3 Important Facebook Ad Copy Tests To Highlight Your Value Proposition

When you are considering an ad on your Facebook timeline, what is the first thing you look at?

The offer.

Okay, so where should you look to find that offer?

Our Social Media expert, Brett McHale, explains one of the keys to advertising on Facebook successfully: understanding the anatomy of an ad.

A run-of-the-mill Facebook ad is made up of:

1. Use the title in conjunction with the image to grab your audience’s initial attention.

2. The body copy will fill in the blanks to deliver a reason to click through or investigate further.

3. Newsfeed expansion should provide information to back up the body copy.

4. The landing page should have all the information needed to generate a conversion.

You want to know why you should click on that ad—will you get a discount, is there a big sale going on now? Maybe it’s a remarketing ad for a product you considered in the past. Will it save you time, money, or a future headache? “Stock up on winter clothes now before the first big snow!” or “Have your groceries conveniently delivered to your doorstep.”

Will Smith knows his value proposition!

It’s all about the value proposition in your Facebook ad copy. According to Ogilvy, 4 out of 5 readers will read the headline and skip the rest of the ad. Make sure you aren’t losing 80% of your audience.

In this post, we’ll look at three A/B tests that were run on WordStream’s Facebook Ads account – these ad copy tests showcase how important testing copy is. I’ll also share some tips on how to examine your results!

If you want to learn more about writing copy for your Facebook ads, check out our post here!

Facebook Ad Testing Tips

If you’re testing multiple campaigns, you want to use Facebook Power Editor. The editor is a free offering from Facebook that allows you to bulk-edit your ads, access new features, control placements, optimize bidding, and create new campaigns and ads.

Keep in mind that you need to select a large audience, large enough that you will hopefully be able to consider your results statistically significant at the end of the test. Statistical significance sounds scary. It can be. I recommend using online resources to help, if you’re like me and scared of Excel sheets full of numbers. To do this, make sure you’re including relevant people from every step in the funnel.

Finally, make sure you’re tracking conversions! Set up Google Analytics and place the Facebook Pixel on your site to capture actions from leads and customers. When these tools help you determine a winner, run with it. As Larry Kim often stresses, you should go all in when you manage to create a true “unicorn”—and that doesn’t just mean with blog posts, people.

1. Keep the Value Proposition Up-Front

When you’re testing Newsfeed Ads, most likely, your goal is to get clicks and conversions, as opposed to exposure. In order to do that, you need to entice and convince your audience that the offer is worth it. It’s okay to be vague about the nitty-gritty, but make sure the value is crystal clear. This will work especially well if you have numbers to offer!

In the example below, one of the ads immediately jumps into what you—the customer—would get out of it: 40 hours of paid search analysis in 60 seconds. The second ad is vaguer, using the words “discover” and “could” instead of a guarantee or offer. Guess which Facebook ad won!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner ^

Try this at home:

Before writing any copy at all, think about what you’re offering. What is the most attractive element of your product or service for this particular ad? Is it time-saving or money-saving? Is it a new offering, for a limited time? Identify the value proposition and capitalize on it.

This ad from Lyft, below, does this so well! “Make money when you want. For a limited time, we’re going to give you FREE money!”

2. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

In the example below, we advertised our Facebook Opportunity Calculator, testing two different headlines. The first, “Are Facebook Ads Right for Your Business? Find Out Now!” gets straight to the point without reiterating what is featured in the image or body copy. The second split, “Find out if Facebook Ads are worth your money with our quick and easy calculator” is lengthy and meandering—and we didn’t include any eye-catching punctuation. The audience knows it will be quick and easy from the body copy, “Use our free calculator to analyze your Facebook Business Page in 60 seconds!”

Winner!                                                                                                                           

Loser!

In this instance, the first split smashed the second!

Try this at home:

Brainstorm the most direct way to get your value proposition to your audience. This should be applied to something that needs very little explanation, like a new clothing collection or a job opening. A B2C example from JCrew is below, announcing that they are hiring for the holidays (which means the holidays are coming, yay!).

3. Don’t Be Scared to Tell a Story

At first glance, I was surprised to see that the ad with lengthier copy below had out-performed the short-and-sweet version with a “Free Guide” call to action. However, Facebook is the place where people come to have lengthy political discussions, bare their souls, and pass along the viral news. Facebook users expect to be reading when they visit the platform.

The second ad would be more appropriate for Twitter—in fact, it easily out-performed the longer version on Twitter. But it’s okay to tell a compelling story in your copy, as long as your value proposition stays at the forefront.

Winner!

Loser 🙁

Try this at home:

This example is fun! It gives you a chance to showcase one of your company’s strengths and brag a little bit through storytelling. We all like reading the true confessions or gossip that some people share on Facebook and this is an opportunity to grab someone’s attention in the same way. This example from ApplicantLab starts with the straightforward value proposition “FREE trial” and then explains how this technology created by a Harvard Alum can save you time and money.

These ad copy tests will improve your click-throughs and can even help identify the most attractive aspect of your service or product. Let us know how you effectively showcase your value proposition through Facebook ad tests!