. There’s a kind of special connection and understanding that you get when meeting the right candidate to a position. Things like speaking at the same terms, understanding each others’ questions, having similar opinions on specific topics…

I always look for the proactive “let’s get things done” attitude and evaluate the candidate’s home task and previous work experience. I never look at a marketing candidate’s educational profile as this is not what matters (at least not in Bolt and most other successful tech companies).

I also like to hire people with good copywriting skills and a creative problem-solving-oriented mindset.

Additionally, I follow the rule of “If it’s not a YES!! it’s a no” when hiring. If a candidate doesn’t seem to be the perfect fit for the role, we’ll just keep looking rather than making the wrong hire.

Once you’ve hired someone, you’ll spend tens of hours onboarding and training that person. So you should only hire people if you think they are the very best person to fill the role.

Q7: How do you set up your team KPIs? Do you work with some framework, e.g. OKR? – Karolina Krolicka

The global marketing team at Bolt is currently using a quarterly OKRs approach. We make sure that all OKRs are measurable and directly linked to the projects that a particular team member is working on.

Which leads me to a book that everyone in a high-level management position I know recommends (so do I): High Output Management by A. Grove.

Q8: What is the ideal marketing team structure? – Vasyl Sergienko

There isn’t one single ideal marketing team structure that would fit all companies. But all marketing teams benefit from having clear ownership of projects, clear reporting structure, and team leads not having more than 8 direct reports.

Example team structure by CoSchedule– Image source

I personally like to keep the global marketing team functions centralized in the HQ rather than, for example, having a separate Facebook marketing function in every market.

Also, I would rather build a central marketing team with clear ownership for every function. And only then start to split their resources per region as the company expands to more markets. Instead of building a fully functional marketing team for every different region.

Q9: I saw on Bolt’s website that you are currently hiring for marketing roles in 4 different countries. I’d love to hear more about your experience leading an internationally distributed team. What are some challenges you have faced? How do you handle communication and deliverables among many locations? – Hale Schneider

I’d say that the main challenge is always finding the best people, no matter where they’re located. Also, as our HQ marketing team is based in Tallinn, Estonia, it’s a bit harder to find people with international experience than, say, in London.

However, note my answer to the previous question: We still prefer to hire to the centralized team over building out regional marketing teams with all functions.

The good thing is that Bolt is a very international company and we have teams in 30+ countries around the world. So we have built up a strong information-sharing system that involves internal wikis, Slack channels, and regular all-hands meetings where the information is shared between everyone globally.

Markets where Bolt operates

I’ve gotten used to discussing things with people on Slack or via a call that having a team that’s based across multiple locations is a natural way of working.

We always set quarterly OKRs and focus for each team and give them relatively much freedom on achieving those results.

Q10: How to balance between creativity and data-driven culture? – Vasyl Sergienko

First of all, you can also be creative around the ways of interpreting the data.

Different people can look at the same data and come up with different takeaways. Also, you need to be creative to come up with new ideas to improve the results reflected through data. So I’d say that the data-driven and creative approaches go very much hand in hand in today’s marketing.

Q11: Agency or in-house? Why? – Liis Laisaar

I always prefer in-house marketing teams to agencies as the people’s motivation to grow the business, test new things and get results is times higher.

In-house people genuinely care about the company and go the extra mile to make things work. Having worked in and with agencies, I have seen projects often handed over to interns which can lead to low-quality work and poor results. It also takes a ton of time to onboard agency people and to keep communicating with them on a daily basis to approve ideas and changes.

In Bolt, we’re growing so fast and changing things up all the time, so we need to be able to get new campaigns live in less than 1-2h sometimes. This would never be possible when working with an advertising agency.

I do see a benefit to using local agencies if there’s a need for local contacts to execute a one-time marketing/PR campaign.

Agree with the PROs in this chart – Image source

💸 On online advertising

Q12: What’s the number one mistake people make when trying to improve the performance of their PPC campaigns? – Taavi Kalvi

This really depends on the campaign… But that’s not the answer you were hoping for. 😀

Usually, the biggest PPC mistake is looking at the wrong metrics and KPIs in the first place.

Let’s say your goal is to get new B2B clients for a SaaS tool. So you optimize your campaign on getting new leads. When trying to improve your campaign results, you want to increase the number of leads or lower the CPA (cost per acquisition) of leads. While optimizing on this, you may forget to look at the quality of the leads, so you may end up with more leads with lower quality. So always try to optimize your PPC campaign performance towards more revenue, not mid-funnel or vanity metrics.

Another mistake is always optimizing your PPC campaigns around the same thing.

For example, you want to optimize your Google Search PPC campaigns, so you add new keywords + negative keywords. Maybe, instead of working on this, you should test another channel (like Facebook/Instagram) or another campaign type instead. Or another target audience.

As I’m already ranting on the topic, I also often see Facebook marketers A/B testing small changes. It’s generally more efficient to run tests with variations that are clearly different (e.g. not the color of a CTA button but an entirely different creative vs the current one).

A/B test with visible changes in variations

Q13: Which do you prefer when entering a new market: a) start wide and get maximum exposure OR b) start with as specific targeting as possible and expand later based on already collected data? Why? – Liis Laisaar

It depends on the product and your marketing budget.

In Bolt, we’re marketing a consumer product relevant to most people, so we can use wide targeting in our online ads and let Facebook and Google algorithms to optimize our campaigns based on results.

If you’re marketing a niche product, I’d recommend starting narrower. If you already have a user base, I recommend using Facebook Lookalike audiences.

Q14: What is your approach to influencer marketing? How do you measure its success? – Ane Voje

We have a very data-driven approach to all marketing activities and influencer marketing is no different. We measure the CPA of new users acquired through our influencer marketing activities by counting the referrals made with each influencer’s unique referral code. We also check the reach and CPM of the influencers’ posts and compare it to our other online channels’ metrics.

Q15: What needs to be done to perfectly grow your business throughout the social channels? – Soner Alemdar

A: I’d say that the key thing to succeed in social channels is to constantly create value to your audience. This can mean sharing useful advice, giving away free stuff, informing people about special offers – whatever people can benefit from.

For example, Bolt shares relevant blog articles for drivers

Also, as the organic reach on Facebook is very low (as low as 2% of your page likes), you should always put some boosting budget behind each post.

You can find more social media marketing best practices here: 28 Facebook Ad Hacks for Social Media Growth

Q16: What would you do, if you have to lead a business in the grey market? You know, in a situation, where you can’t promote your brand on Facebook, Reddit, etc. – Maksymilian Plociennik

Tricky… And truth be told, I haven’t marketed such a product before. My first approach would be to find industry influencers and try working with them. Also, building virality to the product so it will pass from person to person. And testing out affiliate marketing.

Q17: Should a new company first focus on client acquisition only or should branding also start from the get-go? – Andreas Velling

You need to understand your brand’s mission and key value proposition from the get-go. But especially with new brands, earning some revenue and getting to the first 1000 paying users should be the priority, so I’d focus on acquisition campaigns first.

You don’t necessarily need to run brand-only marketing campaigns, but can integrate the branded message in acquisition ads.

🤓 On reporting and measurement

Q18: What do you think about marketing automation and who is responsible for that in the team? – Vasyl Sergienko

Marketing automation is a highly relevant project when working with a large scale of users. In Bolt, we have multiple teams working on automation, for example, our Lifecycle marketing team.

Q19: This is a very open-ended and more of a process question and how you go about things but with Bolt being in different markets, how are you able to work and adjust as best you can in creating and executing marketing plans for the different product offerings in each market? I can imagine what “success” or “failure” in one market can be totally different for another. You may have already covered a little bit of this with Mr. Hale Schneider’s question. – Kian Paras

We’re able to use quite a global approach when it comes to marketing in specific countries. Our product offering is not that different from market to market and we focus on promoting our main service above others.

However, we work with local teams to understand each market’s specifics. If you compare Bolt’s social media or blog to some of our competitors, we’re still much more local in our approach.

Q20: How do you approach branding/awareness? Is this just a “side-product” of having the right messages or do you have separate branding campaigns? – Andreas Velling

We do not run a lot of branding-only marketing campaigns as we’re a highly performance-driven company and like to work on things that we can measure.

However, we’ve set the key brand messages and all our performance marketing campaigns and most social media posts also revolve around those messages.

Recently, we launched a green initiative to make all Bolt rides in Europe carbon neutral. It’s a good combination of branding mixed with digital communication channels.

Social media post on the Green Plan

There’s another reason we don’t focus on branding campaigns: as our main brand asset is our product. As long as we’re providing the best ride-hailing experience in a city, we’ll get new users through word-of-mouth and keep the existing ones happy as well.

⚡ On rebranding (from Taxify) to Bolt

Q21: What was your approach for the launch campaign – which channels and assets did you find most valuable and why? – Kati Kuustik

As I set out to work on the first rebranding campaign I’d ever done, I was surprised by how little information about rebranding you can find online. There were literally no articles sharing usable know-how on how to rebrand a company. Only stuff on “how to pick your brand’s name” = useless.

During rebranding, our most valuable channels were those that helped us reach the highest number of our app users: PR, in-app messages, and emails.

We also used other marketing channels like online ads to communicate about the brand name change from Taxify to Bolt. Also, Google Search ads were very helpful in making sure that people will find our website and app store listing with both the old and new brand name.

I’ve found that there are quite many articles on how to do the rebranding / decide if you should rebrand, but very little information mostly on how to approach the launch of the new rebrand.

Q22: What goals did you set for the rebranding launch? – Kati Kuustik

Our main goal was not to lose users and the volume of rides not to drop. There were, of course, a set of lower-level goals that every involved team monitored.

Q23: If you had to do it again, what would you do differently? Or what were your biggest learnings? – Kati Kuustik

The thing with rebranding is that you probably (and hopefully) only get to do it once. 😅

If I had to help a company go through a rebranding again, I would focus on planning early on, having clear timelines, and making sure that all teams follow it. Which is what exactly happened in Bolt and why our rebranding went (almost) smoothly. Although there are always some last-minute surprises…

I’d also start preparing the new brand’s marketing assets and CVI (in case you want to change it) earlier and upload all new ad campaigns in advance. It took our 2-person advertising team weeks to replace all of our 5000+ online ad creatives.

🎡 On content marketing

Q24: What’s the biggest challenge for a B2C company related to content marketing strategy? – Eduarda Lemos

In my opinion, the biggest challenge for all brand blogs is understanding how to create extra value for your users that they can’t find elsewhere.

For example, at Bolt we focus on blog articles that share useful information to our drivers. This information is much harder to find compared to lifestyle-related advice for riders (as there are so many blogs and magazines already creating this type of content).

Q25: How do you manage the content production process understanding that each country has different personas/language, etc.? – Eduarda Lemos

We try to keep our blog content as evergreen and universal as possible and localize it to many languages. Sometimes, our local teams also write additional blog content targeted at their market specifically.

At some point I started to write English copy while thinking how it would sound in Estonian or French, to make sure everything is easy to localize to our 20+ languages.

Q26: Aside from your blog, I’ve read a lot of your guest posts in different blogs and platforms. I am a little biased towards the Copy Hackers one and KlientBoost as my favorites among your written guest posts but the Adespresso ones and Entrepreneur piece are up there too. What was your mindset like early on in figuring out which blog/publication/platform to pitch and how did you pitch to guest post or wrote for them? – Kian Paras

I started out pitching to 10+ marketing blogs, and it was very hard to get in initially. Once you already have a few strong articles in good blogs (in my case, HubSpot and AdEspresso) you can pitch to the next ones and will have proof of your writing quality to present.

You can read more about my guest blogging journey here: After Guest Blogging 50+ Articles, Here’s What I Learned

However, note that you won’t get much extra traffic to your blog from guest posting. For example, when I published an article in Entrepreneur, only nine readers looked up my profile and website.

The main value you’ll get from guest publishing is:

• additional blogging and podcast invitations
• job offers and help requests
• high-quality backlinks

🎢 On career and work-life

Q27: What’s an average workday look like for you? – Mary Green

My regular workday is always full of surprises, project managing some marketing campaigns, attending meetings & job interviews, discussing ideas with the team, and sharing information between teams.

But my favorite days are the ones where I disconnect from Slack and email for 4h or longer and focus on macro-level planning and improving the current team/reporting structure.

Q28: What is your biggest struggle currently? – Karolina Krolicka

When growing as fast as Bolt, you run into a lot of struggles.

I’d say the biggest challenge is understanding the business impact and ROI of all the different online and offline marketing activities that we’re doing.

We’re testing and learning something new every month, adding layers of data analytics to our campaign reporting and improving the attribution between different marketing channels.

Q29: How much of your life is dedicated to learning your craft and improvement? I love hearing how others invest in their craft. – Rob Fulton

I feel that I can learn the fastest through my work. Also, running a blog around Facebook advertising helps me stay aware of all the best practices and latest hacks.

I like to research what other top brands are doing and do a monthly review of their social media channels and blogs. Another great way to learn about new best practices is to talk to other marketers. You can even reach out on LinkedIn and propose to have a call and share your key learnings.

Also, whenever I’ve got time, I follow some industry newsletters and listen to podcasts.

I shared a long list of blogs, books, podcasts, and newsletters I like in this article, might be helpful: https://karolakarlson.com/2018-key-learnings-facebook-ads-marketing/

Q30: I remember reading your work and learning a little bit about your career profile while I was doing college internships and I only graduated in 2017. From the outside, it makes it seem like you “Bolt(ed)” upwards so quickly (jk, bad pun) or rose up relatively quickly but you may see it differently.

What is your work-life balance/integration prioritization or however you call it like, especially when you were just getting started!? Because you have Bolt, the blog, possibly other side hustles, and clients although you did mention you do not have the capacity at the moment, and possibly other hobbies and personal pursuits. You may have alluded to it with Ma’am Mary Green’s question but gosh it makes it look like you worked 24/7 to get where you are at. I personally think it’s super cool with all you’ve done so far and I can imagine some of your best work is yet to come. 🙂 – Kian Paras

About the work-life balance… I guess that early in my career I was so into marketing, looking at it as my job, hobby, relationship… (kidding about the last one :p)… But seriously, I think I easily worked at least 60h per week, also spending the Sundays working on either planning for Botl or writing to my blog.

By now, I’ve taken a step back and try to limit my workweek to 50h max. It’s become more about managing my time and focusing on the high-impact items only, removing meetings from my schedule, and learning to say “no” to more low-efficiency projects.

However, I believe that if you find a career you’re really passionate about, working the extra 20h per week doesn’t feel like a burden. Instead, you’ll be thrilled to learn by doing.

I would also say that I was very lucky to have the right opportunities to enter my life at the right time. E.g. I got an email from the CEO of Klientboost inviting me to freelance for their blog and Bolt reached out to me just as I was about to leave my past company. So it’s all about doing good work and noticing the good opportunities as they arise. You’ll be offered cool jobs only if you put yourself out there.

The post AMA with GrowthHackers – 30 Questions and Answers 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.