A group of brand marketers, strategists, and creative directors at Facebook’s Creative Shop reviewed hundreds of top performing video ads. They identified four different categories in which all of these ads fell into including, basic in motion, brand in motion, benefit in motion and demo in motion. And also provided tips and best practices on how to improve videos ads to increase your ad’s user value. In addition, these videos can be created with limited assets as they consist of still images and simple animations of different elements.
Basics in Motion
A simple video or animation. You can start with a still image and animate 1 – 2 elements of the image such as a character. You can also use music to add excitement.
Brand In Motion
A video with an emphasis on your brand. Start with a still, and add excitement by animating an aspect of your brand like your logo.
Benefit in Motion
A video with an emphasis on your products’ benefits. Start with a still, and add excitement by animating your product’s benefits with typography. Also, use short copy to make your video effective.
Demo In Motion
A video with an emphasis on how your product works. For mobile games, you can screen capture gameplay and place it inside a phone. Not a mobile game? Show a demonstration of your product.
The first 3 seconds really matter. Here are some things to consider generously when creating video ad creative:
Consider testing the following elements when creating ad creative variations:
The easiest way to create new concepts is to change video/image layout. Find a way to tell the same story by changing and adding elements to the layout. As a result, you’ll find there are many ways you can refresh your creative by updating your layout.
A simple way to create new concepts is to showcase your product or service in several layouts like side-by-side, split-screen, grid (2×2, 3×3, 4×4), split screen (½ & ½), split screen variation ⅓ or ¼. Grid layouts can help you tell a complete story by including different elements of your product.
Include a mobile device in the video ad to show the user that you’re advertising a mobile app. You can also try excluding the mobile app and show it’s a mobile app in a different way. Test a hand holding mobile device vs no hand. Or, experiment with a woman’s hand vs a man’s hand depending on your product’s audience.
The text is one of the most powerful ways to communicate your app’s or product’s benefits and features. First, make sure you are testing: strong calls to action, short and long ad copy. Next, consider testing placement by placing your text in the upper, middle, lower, left, or right section of your ad. Finally, try your text in different colors, fonts, sizes, etc.
Once you’ve grabbed the viewer’s attention with an eye-catching ad, ask for the sale or download with a strong call to action. Also, test different calls to action with a different language, copy, color, button, and button color. As a result, the right call to action can significantly improve your performance.
The vast majority of the pictures and videos you see on Facebook are user-generated. Also, they are shared by your family and friends. And professional photos or stock photography look perfect and tend to stick out as fake or not real. So, try taking your own photos or degrading the quality of the images/videos to make them look more user-generated. It seems counterintuitive but in some cases user-generated triumphs stock photography.
Color is a very important element because it’s the first thing a viewer will notice before taking a close look at your video ad. You should be testing simple and plain backgrounds with soft and blurred out colors or gradients. Also, allow users’ eyes to focus on bright vibrant foreground colors. Finally, test soft background colors vs bold colors, strong texture vs muted texture, and simple and clean vs busy and cluttered backgrounds.
Draw users’ attention away from friends’ and family’s posts and into your ad by testing vibrant, eye-catching colors like orange, red, yellow, and bright green. Also, compare the performance of vibrant colors vs complementary colors, soft colors or perhaps even your brand’s colors.
Are characters a primary representation of your product, brand or service? If not, test removing all characters vs using them. As a result, we’ve found that unless characters are well-known, they can be a visual distraction and may decrease performance. However, it’s worth testing for yourself to make sure you’re not missing out on opportunities to improve performance.
Whenever possible showcase recognizable logos, celebrities brands, and characters because these usually receive high engagement and improve Ad performance. In addition, if your brand is not well-known, you should be testing using your logo against not using it.
If you have multiple products to advertise, test displaying one product versus multiple products. Does adding more products help or hurt performance?
For Creative Best Practices for Facebook & Google social advertising.
