Question
What online ads performed the best for you?
If you've purchased ads online, which ads worked best for your products? Any that had outsized results—or that performed far worse than you anticipated?
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I have spent over $100M in paid spend for companies over the last 10 years. In general, I've spent on Facebook, Adwords, Bing/Yahoo, and programmatic media (banner ads).
Facebook is by far the best CPA, easiest to manage and has the best audience and optimization tools.
I thought that Quora would have results similar to Adwords as they offer keyword targeting but we saw little to no results from it.
I haven't really focused on Linkedin or mobile ad networks.
In terms of ad creative format, every industry is different. I do some competitive research for the ad theme (like before and after, phone screenshot + value prop, gif of a customer with a quote, etc ) and test variants of each.
In my opinion and experience:
For target keywords - Google Ads (Google Search and Youtube Only) can be very expensive but no other platform is as able unfortunately
For targeting audiences Facebook or/and Instagram - great tools for targeting and massive audience
Local targeting - Local ads from Google
Bonus I did not want to say this one :)
Spotify 30s ads (very cheap... for now) great to build an audience and for local ads
Interesting, thanks for sharing the Spotify tip! Are there any great services you know to commission audio ad readings?
the brilliant thing is that Spotify does it for you, you choose the language, voice characteristics, text to read, particular way you want some words to sound and professional voice overs will do your ad
That's incredible, wow.
Combine that with the Spotify-exclusive podcast network they're building, and you've got something big.
I know that's why I didn't want to share :) Joking I believe knowledge is to be shared
It really depends on the context. I've run image ads that performed way better than their video competitors. Excellent case in point is copy long form copy either as sales copy or story telling. These assets are nukes, when reaching the ground. When land on water.. nothing but scrolling down, hence context. Hence, with context in mind, when marketing assets are relevant, remarketing that moves the dialogue further (rather than spamming) is the best performing ad setup.
“Remarketing that moves the dialogue further” -> great advice, thanks for sharing!
Posted on LI recently - these are the 5 FB Ads that are working best (nothing outsized, but good performance)
All ads focused on one use case [Parkinsons] and 15 seconds long:
GIF: Customer Quote + Corresponding product benefit
Video: Customer Quote + Testimonial with 2 people
GIF: Benefit statement + Product interaction (Hand grabbing mug)
Video: Benefit Statement + Testimonial with one person
Video: Customer Quote + Corresponding product benefit
Interesting to hear the GIFs worked well. Have you experimented with other platforms, and found FB ads generally work the best for you?
This is why we test :)
We've tried Adwords and Bing/Yahoo Ads too
Both work well too (Bing/Yahoo more because its an older demographic that hasn't changed their ways).
But in alll of these cases - the situation is different.
With FB people are not actively looking for a solution but come across it in their feed. And given the low price point, it becomes an impulse buy.
So FB Ads are more demand generation.
This is why the format that works on FB well - the ad does the selling really well and people are ready to buy straight away.
The average time to purchse from click through to purchase is a minute - they go straight to the product page from the ad
With the rest, they are actively looking for a product like ours with keyword searches - so this is more active demand fulfillment.
So the ads in this case lead to landing pages to do more of the selling before they buy. This makes the average time from click through purchase at least 3x longer but works well too.
That makes sense. Great to think through the platforms your target audience is most likely to use, as well as the targeting features in those products.
The time to purchase is fascinating, but makes sense. You may have proved there that a GIF is worth a thousand words!
This might sound lame, but quizzes that lead to a conversion page actually consistently outperform any other ad in my experience. People are way more interested in themselves and each other than products. Use that to your advantage!
No, that’s fascinating to hear—and helps explain the prevalence of quizzes on Facebook. So are you building quizzes then using ads to put them in front of your audiences?
Very hard to give a one size fits all answer but in general the best formats are the less intrusive and more relevant ones > Paid Search is a good example since, done well, it taps into current consumer searches and link it to a relevant product and/or piece of content. You could apply the same thinking to display/video media and look at who can give you the best targeting in the best context for your audience... always coming back to audience/context/content and ultimately how do you measure return on ad spend or even better return on investment.
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Did you find any specific Facebook ad format performed better—and have you experimented with story ads?