The headline is the main element of an ad
The headline is the most important element of any promo post and any ad. So always test as many headline variants as you can. Where should you dig?
Try different formats. One of the strongest is a question tied to geography: "Are you based in Berlin?", "Do you live in Warsaw?", "Running a business in Dubai?". Such questions break through banner blindness.
Regular advertising looks like "buy, buy, buy, we are great, we are awesome". People are tired of it and scroll past on autopilot. A question that catches them off guard and hooks the audience works very well in headlines.
Such a question is essentially a direct request from the customer: it is already in their head, they scroll the feed and see exactly the same thing in your ad. This breaks banner blindness and creates a half-wow effect: I have a similar request in my head, and you are talking about the same thing. It works.
Numbers and specifics in headlines
Numbers in headlines have worked, work and will keep working. Why? Because they are specific.
People do not like fluff, vague phrases and offers. An ad built around numbers works well: "We will help solve your problem in 48 hours". Use hours, minutes, days, amounts people will save - show them in dollars or as multiples.
Numbers in headlines work. Phrases like "How to learn English in 10 days" or "How to master a new profession in a month" work. People are always looking for information they can apply.
Stories that hook
Storytelling also works well - a format where you tell a story close to your customers, your target audience. You can start a story in many different ways.
The headline "Some woman now knows how to open a beauty salon" hooks and makes people read on. The second slide of the presentation can link to an article with even more interesting formats. You can open it, look and apply it in your own ads.
Rules for building headlines
Rule three: the headline should immediately make clear which customer problem you solve. All main headlines and messages are built on solving customer problems. We must position ourselves right away and explain exactly how we will do it, which specific problem of our target audience we close.
Next rule: every target audience segment needs its own unique headline. I do not recommend universal headlines for everyone - that no longer works, it is ineffective. This is the age of personalization: for each subsegment of the audience we give our own headline mentioning the unique characteristic by which we separate that audience, and we launch such ads.
In some cases it is acceptable to put the price in the headline. But only when the product is clear to a broad audience, demand for it is high and customers do not need to be told about its values, benefits and why it is needed at all. That is, we are talking about a widely applicable product.
And only if the price is roughly in line with the market and does not greatly exceed it. The case where it exceeds is already the second principle. The second principle is the customer problem.
The customer problem is the second principle
It means that all people are trying, one way or another, to solve some of their problems. Our clients who come to the agency are essentially trying to satisfy this demand from their potential customers. So before starting any project you must clearly understand what problems the target audience has and how our client solves those problems.
You should build a picture in the format "target audience subsegment - the problem this subsegment has - how our client solves this problem". With all this information you can set up the most effective ads that contain everything our potential customers need. We talk about the customer, not about ourselves.
I often see this in marketing when I analyze advertising campaigns in general and look at how many brands promote themselves: campaigns talk bluntly about themselves.
They do not tell how they will help the customer solve their task. They tell how many awards and cases they have. They tell what a small warehouse they have. But people, essentially their customers, are not interested in that.
This is not what will make a customer buy. The customer wants to hear how we will solve their problem. Only that matters to them.
People do not care what your team is like, how experienced you are and how many years of experience you have in your field. It is an important factor, but not a decisive one, and you should not push it too hard in advertising campaigns. We talk about the customer, not about ourselves.
Images and video in ads
Next are important principles for images and video in ads. Let us agree right away: we do not use photos from Google or stock photo sites in ads. We only take the images or video that our client provides.
Video is more universal, and you can already use text inserts there. But it is also important not to overdo it and to make everything look visually pleasant. Every ad must have a call to action.
A call to action is mandatory
And every ad must end with a call to action. I have often seen situations where companies write ads but have no call to action at the end.
Sometimes the headline is beautiful, the advantages and benefits for the customer are spelled out, and then there is no action at all. Then they wonder why there are no leads. People simply do not understand what you want from them and what they need to do to start working with you, how to contact you.
So write a call to action on every ad. This is very important, the call to action must be in every ad and in every label. I have said this before: it is something that must always be there.
Maximum testing is the key to success
And the last principle of an effective ad, which I repeat again and again so that you remember it and it sticks, because it is critically important, is maximum testing. This is the main rule and the key point of our agency's whole approach. We test the maximum number of very different ads, run experiments, put forward hypotheses and look for what will perform.
I notice that persistence always leads to results and gives our clients results. When we are lazy, the result is usually worse. This has been proven on a large number of projects.
Just believe that it is better to put in a little effort, invest a little time, but get a good result, get a good client, a long-term relationship and a good case that will help attract even more clients. This really matters. How well we all do our job determines how long we will work with our clients and how well our whole company will live overall.
As for tests, I recommend launching the maximum. If you launch a test with 30 ads, you have a 100% higher chance of finding the most profitable ad than if you launched 5 ads. That is, potentially a client can get 2.5 times more orders and leads.
And in general, do not be lazy: the more income our client gets from our work, the longer we will work with that client and the more profit all of us together will make.
Summary
Effective ads are built on strong headlines, solving customer problems and a mandatory call to action. Do not be lazy about testing the maximum number of variants - it directly affects results and long-term cooperation.
