Are you running or planning to run Facebook ads? If so, this month’s article is a must-read. We’re going to show you some tactics you can implement right away to boost your Facebook Ads results.
We run a digital marketing agency, and we spend a lot of our day every day working on Facebook Ads. We have created and run thousands of ads for lawyers around the country.
We analyzed our lawyer ads that have been successful to look for commonalities. What follows are general tactics for your campaigns, as well as specific tactics for your ad copy and ad images, that could lead you to better results.
General Tactic #1 -Try Stuff Out
There’s a refrain in our agency when it comes to Facebook Ads: “let’s see what happens!”
You can spend all day trying to craft the perfect Facebook ad. Maybe you’ll craft a great one, and maybe you won’t. Most likely, you’ll end up frustrated when the best performing ad is the one you spent the least time on. We fairly frequently look at our best performing ads and say, “Really?! That’s the best ad?”
That’s why variety is your friend when it comes to Facebook Ads. Try a wide variety of ads. Test different approaches to see what works.
Facebook’s algorithm is highly advanced, and no one (other than Facebook employees) will ever know how it works. When Facebook’s algorithm starts firing on all cylinders, you may be amazed at the kind of results you can see.
Almost every time we run a campaign, it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what the audience (and Facebook) likes in our ads. We may start a campaign by creating a dozen ads. One or two of those ads may perform reasonably well but have lots of room for improvement. Then, we’ll add in another 6 ads or so. We’ll do that a few times, and eventually, Facebook finds a couple of ads that resonate with the audience and yield good results. Then, you can finally start to optimize those ads to get the best results possible.
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And that’s the straightforward version of this “try stuff out” mentality. Sometimes, you have to mix up what types of ads you’re even running. If you’re running link click ads and aren’t seeing results, try changing to lead ads. If you’re running lead ads and the costs are rising, try creating Messenger ads.
You should also look at your ads and examine them with this question in mind: Are these ads too similar to each other? If all your ads in a campaign have similar types of messages and look visually similar, then it’s likely that you haven’t done nearly enough testing to find out what works.
Later in this article, you’ll see our tips for ad copy and images. We recommend implementing one or two ads using each of these tips for some variety… you may just find that one of them is the high-performing ad you’ve been looking for.
General Tactic #2 -Take Stock of Your Assets
If you have not done this before, take an hour or two to map out your firm’s marketing assets and consider how you could best use these assets in your advertising. Examples follow.
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Videos. If you have great videos, especially ones that help answer people’s questions, then you should use those videos in your Facebook ads. Of course, a brief caveat: your TV commercials will not work as ads on Facebook. What does work are authentic videos with client testimonials and/or answers to people’s questions? For instance, if you have a high-quality “About the Firm” video like those produced by Crisp Video, you should retarget on Facebook with that video.
Landing Pages. Identify your best-performing landing pages, and create ads that use similar language and/or visuals. Your best landing pages are your best for a reason, and that’s because they connect with the audience and persuade people to take action. Adapt the content from your best landing pages into ads, then direct people to those landing pages.
Photos. If you have high-quality photos of your attorneys, your office, and/or your clients, these are excellent considerations for your ads. Your logo is fine and all, but it doesn’t humanize your firm. Genuine photos of real people are what Facebook loves to see.
Testimonials. Your best client testimonials should be incorporated into your ads in some way. For short, punchy testimonials, you can even create images with the testimonial text right on the image. For longer testimonials, put them in the body of the ad. We recommend using the star emoji to call attention to the fact that it is a testimonial.
Ad Copy Tactic #1 -Call Out Your Audience
This is the first copy tactic for a reason. When we looked at successful ads, the single most common characteristic was that the ads spoke directly to the audience member.
Social media ads are not like other forms of advertising. People are idly browsing their Facebook feed when they see your ads. You’re competing for attention with cute cat videos and their cousin’s wedding photos. You need to stand out as directly relevant to them and their life. That means that you can’t beat around the bush with “high concept” ideas. You have to get people’s attention quickly by showing them that what you have to say is important enough for them to stop and read your ad, much less click on your ad.
There are 3 main ways to do this: the first sentence of the ad body, the image, and the headline (these are displayed in that order, top to bottom). Here’s an example ad that does all 3. The first sentence uses the phrase “Attention vets who served in Thailand during the Vietnam War” (along with emphasis emojis). The image includes the text “Vets Exposed to Agent Orange.” The headline further narrows that to ask the question, “Agent Orange Claim Denied?”
Of course, with Facebook’s Advertising Policies, you may not be able to ask direct questions. You can always use phrases like “Attention” and “To those who…” to speak directly to your audience. Whatever your wording, you want someone to stop and say, “Hey, that’s me!” when they see your ad.
Copy Tactic #2 -Use Action-Oriented Headlines
First, a caveat: almost any headline can potentially work. We have had successful ads with a huge variety of types of headlines. One of the most successful headline types, though, is the headline that’s focused on the action you want someone to take.
It’s tempting to write Facebook Ads headlines just like you would write headlines on a landing page. Look back up at that Facebook ad, though: the first thing someone sees is the opening sentence, not the headline. The head-line is at the very bottom of the ad, closer to the button.
That’s why you should think of Facebook Ads headlines more like a call-to-action button than a landing page headline. Instead of, “Free Book Reveals What to Do After an Accident,” try something like “Download Our Free Guide for After an Accident.”
Additionally, check your button text (Facebook gives you a wide range of options for the button text) and make sure it matches up to your action-oriented headline. “Download” or “Learn More” would work well for the above example.
Image Tactic #1 – Big, Simple Headline
This tactic works nicely with Copy Tactic #1. Many of our best performing ads have big text headlines on them that quickly and easily show the audience what they’re looking at. Ambiguity is generally a very bad thing when it comes to Facebook Ads (though there are ways you can weaponize ambiguity to make someone stop and say, “What the heck?”). Big, simple headlines on your images are a great way to make it clear to viewers what is happening.
Take these two ads for a free motorcycle book lead campaign. Both ads produced more than 200 leads. The first produced leads at under $9 / lead, and the second produced leads at under $8 / lead. Both have big headlines that are easy to read and immediately tell you what you’re getting, even if you skip the entire rest of the ad.
Image Tactic #2 -Eye-Catching Illustrations
Try creating images with eye-catching illustrations, especially colorful or thought-provoking ones. The great thing about illustrations is that people can see themselves in the illustration since it’s a more abstract representation. Having a colorful background also makes your ad stand out from all the photos in someone’s feed.
Image Tactic #3 – Plain Photo
Your mileage may vary on this one. Some audiences are strongly opposed to anything that looks and feels like an ad. On some level, we all are, but that’s a philosophical conversation for another article.
What can you do to reach those audiences? Plain photos that don’t look like they were stock photos for an ad. Here’s an example of a successful ad with a very boring photo for a campaign directed at truckers. This audience does not want to see your polished ad…they want a photo that looks like they could have taken it themselves out their windshield.
Image Tactic #4 – Headline Across the Image
This type of image is also a “classic” that we use a lot (because it works). Take a photo (either blurry or not), add a colored bar across the middle of the photo, and add the headline on top of the bar.
This ad produced leads at just over $6 / lead. You’ll note that the image headline and the actual ad copy headline are almost identical. That’s okay: some people will look at the image and ignore the copy headline. Others will do the opposite.
A Few Final Words
As a lawyer, you understand that we cannot guarantee that changing any of these things will immediately impact your conversion rate.
All we ask is that you follow our advice in General Tactic #1: try stuff out. That’s the beauty of Facebook’s platform: you can always change direction at a moment’s notice. Implement these tactics and find out what happens, then implement new ideas, and so on. There is no magic formula for Facebook, but that’s the next best thing. ◆
