21 Smart Ways to Boost Your Facebook Ads CTR
If you are well-versed in digital marketing, you know a thing or two about Facebook ads and why achieving an excellent CTR is vital for a brand’s marketing strategy. This platform gives you access to an enormous targeting pool because who doesn’t have Facebook these days? The platform’s cost-effective payment model gives its users an ideal for even smaller businesses to venture into. Remembering that you need to put in a bit of effort and tune into your creative instincts to ensure you are getting your money’s worth. Paying for ads and not getting clicks on them would be disastrous for any brand. With those results, any advertiser would look out to Google the title Facebook ads tips and tricks 2022.
Your click-through rate should reflect the content you put in the social media space. Even if your content is spectacular, there might be a few elements you are missing that make it not likely to get clicked on when it is in an ad format. There is a specific art to ensure you boost ads on Facebook effectively. This article will first explain the basics of Facebook ads and CTR and then dive into the different ways you can boost your CTR. If you already know how to increase Facebook ads CTR and what it entails, skip to the different ways to find out some more tips. If not, keep reading.
Firstly, what is a click-through rate?
A straightforward answer would be the rate at which consumers click on your ad when it is displayed on SERPs or online advertisement banners. As you can see below, one can use a simple formula to calculate CTR.
You don’t need to be a mathematician to figure this out, but you will need all the relevant data. Facebook ad analytics is where you start to collect this data. Link clicks are self-explanatory, but impressions mean a whole host of metrics. This data section includes likes, shares, reactions, and comments. A click to expand the ad text is counted as a click metric. But link clicks are the most crucial element of a Facebook ad. When someone clicks on your link, they will be redirected to your website’s landing page, where most conversions occur. If consumers are reacting to your ad but not clicking on the link, that will slow down your conversions considerably.
Secondly, why does it matter?
Facebook CTR can highlight many underlying issues with your ad while it is running. This can be the base point from which you can make improvements and ultimately start increasing your conversions. Your CTR can identify if you are targeting the wrong audience and why consumers are not interested in the ad. For example, it can point out that if the messaging you are using is suitable for your audience, your content could be for the bottom-of-the-funnel consumers, but instead, you are selling to the top-of-the-funnel consumers. Your offers might not be enticing enough, or the discounts are not attractive to consumers. This would mean you need to rework what you can offer users for conversion. Finally, the CTR could indicate that your ad format or imagery is not eye-catching to consumers. These elements can play a vital role in the success of your ad and only calculating your CTR will draw your attention to the progress of your ad.
Lastly, What is a good CTR for a Facebook ad?
You might be wondering what is the best CTR for Facebook ads. Some marketers suggest that an average CTR is around 0.90%. This rate is universal across the board in all industries, which you can see in the representation below.
Looking at the data above, some industries have a higher CTR than others. Retail, apparel, beauty, technology and fitness fall into this category. This does not mean you will have those numbers when you run an ad. You will have to work towards reaching the average CTR Facebook ads upper limit. Well-thought-out content and captivating imagery can ensure that nothing limits your decided benchmarks. But, if you are in an industry such as retail, chances are that you will have an easier time finding a good CTR because you can buy your products online. Even the offers you can give consumers are exciting, such as buy two get one free. This might not be possible when it comes to selling cars or other luxury products. You can even hire agencies to focus on Facebook ad boosts for your brand, which would improve your overall CTR.
Now that you know CTR and its importance when running ads for your brand let us explore in depth what you can do to improve your overall CTR.
The following ways are:
1. Configuring Your Content For Your Audience Effectively
The primary purpose of an ad is to offer something to your audience. Now, this offer or messaging has to appeal to the consumer, but some calls to action might not communicate well with consumers at different levels of the marketing funnel. So, for example, if you are marketing to consumers at the awareness stage of the funnel, a simple “Buy Now” prompt will not affect those users. This is because you need to add a spark to the consumer’s curiosity, and a mere purchase gesture will undoubtedly lead you to have a few clicks on your ad.
Instead, offering consumer information on how to use your products, such as a guide or how-to manual, will attract curious consumers and make more of an impression. For example, you can link these guides to your site and drive more consumers to your site through the ad. While you might be receiving well with consumers on the awareness stage, you must keep consumers on the rest of the funnel in mind. You can customize your content for different ads to capture consumers on different levels of interest. Audience targeting tools can be implemented and will assist you in focusing your efforts on different target groups. Your offers should be customized for users who are ready to buy compared to users who still need to be convinced.
Facebook allows you to make several custom audience groups for your ads. You can use these audience lists if they do well for any retargeting campaigns you might run in the future. Your offers should match each audience’s interest, which will be detrimental to increasing your overall CTR in Facebook ads. Ensure that the offers are not too similar and vary from audience to audience. Only then can you test out which messaging works well with which group.
2. Thorough Audience Selection
As mentioned in the previous section, targeting the wrong people will get you nowhere in CTR. Another issue that can arise is targeting too many people in one ad group. The only way you know that your ad will do well is by running it and analyzing the CTR Facebook ads data, but you can make changes before that to ensure you will not waste brand resources.
Unless you are a multinational company, targeting millions of people will not get you anywhere. Instead, you will be burning through your budget quicker than you thought. Not to mention you are not guaranteed excellent CTRs if you do target a vast number of people. When you target numerous consumers, it also limits how customizable your content can be because you would be appealing to the masses. So your ad might not even be relevant to most people in that ad group. If it isn’t relevant to a consumer, they won’t click on your ad, reducing your chances of conversion.
There are only a few reasons you should target millions of consumers. One of those reasons would be for a prospecting campaign. These campaigns target consumers based on data from trusted sources like social media networks, online publishers and advertising sites. This data has been analyzed and tested to see what consumers will engage with your ad the most. Unfortunately, this kind of data is usually expensive because of its value. It also makes sense if you are looking for lower CPM (cost per thousand) and gain conversions for less.
If you are not willing to spend a significant chunk of your budget acquiring this data, then you should stick to figuring out who your niche audience is and targeting them. Create campaigns aimed at relevant groups willing to buy your product. A broad target group of millions is a waste of time and money. Facebook’s targeting tool is detailed and you can narrow your audience based on interests, age, behaviors and location. Use the level of customization to your advantage. You can also create a custom audience group to be excluded from your ad, which would be more effective targeting.
3. Utilize Your Ad Copy Well
An ad mainly has two elements to it, one being the imagery and the second being its copy. Consumers click on an ad when they feel both elements relate to their interests. For example, your ad can attract a user through well-picked imagery, but your copy convinces them whether or not they should buy your product when they come across your ad. Some copywriters suggest that buzzwords and power words usually work to capture consumers’ attention. These words can persuade consumers to feel the ad is about them, and thus, they can relate to the copy.
To ensure your copy is perfect, you need to know your target audience and what appeals to them. What entices them could be different at each stage of the buyer journey. As a brand, you can find this kind of data in many ways, either by running a survey on social media or interviewing consumers. While some of this might seem time-consuming, the outcome will shape the kind of copy you produce. Interacting with consumers will give you a first-hand look at what drives them to make purchasing decisions and what attracts them to an ad. The information to receive will make your ad copy more persuasive.
For example, if a brand sells sports shoes and you decide to interview consumers on what they look for in sport’s shoes. It could be revealed that the traction of a shoe is a huge deciding factor in buying a shoe. That bit of information could be the premise for your next upcoming ad copy. Appealing to the issues and interests of a consumer is the deciding factor for any ad copy. It is detrimental to getting clicks for your ad.
4. Keeping Your Ad Copy Crisp
We all have seen Facebook posts that have captions that are incredibly long most of the time. You lose interest in the actual post if the caption is too long. Some advertisers have noticed that shorter captions and copies tend to perform better in CTR. This means that consumers are more willing to engage with a post that has a relevant short copy.
Facebook posts usually have 157 characters, while user posts are reduced to 121 characters and mobile posts are even lower at 104 on average. It has been observed that posts between 120 and 139 characters have 13.3% more consumer engagement than posts with 140-159 characters. It can be assumed that if a consumer spends more time reading the copy, they will also spend more time deciding. If there is too much information for the consumer to read and then process, the likeness of an ad being clicked on is low. A quick copy means a quicker click if the copy is convincing enough within those characters. Each ad copy should have easy-to-read information vital for the consumer and capture their attention to direct them onto your landing page.
5. Ask Questions That Make Your Audience Think
Ads that ask consumers questions are more clickable than ads that don’t. If your ad copy has a question that encourages consumers to ask themselves, this sparks curiosity and enlightens the reader. Simply stating discounts or offers is not enough to make a consumer click on your ad. The question doesn’t need to be complex; it can be simple and would leave the consumer wanting to find out the answer. This can be done by clicking on the link in the ad.
The element of mystery should also be added to the headline of your ad. This would promote more of a reason for a solution. For example, if an ad just had discounts for pencils, it might not receive many clicks for being generic. If the ad said, ‘ Have you ever run out of pencils when you had a brilliant artistic idea?’, the consumer would think about a relatable situation they had been in. If they can relate to the ad and the situation, they will most likely click on the ad to stock up on pencils. Curiosity is the driving force of any ad and will drive your CTR up if it is appropriately utilized. The question can be the hook for your ad and will ensure consumers read the rest of your ad copy.
6. The Right Length For Ad Headlines
The number of characters in your ad copy is essential, but so is the number of characters in your headline. Some marketers believe that the ideal length for an ad headline is between 25-40 characters. This might seem like a minor element to an ad, but your headline is one of the first lines consumers will see when an ad pops up on their feed. This uses the same logic as the previous section about a crisp copy. The shorter the headline, the shorter the time frame a consumer uses to decide. This might be challenging to some copywriters who have to fit relevant information within a specific limit of characters, but it does work if you achieve it. Shorter headlines equal more clicks.
7. Action Verbs
A great way to increase your Facebook ad CTR is by creating a headline for the advertisement. Consumers are most likely to act on your advert’s headline before reading anything else, so you should test out different headlines and see which gets you the highest clicks or replies.
Use action verbs like ‘get,’ ‘do,’ ‘try,’ ‘start,’ and ‘find’ to grab the attention of readers who may otherwise skim through an advertisement without really paying attention. If you’re advertising a product, make sure that your headline says what users will get when they click through—like Get this FREE offer!, Try this NEW product out, etc.
8. Including Numbers In Your Copy
It has been suggested that including numbers in headlines helps to increase CTR. In fact, up to 36% of people surveyed prefer seeing numbers in headlines over words, making them more likely to click on your ads. Numbers you can include in your headline may include the number of days left before an offer expires, how many units remain or are being sold, the number of people who have been helped so far (with a percentage discount), etc.
9. Use Emojis To Cater To The Younger Generation
It might sound strange at first to use emojis in your ad and not just in text messages. Still, it seems to be working these days. It adds a human touch to the message a brand is trying to convey and is appealing to the younger generations who are still consumers. This emoji strategy works because it draws attention to different lines of an ad. Plus, the emojis represent each benefit, adding visual emphasis and working past any language barriers.
Start by finding appropriate emoticons in Emojipedia—select one for each desired sentence—and then paste them into your Facebook ad when inserting ad copy. But be careful! You don’t want to do this unless they make sense with the message you’re trying to convey and if your audience will understand them too. You would not want an emoji to be misunderstood by readers and have a PR issue on your hands.
10. Speak To Consumer’s Emotions
For an ad to be successful, it must speak to the consumer on a personal level. To reach that level, a brand must go beyond an ad’s business aspect and cater to a person’s emotions. When you successfully spark an emotion of a consumer, you gain attention. The emotion does not always have to be happiness or excitement, the usual positive emotions. It can be negative ones as well, such as anger and sadness.
The consumer is likelier to click on an ad that makes them feel something than an ad with zero emotion. You can evoke emotion in a consumer in many different ways. Colors are an excellent way to attract them to the ad. This means your ad could have colors incorporated into the ad design itself. For example, using yellow as the background to your ad might make it seem more positively appealing compared to using a plain white background. Another way could be your tone of voice in the ad copy. Be sure to make it sound energetic and enthusiastic, as those kinds of tones are what would draw attention to your ad, as compared to the tone being dull and bland.
The imagery you use could depict emotions as well. Consumers would receive happy faces well rather than sad or disturbed ones. But, as we mentioned before, emojis also convey emotions. Some emojis depict happiness, such as smiling ones, while others portray other emotions. Incorporating exclamation marks and question marks would be an excellent way to express the message you are trying to put out in an ad.
11. Creating A Sense Of Urgency
FOMO is a term that has been floating around social media for a long time and is perfect to utilize within an ad. The complete form stands for “fear of missing out.” From an ad perspective, it would mean the fear of missing out on an offer, just showing an offer and how much the price has been, but it isn’t enough to capture consumers’ attention these days.
Instead, a sense of urgency has been created to speed up decision-making. For example, you can add a timer that counts down to when the sale will end. This kind of time restriction gives the consumer a timeline in which they need to make a choice. The fear of missing out on a good deal could be an enormous deciding factor for an ad.
It has been said that 69% of millennials experience FOMO when they cannot attend an event or social gathering, especially if their friends are going. Advertisers can use this feeling to create a sense of urgency for the average buyer and encourage them to click on the ad. This can also be used not only on B2C consumers but also B2B.
There are many different ways to instill FOMO in the average consumer. The first way is to mention that a specific offer is for a limited time. The next is making sure the time frame is visible to the consumer at all times on the ad. You can also mention the product is limited in stock, so that would create a demand for it as the supply is scarce.
Lastly, if you do create urgency, make sure to stick to it. Do not lie to consumers about the limited time because the next time you decide to do it, people might not believe your brand, and they would feel cheated. Brand trust is crucial when it comes to consumers clicking on your ad.
12. Throw In Free Products To Sweeten The Deal
Free offers are enticing! After all, who wouldn’t want products or content free of cost? But offering lots of free things doesn’t necessarily lead to increased revenue. Instead, present them strategically when appropriate, such as at the top-of-the-funnel stage, where you can only ask for an email address in return. Continue building relationships beyond that first transaction by moving contacts into your regular newsletter lists. Within a few months, they’ll be paying customers.
You can offer content for free during specific periods, and then later, you could add a subscription to view the same content later on. Since consumers have used your content before, they might be more inclined to buy it this time. The ads could also depict the same structure, encouraging more consumers to click on them to view free content. Once you direct them to your landing pages through the link, you can then have them view your paid products on the website.
13. Prize Giveaways
Who doesn’t love winning a prize and bragging about it to their friends & family? Facebook ads that promote prizes grab consumers’ attention for two main reasons. The first is offering people a chance to win a prize could excite them, meaning they’re more willing to take immediate action. The second reason is if you’re offering a spectacular prize, people will share the promotion with their friends, bringing you hundreds of organic ad views, clicks, and conversions.
Offering prizes may be the key to engaging Facebook audiences unfamiliar with your brand. However, don’t set the bar for entry too high. If you ask people for too much commitment or make it too complicated- they’ll quickly lose interest or refuse to participate. Instead, find the right balance between intrigue and ease so that plenty of folks will want what you have without feeling like it’s unattainable.
14. Make Sure Your Ad Puts The Consumer At Ease
Appealing to consumers’ worries requires you to know exactly what worries you when you see an ad. This includes their possible apprehensions about your Facebook ad offer. Occasionally, even when you promote a product, people shy away from clicking if it seems too much of a commitment. On other occasions, people are afraid to subscribe to your content because they worry that the results won’t be satisfactory.
But, as soon as you unearth those apprehensions and worries before the prospect has time to think about them, you’ll have an easier time convincing others to purchase products or services. Finally, some other consumer anxieties you can cover in your ad are the safety of entering your card details, information about added costs like delivery fees and concerns about the return policy or refunds.
15. Design Captivating Facebook Ads
As mentioned before, your ad needs to capture the consumer’s attention on two fronts, the copy and the design. A lack of a wow factor can mean your ads will go unnoticed. So you must work on ensuring you excite consumers with your ad on both fronts. Start by using bright, crisp images taken with a good camera or photography equipment – this stands for both stills and videos. Try choosing vibrant backgrounds for behind products.
When shooting video, strive for HD-quality footage to ensure top results are achieved. Remember that consumers equate lower-quality visuals with poorer products. So don’t limit yourself. When deciding on models for stills or videos, ask them to look at the product rather than looking straight into the camera’s lens. Try doing this with some humor or even laughter, if possible. Happier expressions are more welcoming to a consumer and can encourage people to click on your ad.
16. In-Image Ad Text
We have established that the image of an ad determines whether or not a consumer will click on the image. So why not combine text and imagery in a picture? The headline is what people see, but if you have eye-catching text in your picture, that is a surefire way to ensure the consumer can see the rest of the information in the ad. As you see below, Hootsuite has incorporated the in-image ad text perfectly and will convince consumers to give it a click. It also gives you extra space to add any information which you could not fit in the headline or description sections of the ad.
17. Selecting The Right Campaign Objective
Facebook ad campaigns and bidding must be selected before uploading your ad to the platform. There are many different campaign objectives you can select from. The ad campaign objective affects your ads’ CTR (click-through rate) and cost-per-conversion. The campaign objective lets Facebook know what you’re looking for in return for your ads. Then, the platform’s algorithm optimizes around to try to deliver your desired result. Below are the objectives you can select when you want to run an Ad campaign.
Suppose you select Brand Awareness or Reach as the campaign objective. In that case, all those other options are open since these two tell Facebook that you want as many people viewing your ads as possible without consideration for how many people click on them. So if there’s anything else that will allow for more excellent CTRs, go ahead and test it out. But don’t forget specific goals, such as converting or getting new consumers to download an app. Always remember these goals when selecting which campaign objective would work best under those circumstances.
18. Optimize Your Ad Delivery
No Facebook ad optimization technique will make Facebook increase your ads’ click-through rates. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t make some of that PPC magic happen. Instead, there is a Facebook ad bidding trick by which you optimize delivery settings for link clicks. This will tell Facebook that you want your ads seen by people who are most likely to click on them (and those ‘clickers’ will also be more open to converting). Take it one step further by optimizing your Facebook ad delivery for conversions. This tells the Facebook algorithm what it should focus on, so you’re aiming for higher CTRs and more excellent conversion rates.
19. Make The Objects In Your Ad Stand Out
While it may be challenging to feature several products in one advertisement, you may want to invest your budget for only one or two campaigns that highlight individual items. For example, separate images so it’s easier for readers to see and understand them all. Try using line or color separations to make objects pop out more.
20. Use Customer Feedback & Reviews
Customers vouching for a brand is the best way to attract new consumers to your ad and solidify your current customer base. These reviews should be positive and give insight into how you treat your customers and handle queries. The more genuine the comment or feedback is, the more trustworthy your brand is. Transparency is vital to any brand and should also translate into ads. If consumers trust your brand, they will click on your ad.
Remember that consumers are observant and can make out when there is a fake review or a very biased one being left on a company site or used in an ad, so be sure not to deceive users. A good practice would be to collect good reviews of the brand and store them in a folder you can access when you need to make an ad or if you need a break from only product ads in your marketing content strategy.
21. Custom Imagery And Color Contrast
The images you use and the color you select are recurring themes in increasing your ad CTR because they play a crucial role in making an impression on consumers. To succeed in standing out, you must move away from the generic. Many advertisers tend to utilize image libraries for stock photos. There is nothing wrong with using these images, but so are ten other advertisers. With such a regular occurrence of imagery, a consumer will get bored and probably scroll past your ad.
Using a stock image and then customizing it to tell your brand story is unique. An image can speak a thousand words, and you can use it to your advantage with clever editing and animation. On that note, using bright, highly contrasting colors will make your ad pop out more amongst the thousands of other Facebook posts on a consumer’s feed. The effect should make your ad stand out and give the attention it needs to acquire a click. A combination of contract colors will lead to a higher CTR.
These might seem like a tremendous amount of tips to keep in mind, but they all surround three main factors. These are imagery, ad copy and knowing your audience. Each of these tips will work for some industries, while some might only work depending on the business environment—a few things you need to remember. First, you must test them and see what works best for your product or service. Second, Facebook is an excellent platform to start from because you have many resources to help you on the advertising dashboard to guide you through the whole process.
Finally, the analytics you access is an idea for learning from and making tweaks in your ad to acquire a better CTR. If all of this is challenging for you to keep track of and run your business, experts like SV Digital offer social media marketing services that can help improve ads and ensure you hit your quarterly targets.
