Month: August 2017

Facebook Advertising Testing: Professional Photos vs User-Generated Content (UGC)

Posted on by Brian Bowman

In producing over 250k in Facebook Advertising for clients across multiple industries, and spending over $200 million in many high-performing campaigns, we’ve learned that visuals are critical to your campaigns’ success. Hence, images are the basis upon which other creative elements are built. Also, they are responsible for over 75% of an ad’s performance. Furthermore, if you are advertising on Facebook, your ad will be competing for attention with users’ friends’ and family’s posts as well as other content that an audience will find highly interesting. As a result, to attract your audience’s attention, select a compelling and attractive image that looks like its user-generated content (UGC).

 

User-Generated Content (UGC)

 

First of all, finding images that will not only attract your audience’s attention but also produce a high return on investment (ROAS) can be a challenging task. Because 95% to 97% of Facebook ads will fail, heavy creative testing is imperative to find a strong image. And, to facilitate finding compelling images, we’ve outlined and provided examples of some types of images you can start testing. Consequently, these include stock photos vs user-generated content (UGC) and background images.

User-Generated Images and Videos

In addition, the majority of pictures and videos seen on Facebook are user-generated photos or videos created by Facebook users themselves and shared by friends and family. Because of this, you can try using user-generated images for your Facebook campaigns. As a result, these types of images look natural within a user’s Facebook news feed and they tend to perform well.

Degrade Quality of Stock Photos

While stock photography tends to stand out and look too perfect — or too much like an advertisement. But, if you can’t access user-generated content (UGC) or don’t have the resources to produce them yourself, try degrading the quality of stock photography or videos to make them look user-generated. Below see some examples.

user-generated content (UGC)

Background Images

Background images are another type of visual testing you can run. For example, if you have selected to include elements in the foreground of your creative, you can easily switch the background image to further increase your ad’s performance.

Vibrant Colors

In addition, you can try to catch the viewer’s attention by testing vibrant, eye-catching colors like orange, red, yellow, and bright green. You can also test and compare the performance of vibrant colors versus complementary colors. And, even include your brand’s colors vs other colors. See some examples of background image testing below.

user-generated content (UGC)

Final Thoughts About User-Generated Content (UGC)

 

To make it easier for advertisers to develop and test fresh creative concepts and variations of existing concepts for images, videos, and ad copy, we’ve created a Studio for Facebook Creatives. In our Creative Studio, advertisers submit short creative briefs explaining their goals, objectives, and creative instructions. In addition, they receive creatives from our network of global designers and video editors. Finally, they choose the creatives they want to run and pay based on the creative’s performance. 

In conclusion, our clients are happy with the results they are getting from our Creative Studio. Quentin Lacornerie, Sr. Business Analyst at Ever, said:

“Consumer Acquisition immediately ramped design production using their Creative Studio. They rapidly created and tested new images and videos. It’s a pleasure to work with them and we love their creative capabilities. We recommend them to anyone looking to scale their Facebook user acquisition.”

 

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Facebook Advertising Testing Basics: Concepts vs Variations

Posted on by Brian Bowman

A high-performing Facebook advertising creative has the ability to greatly impact your campaign’s performance. In addition, a strong creative can increase your return on ad spend by 200%. It can also help you achieve your financial goals. Finding a winning creative, however, is not an easy task because 95% to 97% of creatives will fail at meeting your ROAS goals. As a result, heavy creative testing is necessary to reach winning combinations that sustain high ROAS. Hence, there are several variables that make a good creative: image, layout, image copy, size, calls to action, and more. So, when testing creatives, there are two main approaches: new concepts vs variations.

 

Concepts vs Variations

Concepts

Developing new concepts refers to the testing of brand new designs, not based on existing compositions. And, when testing different concepts, you are testing different layouts, designs, elements, and ideas. So, the winning new concepts will become the drivers of your campaign’s performance because once you have a winning concept, you can scale it rapidly and then create variations. As a result, try to focus on concept testing when you’re starting a campaign, and don’t have data on what works and doesn’t. Also, you should test new concepts when your existing ads’ performance starts to fatigue. We recommend you start testing 8-10 different concepts before you test anything else. Below, see examples of concept testing.

Variations

Concepts vs Variations: Facebook Advertising, Facebook Testing

Developing variations refers to testing different versions of a winning concept. So, once you have tested your initial 8-10 concepts and found what works or doesn’t work, you can start testing variations of winning concepts. Also, variation testing can further increase your campaign’s performance by keeping a version of your winning concepts alive longer. Variations might include changes in color, image, video length, video/image size, layout, and more. In addition, when testing variations, you should test them separately to make sure you can reach a clear conclusion and identify the winning factor. Below, see examples of variation testing.

Concepts vs Variations: Facebook Advertising, Facebook Testing, Concept Testing

Constant creative testing is imperative to maintain ROAS at scale and to continue to meet your campaign’s goals. But, even when you’ve found a high-performing creative that meets your objectives, it will eventually fatigue and decrease in performance. And, depending on your spend velocity, an ad’s lifespan can be 1-2 weeks to a couple of months, so it’s necessary to constantly test new creatives to identify new high-performing concepts you can scale before your ads’ performance wanes.

Creative Studio

To make it easier for advertisers, we created a studio for Facebook Creatives. Now they can develop and test fresh creative concepts and variations of existing concepts for images, videos, and ad copy. In our Creative Studio, advertisers submit short creative briefs explaining their goals, objectives, and creative instructions. They receive creatives from our network of global designers and video editors, choose the creatives they want to run, and pay based on the creative’s performance. 

Does it work? For Glu’s Design Home App, we increased the return on advertising spend (ROAS) by 70% from month 4 to 5, while spending 7 figures per month. Dasha Chipchay, User Acquisition Manager of Glu, said: “Consumer Acquisition immediately ramped design production using their Creative Studio. They rapidly created and tested multiple variations of new interior design video concepts and efficiently identified winners, that transformed our business month-over-month. We enjoy working with them and love their diverse creative capabilities. We highly recommend them to anyone looking to properly scale their Facebook user acquisition!”

What Really Drives Facebook Advertising Click-Through Rates?

Posted on by Brian Bowman

Facebook Advertising Campaigns are complex, and there are many variables that you need to optimize to reach a winning ad that drives high click-through rates (CTR) while meeting your financial objectives. There are visuals, calls-to-action, ad copy, headline, description, audiences, bidding options, and more to select. Producing high-performing ads requires several decisions. Not all creative elements are created equally. Some elements are built upon others, while other elements act as the foundation of Facebook campaigns. These elements are visuals.  

 

Click-Through Rates

click through rates

Visuals

In building and running over $260 million in Facebook advertising for clients across multiple industries, we’ve learned that visuals, both images, and videos, are critical to your campaigns’ success. Images are responsible for over 75% of ad performance, so this is the first area to focus on.  If you are advertising on Facebook, your ad will appear in between posts from friends and other content which is highly interesting to the audience. So gaining attention will require excellent creative.

Testing

The process of identifying the optimal images that will attract engagement and CTR begins, not surprisingly, with testing. We recommend initial testing of 10-15 images against one audience. To achieve a positive relevance score and low CPM, you should strive to achieve a CTR & 1%. Don’t worry about ad copy or other creative elements. Keep the ad copy the same for each image tested, so you’re testing only one variable at a time. Avoid complications by testing multiple variables, so you don’t waste a lot of time and money. Getting the right image is enough of a challenge. Only after you have a winning image, will you want to test the copy and other elements. As a result, you will drive an additional 10-25% of an ad’s performance.

To make it easier for advertisers to develop and test fresh creative concepts, we’ve created a marketplace for Facebook Creatives. In our Creative Studio, advertisers submit short creative briefs explaining their goals, objectives and creative instructions. They receive creatives from our network of global designers and video editors, choose the creatives they want to run, and pay based on the creative’s performance.

 

About Consumer Acquisition

Founded in 2013, Consumer Acquisition is a badged Facebook and Instagram Marketing Partner that offers the world’s first end-to-end user acquisition platform with a Creative Studio, AI-powered automation, and action-based reporting for Facebook Advertisers. The company has acquired over 75 million app installs and leads for Glu Mobile, Checkout51, Sunbasket, EBATES, PlayStudios, Brainwell, and many others. Solutions include Creative Studio, AdRules 30-day free trial and FREE reporting to enhance Facebook’s native tools capabilities. For more information, visit  www.consumeracquisition.com.

 

Facebook Names Consumer Acquisition a Creative Platform Partner

Posted on by Brian Bowman

ConsumerAcquisition.com announced its acceptance as a Facebook Creative Platform partner. Facebook has recognized Consumer Acquisition as both an Ad Tech partner and Creative Platform partner making it their only partner to offer an end-to-end solution for Facebook user acquisition.

 

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – August 15, 2017

 

Creative Platform Partner

Brian Bowman, CEO of Consumer Acquisition, said: “Many of today’s Facebook advertisers use in-house design resources for their Facebook ads, and find those teams are either too busy producing assets for games and apps or are not good at creating Facebook ads that perform well. They end up creating poor-performing creative. Or, they don’t have enough bandwidth to develop the volume of creative needed to maintain profitable advertising at scale. Our Creative Studio offers a global network of experienced designers and video editors to help companies scale the volume and quality of their Facebook advertising.”

Consumer Acquisition’s pay-for-performance Creative Studio is designed to deliver creative innovation and testing at scale for Facebook and Instagram advertisers. After submitting a creative brief, advertisers can choose the creatives they like, pay only for performance and launch on Facebook with a single button click.  

The Creative Studio is powered by AdRules, our self-service Facebook ad platform. It helps advertisers effortlessly manage Facebook ads by identifying creative fatigue and making recommendations for new ad launches based on top creative, ad copy, and audiences.

Adam Zbar, CEO of Sun Basket

“Consumer Acquisition delivered outstanding Facebook advertising results for Sun Basket. They reduced our CAC and fueled user acquisition growth to levels that far exceeded our expectations. Their passion for creative testing, use of the Creative Studio, and attention to metrics drove profitability. The quality of work reflects their experience and expertise in Facebook advertising. I highly recommend these guys.”

Michael Buhr, CEO of Filld

“Consumer Acquisition ramped up spend within the first few weeks and capped out our daily budget while reducing our CPA by 42% within 90 days. Their Creative Studio allowed us to rapidly test new creative (images and videos) with various copy messaging while continuing to drive new customers to our platform even when we increased spend by eleven times from month 1 to month 3. They’ve transformed our business and marketing approach, and we recommend them to anyone looking to properly scale their Facebook user acquisition”.

Quentin Lacornerie, Sr. Business Analyst at Ever

“Consumer Acquisition immediately ramped design production using their Creative Studio. They rapidly created and tested new images and videos. It’s a pleasure to work with them and we love their creative capabilities. We recommend them to anyone looking to scale their Facebook user acquisition.”

Alex Tikhman, EVP of MONCLARITY

“We’re very proud of our innovative Brainwell App to help people of all ages. However, Facebook ad spend with other partners proved unsuccessful. Consumer Acquisition’s unique Managed Services solution, Creative Studio, and highly efficient AdRules Platform have yielded our most rapid high-quality new user growth. This team knows how to scale Facebook and generate creative at scale!”

 

About Consumer Acquisition

Founded in 2013, Consumer Acquisition is a badged Facebook and Instagram Marketing Partner that offers the world’s first end-to-end user acquisition platform with a Creative Studio, AI-powered automation, and action-based reporting for Facebook Advertisers. The company has acquired over 75 million app installs and leads. App Installs and leads for Glu Mobile, Checkout51, Sunbasket, EBATES, PlayStudios, Brainwell, and many others. Solutions include Creative Studio, AdRules 30-day free trial, and FREE reporting to enhance Facebook’s native tools capabilities. For more information, visit www.consumeracquisition.com.

 

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.

Media Contact:

Kate Pietrelli for Consumer Acquisition

Press@ConsumerAcquisition.com

 

 

Glu Mobile’s’ Design Home app Increases ROAS By 70% with Consumer Acquisition’s Creative Studio

Posted on by Brian Bowman

Glu, a leading global developer of 3D freemium mobile games, hired Consumer Acquisition to assist in developing new and innovative creative concepts for effective Instagram & Facebook advertising. Also, this was to gain worldwide mass distribution of their new interior design game Design Home. As a result, Leveraging Consumer Acquisition’s Creative Studio platform, Design Home was able to increase its ROAS by 70% on a 7-figure spend.

 

Glu Mobiles’ Design Home

 

Creative Studio

Consumer Acquisition, a Facebook & Instagram partner and the only end-to-end user acquisition solution, designed the Creative Studio to assist Advertisers like Glu to produce and test effective Facebook creatives at scale. In addition, The Creative Studio, which recently became available to all Facebook Advertisers, offers access to a global network of experienced designers and video editors specialized in Facebook advertising. And, it’s based on a pay-per-performance model.

design home ads

Most noteworthy, Glu was one of the first advertisers to experience the benefits of the Creative Studio. First, to get started in the studio, creative briefs were provided detailing Design Home’s target market, creative testing history, and available assets. And, once the creative brief was live, designers and video editors worked up over 40 video concepts for Design Home to review and test. Finally, as a result of our aggressive creative testing, our team achieved several winning concepts. 

First of all, we started early concept testing with some assumptions and not a lot of data. Because of this, our early ads were naturally some of the lowest-performing ads. Hence, empty rooms showed side-by-side decorated rooms that included emojis and hands to make the ads eye-catching. But, none of these ads performed well. See some examples below.

design home ads

Once we identified the winning concept, and our team submitted new briefs requesting variations of this concept. In addition, variation requests included changes in video length, scene order, and image selection. Also, included were the copy, banner color, calls to action, text color, font treatment, and more. Finally, through the studio, over 150 variations were tested to find new combinations that would allow Design Home to scale and radically increase their ROAS and sustain high spend.

High-performing Facebook Advertising

As with Design Home, high-performing Facebook advertising campaigns require a considerable investment in creative development. In addition, choosing the right visuals offer advertisers the best chance at achieving campaign performance goals. But, only 5% of ad creatives are effective at converting installs to meet advertiser’s financial objectives. And, oftentimes it’s hard requiring a lot of testing to get to a winning combination. Consequently, advertisers must constantly test a high volume of ad creatives to drive optimal campaign performance.

Consumer Acquisition’s Pay-for-Performance Creative Studio empowers Facebook and Instagram advertisers to fight creative fatigue with scaled creative production and innovation. Also, advertisers can rapidly deploy and test new ad concepts. As a result, this enables quick identification of high-performing creatives that drive user acquisition and revenue growth.  

 

Creative Studio for Facebook Ads Publicly Available from Consumer Acquisition

Posted on by Brian Bowman

A new digital ad design solution enables advertisers to seamlessly generate hundreds of creatives through a dynamic, pay-for-performance studio to leverage for user acquisition campaigns on Facebook. Now Facebook ads publicly available through Consumer Acquisition’s Creative Studio.

 

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – August 1, 2017

Facebook Ads Publicly Available

Consumer Acquisition, a Facebook and Instagram Marketing Partner offering the world’s first end-to-end acquisition platform, announced Facebook Ads publicly available through its Creative Studio solution that delivers creative design at scale to Facebook advertisers. Starting today, all Facebook advertisers will be able to access Consumer Acquisition’s pay-for-performance marketplace for engaging designers and video editors to source ad creatives dynamically for campaigns.

High-performing digital advertising campaigns on Facebook require a considerable investment in creative development and choosing the right visuals to offer advertisers the best chance at achieving campaign performance goals. Yet, according to Consumer Acquisition’s internal analysis, about 95% of ad creatives are ineffective at converting installs and leads to meet the advertiser’s financial objectives. Advertisers must test a constant rotation of hundreds of ad creatives to drive optimal campaign performance.

facebook ads publicly availableBrian Bowman, CEO of Consumer Acquisition, said: “We’ve produced over 250,000 Facebook ads and spent over $200 million in Facebook advertising using AI-powered automation, and we know what works in the ad creative market. Our top-performing advertisers know that maintaining profitable performance with Facebook ads requires a constant refresh of videos and images. So, we’re pleased to now offer a scalable solution to all Facebook advertisers with our Creative Studio. With a short creative brief, advertisers receive new videos and images from our global network of designers and editors, they choose which creatives to run, upload to Facebook, and pay-for-performance.”

Chris Akhavan, Chief Revenue Officer, Glu Mobile, said: “We’ve worked with many Facebook Marketing Partners and Consumer Acquisition has consistently produced the highest performance with strong creative. We are looking forward to seeing their Creative Studio in action.”

Creative Studio Overview

facebook ads publicly available

  • Creative innovation at scale with access to a global network of designers and editors.
  • Write a creative brief or collaborate with our free concierge service for brief writing and designer management.
  • Review creatives from our worldwide network of creative talent and chose which creatives to launch.
  • Automatic identification of poor ad performance with recommended new ad launches.
  • Free advanced reporting enhances the capabilities of Facebook’s Ad Manager and Power Editor. Also, with rolled-up data across creatives and drill-down ability to uncover meaningful insights.

 

About Consumer Acquisition

Founded in 2013, Consumer Acquisition is a badged Facebook and Instagram Marketing Partner. They offer the world’s first end-to-end user acquisition platform. This includes a Creative Studio, AI-powered automation, and action-based reporting for Facebook Advertisers. The company has acquired over 75 million app installs and leads. Acquired for Glu Mobile, Checkout51, Sunbasket, EBATES, PlayStudios, Brainwell, and many others. Solutions include Creative Studio, AdRules 30-day free trial, and FREE reporting to enhance Facebook’s native tools capabilities.

For more information, visit www.consumeracquisition.com.

Media Contact: Kate Pietrelli for Consumer Acquisition, 925-583-5270, Press@ConsumerAcquisition.com

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.
Google® is a registered trademark of Google LLC.

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