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Creative is one of the most important factors to consider when building a brand or maintaining it up-to-date. According to one study, you can increase revenue by 33% with consistent branding. If you are a DTC brand looking to expand your audience or increase conversions, consider investing time and resources towards your identity. Apa
rt from the general design principles and creative best practices, there is an underlying process to help you better achieve your desired KPIs and target audience. In this article we’ll explain what elements of design you should consider when producing creative assets for your brand.
What To Consider When Creating Facebook, Display Or Shopping Ads
Developing creative assets that convert customers can be challenging in a cluttered digital environment. Below are a few of our visual marketing tips to consider throughout the creative design process.
Identify the goal of the ad
A successful ad emphasizes the message conveyed to consumers through the design. Asking and answering a few questions can help to get started before diving into the actual creative process.
- Start with brand awareness. How familiar are people with the brand?
- Highlight the benefits. Does the product solve a customer pain point?
- Demonstrate the product’s ease. How easily can people use your product?
Goals vary based on the needs of your brand and should be acknowledged early on. By focusing on the answers to these questions, it will become easier to highlight the exact message the ad is expressing.
Focus on your brand’s goals
Making decisions based on the goals of your brand can be extremely helpful to narrow down the path of the business and campaign objectives. Some of the most common goals include: increasing average order value, increasing revenue, improving brand awareness, increasing exposure for new merchandise and more.
While working with the rest of your team to understand these goals, always include a realistic target date. From the target date results, you can begin to apply any optimization strategies that will continue the path to your original goals.
Design compelling variations
According to a study conducted by Asurion, the average American checks their phone 96 times a day – meaning every 10 minutes a person is consuming an influx of information every day. This becomes an opportunity to engage a mobile audience. We recommend creating a minimum of 4 ad variations across each platform. Keep in mind that each platform has its own best practices for design and there are even best practices for various ad sizes. Creating a variety of assets dedicated to the dimensions and best practices of the channels can bring a larger amount of engagement.
Advertisers also see 10% more conversions at a similar CPA when using a variety of assets when it comes to display ads. Therefore, a few best practices to follow are:
- Create variety
- Use audio in your creative
- Maintain at 15 seconds or fewer
- Add motion or combine static images
Use Animation
| Campaign Objective | Strategy |
|---|---|
| Brand Awareness | Animate logo or brand name |
| Solve Customer Pain Points | Animate the primary message in the first 3 seconds |
| Display Product Ease | Add movement to the demonstration of your product |
The average human brain requires 0.4 seconds to create a positive or negative reaction, meaning your ad works quickly or fails faster. This proves there is limited time you get to convince your audience to take action, so you need to make it count and capture attention quickly in the mobile space.
Use testing and analytics
Once you have the initial results of your ads’ performance, there’s data-driven decisions to be made. There are different adjustments that can be made for creative that have underperformed against your KPIs. Various elements like color, fonts and logo placement do not provide a high cognitive lift. Instead, try modifying the message, offer, duration, imagery or audience. There are also different types of optimization tests you can experiment with. Identify whether an A/B test or Lift test better suits your needs.
| Testing Method | Strategy | |
|---|---|---|
| A/B Testing: Split test with a control and variables | If you are trying to determine which ad performs best | |
| Lift Test: Google test that measures ad recall, brand awareness, and consideration | If you are comparing the actions of people who have (or not) seen your ad |
Always remember to have your objectives, KPIs and hypotheses in mind when starting your test.
TIP: Always test static and animation graphics separately and never at the same time.
Does your creative need a refresh?
Creative ads can be a powerful solution to your branding and conversion challenges. Ads can be as productive if they have an interesting story or purpose behind them, and go beyond surface-level solutions that improve your conversions dramatically.
The Stable is a creative marketing agency with years of experience helping DTC brands create unique, high-converting Facebook, Instagram, display and other shopping ads. Reach out to our team of experts if you’re looking for a fresh new set of creative ads for your advertising campaigns.
