How to Write Good Facebook Ads
I’m not going to be taking centre stage in this post (no, that’s not me at the typewriter in the image), rather I’m going to link to a dude whose instruction vids I liked (not him pictured, either).
I like to be creative. I like coming up with the sales copy or descriptions for my drop-shipping product pages. Just like I used to like creating my own picture posts for my on-world business on Facebook. It’s the fun bit. The bit I look forward to.
Now, that doesn’t mean I’m any damn good at it (but I like to think I am), just that I enjoy it. It’s more enjoyable than trawling through Facebook interests and job descriptions, trying to create the elusive ‘perfect’ audience for your ad campaign, and wondering if you and Facebook’s definition of what constitutes an ‘interest’ in a subject are the same (hint: usually not).
I like this sort of work in the same way as I like planting in the garden. 90% of your labour is hard graft: digging, clearing, weeding etc., and 10% is the good bit, the bit you’ve been looking forward and building up to – putting in the plants and flowers.
It’s the same with an online business. Most of it is work no one ever sees or knows you’ve done but yourself – but if you don’t do it, it’ll sure be noticeable. And it’s thankless. So it’s good to get some welcome relief, and still feel like you’ve achieved something.
Watching six hours of webinars or reading blogs all day, doesn’t really count.
It’s a skill you have to hone, though, copy writing, as you’ve got to be a jack of all trades when starting out. Plus, to be honest, outsourcing doesn’t guarantee any better an effort than you could do yourself.
Take a look at your news feed to see what I mean. There’ll be ads from some big name companies that presumably were professionally created, and they suck.
Like, big time suck.
Use this nifty little add on for the Chrome browser to see what I mean.
What you usually get is a standard Pixaby free pic, plus some uninspiring ad copy beneath it.
Jason Hornung, whose advice I still recommend on the mechanics of understanding how Facebook’s Pixel works, outputs some pretty dire ones. For a guy who runs a Facebook agency, his ads and copy for his own courses are as good an example of ‘banal,’ and lacking any eye catching qualities, as I can think of.
That’s pretty much typical of what you see in the Facebook sponsored news feed in my opinion. Even from the guys offering to sell you courses that include sales copy writing. The advice of Jeremy Salem on ads was conveyor belt stuff: minimal effort and basically hope the product sells itself. Timothy Marc, who considers himself a master-marketer, can’t a write a typo-free sales page if left to his own devices. One of his instructors, Matt Skelcher, can’t write a typo-free headline – yet they both teach this stuff!
So, I was pleasantly surprised to come across the following guy:
I’ve no idea who Travis Peters is, but I like his advice.
I had a look around his channel and Youtube and didn’t find too much for this guy, but everything I did find, I liked and thought was quality.
He doesn’t have too many views, but his advice is no-nonsense and a damn sight better than a lot of folks putting this sort of stuff out on Youtube, most of which seem to concentrate on the mechanics of producing a Facebook ad, rather than the ‘art’ of it.
Mainly because a lot of online marketers have no damn ‘art’ or creativity to speak of beyond the talent to bullshit and believe it themselves. I wrote an addendum to my Luca de Stefani review this week, and was reminded just how unimaginative, unfunny, and basically lacking in any personality that guy is (even if he thinks he’s got more style and panache than James Bond).
Oscar Wilde, most internet marketers are not.
I like that Travis spells it out – put out banal shit and you’re wasting money. That’s the bottom line. No one’s going to click on it and you’re paying to have it served up in front of people.
The ad is the first customer-facing step in the process of making money. If you can’t manage to get potential buyers to check out your page/offer, then no sales are going to be forthcoming.
There’s lots of moving of pieces in marketing, and your front end ad (never mind the targeting, that’s a whole other topic) is just one component.
Just a quick one this post, I’ll let Travis above do the talking.
Recommended further reading:
The art of copy writing. A classic and still as relevant as the day it was published.
How to Use More than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make Big Money Selling Anything to Anyone
By Drew Eric Whitman