Since it first launched in 2007 as Facebook Flyers, Facebook Ads has grown into one of the biggest online advertising platforms in the world.
It’s also grown more and more expensive every year, with CPMs rising as more businesses flock to Facebook Ads as a way to generate leads, sell products and strengthen their brands.
As Facebook Ads become more expensive, the importance of optimizing your ads for a higher clickthrough and conversion rate has increased. Ads that performed well in 2010, for example, might fail to produce a positive ROI today due to the rising cost of advertising on Facebook.
As a marketer, there are two ways to deal with rising ad costs. The first is to port your campaign from Facebook to another platform, hoping that it will maintain a steady conversion rate with the same or similar costs.
Because of Facebook’s unique targeting options, this approach rarely works.
The second strategy is to optimize your Facebook Ads for a higher clickthrough rate, letting you generate more traffic from the same amount of impressions at a lower cost per click (CPC).
Increasing your Facebook Ads CTR also has secondary benefits beyond a lower CPC. With an optimized ad that achieves a high CTR, you’ll get:
- A higher Relevance Score from Facebook, which reduces your advertising costs
- Improved longevity from your target audience due to the higher level of engagement
- More shares, likes and social activity, since users are far more likely to notice your ad
In short, making a few small changes to your ad that increase CTR can have multiple benefits for your campaign.
Unlike conversion optimization, which is often a long, data-driven process, optimizing for CTR can be extremely simple. Below, we’ve listed five simple but highly effective tactics to increase your Facebook Ads CTR and drive more traffic at a lower cost.
1. Stick to the news feed on desktop
Facebook offers a variety of ad placement options, ranging from large News Feed ads to small ads that are displayed in the right sidebar. You can choose which placements you’d like to display ads on when you create an ad set:
If you’re aiming for a high CTR and maximum engagement, you’ll want to stick with News Feed ads on Desktop. This ad type allows for a large image and a long description, helping it stand out more to Facebook users.
If you’re new to Facebook Ads, deselect all other placements so that your ad set only displays on the Desktop News Feed. You can add other placements later, once you’ve optimized your campaign and achieved a positive ROI.
As well as achieving the highest CTR, Desktop News Feed ads tend to convert better than other ad types thanks to the longer description. They’re also more engaging, letting you rack up more conversions from small audiences that are easily exhausted using other ad types.
All of Facebook’s ad placements have value, but optimizing for the sidebar or on mobile is much more of a challenge than optimizing for Desktop News Feed. Stick with the News Feed for now, and only consider expanding your campaign to other placements once it’s already profitable.
2. Speak directly to your target audience
Of the two statements above, which stands out as more personal and engaging? The majority of people would answer that the second statement, which replaces “people” with “you,” feels more engaging, direct and relevant than the first statement.
This is the difference between an ad that talks about something, and an ad that talks directly to a specific audience. Instead of visualizing someone else relaxing on the beach or enjoying the French Riviera, you visualize yourself doing what the ad describes.
The most effective ads, whether on Facebook or any other platform, speak directly to their target audience.
While Facebook doesn’t allow advertisers to directly reference personal attributes, there’s still a lot of room to speak to the wants and needs of your target audience without breaking any of the rules.
The more your ad speaks directly to its target audience, the stronger the response it’s likely to receive. Focus on using second-person personal pronouns in your copy, as they’ll make your ads feel more targeted, engaging and personal.
3. Make your image pop out from the News Feed
The beauty of News Feed ads is that they appear above and below people’s photos and status updates on Facebook. This makes them stand out much more than sidebar ads, which appear in a section of the page that’s reserved exclusively for advertising and notifications.
Most advertisers squander this advantage by using bland images and generic stock photos, the majority of which are ignored by users. One of the fastest ways to improve your CTR is to switch from using generic stock photos to using images that look and feel natural.
Facebook users are largely immune to obvious, traditional advertising. Replace the typical stock photo with an eye-catching, “real” image and you’ll stand out from advertisers while getting more traffic from every 1,000 impressions.
4. Split a large audience into small “micro-audiences”
It’s much easier to achieve high engagement with a small, defined audience segment than with a large, broad audience. If you’re struggling to achieve a CTR of 1% or higher, consider breaking your large audience down into several smaller “micro-audiences.”
Narrowing your targeting is a great way to reach an audience that’s highly likely to click on your ad and respond to your offer. You can:
- Target a narrow age group (for example, women aged 34 to 40 instead of all women on Facebook) and use a headline and image that relates to that age group
- Narrow your targeting using interests, then rewrite your headline and ad copy to focus on that specific interest
- Target a specific city or region and mention the region (for example, as part of a special local offer) in your ad headline and copy
For example, if you sell digital language learning courses, you can target a broad audience to promote your entire catalog. Or you can specifically target English-speaking expats in foreign countries to promote your course for the local language.
Which ad do you think is likely to be more effective? The one that targets everyone to promote all of your language courses, or an ad promoting your Spanish course targeted only to English expats living in Mallorca?
The tighter your targeting and the more defined your target audience, the easier it becomes to create ads with a high clickthrough rate. If you’re struggling to get results with a broad audience, break it down into segments and target each with a highly specific, tailored News Feed ad.
5. Keep an eye on the Facebook ads relevance score
The Facebook ads CTR plays a major role in the relevance score, which can help bring your CPC down. The relevance score goes from 1 up to 10 and is essentially telling you whether your target audience is interested in your product or service.
You can see here that a relevance score of 1, has a very high CPC and low CTR. So by having a high click-through, you generally have a high relevance score and low cost per click.
6. Work on your target audience for better Facebook Ads CTR
Before you start choosing your ad creative image and copy, you have to make sure that your targeting is relevant to the product or service you’re offering.
If you’re targeting too broad of an audience, you may not reach people that have a high purchase intent. Similarly, if you’re showing ads to a very hyper-targeted audience, your ads may not be that effective because of too many targeting restrictions.
So, when building your audience, think about how many people are potentially interested in your product. Visualize your buyer persona, and craft your targeting based on interests, age, or characteristics they might have.
For example, if the majority of your current customers are women, it might be a good idea to set your audience to reach women and exclude men.
The thing is, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to building successful audiences. Test, and adjust different targeting options, until you find an audience that responds well to your product.
7. Choose the right image
In order for someone to stop and pay attention to your ad, the image needs to be eye-catching. Don’t get us wrong, having a good ad copy is also important, but first, you have to make sure you have your audience’s attention.
Facebook found that ad images with less than 20% text perform better, though there is no limit on the amount of text that can be in your ad image. So try to use as little image text as possible, if at all.
For example, a clear value proposition is a great way to attract the eye. Spotify, below, uses the word “Free” both in the ad image and copy, to grab the user’s attention. Oh, and let’s not forget about the color scheme – they did a great job with that, too.
Different colors have a significant impact on our opinion of a brand, or our purchase intent. Using colors strategically is more than just “what looks good”, so make sure to choose your color palette carefully.
If you want to show multiple images in the same ad, try using the carousel format. You can showcase up to 10 different images or videos within a single ad, each with its own link.
This is a great way to highlight different products or specific details about one product. You can also get creative by telling a story about your brand that develops across each carousel card.
8. Keep it short and sweet
After analyzing 37,259 Facebook ads, AdEspresso found that in order to get the best results, your ad copy needs to be clear and to the point. And this not only refers to your primary ad text but also your headline and description.
According to the data, the ideal length for a headline is 5 words, 14 words for the main text, and 18 words for the description. Whether the post is organic or paid, short and concise texts drive engagement, so make sure to keep your ad copy as short as possible.
9. Include questions
Adding a question in your headline or primary text is another great way to boost the Facebook ads CTR.
In fact, research from Social Influence found that headlines in the form of questions received 150% more clicks than statement headlines. Including the word “you” in a questioning headline made it receive even 175% more clicks!
10. Use emojis
Emojis are another great way to boost your ad engagement. In fact, studies have shown that using the right emojis increases the conversion rate by 50%.
AdEspresso’s team also decided to A/B test this and find out whether emojis in Facebook ads really work.
With the test complete, the ad with emojis had a 12% higher click-through rate, while the regular ad had a lower cost-per-click ($0.639 vs. $0.720).
Before you start using emojis in your ads, think about your business, products, and messaging you’re trying to send. For some businesses, emojis aren’t a good fit, because they simply don’t resonate with their branding and tone.
11. Use FOMO
Using the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) strategy in your ad copy is a great way to not only boost Facebook ads CTR but also conversions. With this messaging, you’re essentially telling your audience to latch on to every opportunity before it slips through their fingers.
Imagine scrolling through Facebook and seeing this MAC Cosmetics ad. Maybe you weren’t that keen on purchasing something, but just by seeing this ad, you’re at least pushed to think about it. The phrase “for a limited time only” is great because it increases your FOMO, creating a sense of urgency for purchasing.
12. Facebook ads placements
Some advertisers prefer to simply place their ads on Facebook and Instagram, excluding Messenger or Audience Network. But is that really a best practice?
Results show that placing ads primarily on Facebook results in the highest click-through rate (3.90%), while the CTRs on Instagram, Audience Network, and Messenger fall under 1%.
13. Use social proof
Another great tactic for boosting Facebook ads CTR is showing social proof. This is one of the best ways to reassure your target audience about your product. So gather up your best user reviews or press coverages and feature them in your ad image or copy, to boost users’ engagement.
