20 Creative Ways to Extend the Life of Your Social Ad Campaign. As seen in Target Marketing.
Extending the life of your social ad campaign
You’ve enjoyed the benefits of a winning social ad campaign for a while. And, with an eye-catching video that yields a high clickthrough rate (CTR), high relevance score, and low cost-per-install (CPI). But most importantly, you’ve got a high return on ad spend (ROAS). However, lately, you’ve noticed that your KPIs have started to decrease in performance, your CTR is decreasing, your CPI is increasing and your ROAS isn’t holding. As a result, your once strong ad creative is no longer thriving. What happened?
Well, with the increase in audience reach and spend, all creatives eventually fatigue, and performance drop. This happens when your social advertising ads have been seen by the same people too many times. As a result, the performance will start to decrease, and you’ll soon need to find strong replacement creatives to maintain your performance.
Yes, you could start from zero and try to generate brand-new creative concepts. However, this is a process you should be constantly doing. In addition, you should spend about 10 to 15 percent of your media budget on it. Yet, before you start spending on new concepts that you don’t know will perform, we recommend extending your existing campaign by breathing life into your current creative first. Below, we describe 20 simple modifications to freshen your creative to maintain performance for a longer period of time.
1. Background Image
Leave all of the elements of your creative the same, and change the background image only; single colors are usually best.
2. Image Copy
If you’ve already run several ad copy tests. Try placing a winning copy on the video or image in the header or directly over the creative.
3. Call to Action
Change the call to action to extend your ad’s life. If you’ve used “Download Now,” try “Play Now,” “Play Free” or a different CTA relevant to your business.
4. Image Layout
Try reordering the elements of your creative. If you have text and images, try moving them around to give it a new look without completely changing the ad (horizontal vs vertical strips of text).
5. Image Colors
Is your image mainly blue? Try changing it to red, yellow, orange or green. We’ve found that primary colors work best to grab people’s attention.
6. Font Treatment
Again, if you’re not too strictly tied to your brand guidelines, try changing the font treatment to something significantly different.
7. Font Color
Besides font treatment, you can experiment with different font colors. Also, you can try bright against neutral colors and see what stands out.
8. Add Logo
Do you have a recognizable brand? Add your logo if you haven’t already. And, even if your brand isn’t well-known, you can test an ad that includes your logo.
9. Remove Logo
Have you run ads with your logo? Try testing ads without your logo to see if it yields different or better results.
10. Add Characters
Are you advertising a game with well-known characters? If so, add them to your ad. Your characters aren’t recognizable? It’s still worth a test.
11. Remove Characters
Have you already run your ads with your game characters? If so, remove the characters from your ad, and see if you can get better results.
12. Add Products
If you are advertising an e-commerce or retail store, try adding and showcasing several products in one ad.
13. Remove Products
Likewise, when advertising multiple products from an e-commerce or retail store, you can try removing them. Also, creating ads with just one product.
This section refers to videos only.
14. End Card
If your video is decreasing in performance, change your end-card. Also, you can change the end card’s design as well as the Call To Action.
15. Add Effects
Adding effects to your winning video can significantly increase its performance. For example, effects can include sparkles, floating elements like coins or stars, or even fireworks.
16. Add Movement
Do you have a winning image? Why not turn it into a moving image? So, animate one or several elements to revive your image.
17. Video: Shorten Length to 8 Seconds Max
Shorter videos tend to outperform longer ones. So, if you’ve been running video ads longer than eight seconds, try shortening their length for better results.
18. Video: Focus on Gameplay
If you’re advertising a mobile game, focus your video ads on exciting elements of gameplay. Such as wins, credits and passing new levels.
19. Video: Add Copy
Most people don’t watch entire videos, and they probably won’t get to see your end card. As a result, include that CTA or text throughout the video in a banner.
20. Video: Include Interesting Transitions
Improve your video by including interesting transitions between scenes. Also, these can include transitions beyond your typical dissolve or fade in.
