Ads With Leah: Ad Creative & Messaging

Leah: Hey, this is Leah and
you're listening to ads with

Leah, a paid social podcast.

This podcast provides creative
first digital advertising education

for impact driven businesses and
marketers who care more about

quality than they do about quantity.

Stay tuned to learn how to make
amazing ads that help you reach

the right people and attract
and engage your ideal audience.

Hi there, Leah here and welcome
to my first ever episode of

my new podcast, Ads with Leah.

My focus for this podcast is going to
be all about teaching you everything

I know about how to make amazing ads.

I'm going to be focusing primarily on the
creative side of paid social advertising.

The ad creative refers to the actual ad
itself or the media in the ad, like the

images, videos, as well as the copy or
the text and the headlines in the ads.

It also refers to the messaging that
you choose in your ads or the angles, or

the way that you position the product.

All of this is encompassed
by the term ad creative.

I really believe that this is the
most important part to focus on

with your paid social campaigns.

I sometimes feel a bit silly saying that
the most important part of having success

with advertising is to actually make
good ads because it sounds so obvious.

But I feel like we've been actually
led to believe the contrary

in the past five to 10 years.

In that time, digital advertising
has brought some incredible

advancements to the advertising field.

We were suddenly able to access
advanced tracking to be able

to see how our ads perform.

As well as algorithms and AI that
improved our performance and allowed

us to get a lot more advanced and
strategic with our advertising.

Lots of so-called advertising experts
and gurus popped up promising that

they could teach you how to game
the system or teach you the latest

hack to get around the algorithm.

And it sounds like a
really amazing promise.

It's really tempting to want to
believe that if we just use this

expert system, or if we just get our
targeting exact right to the precise

audience, then our campaigns are going
to perform and we're going to make

a ton of money with our advertising.

These technical components of digital
advertising are a lot more concrete

as opposed to the ad creative, which
is a bit more of a softer skill.

And a bit more abstract
and harder to truly master.

So it was easy to get caught up,
believing that if you just master the

technical side of Facebook advertising,
you'd be able to see huge success

with it or that you're only one funnel
away from making millions of dollars.

But I do see that shifting now in the
industry and especially this year, I'm

recording this podcast in December,
2021 with iOS 14 and the privacy

restrictions that happened with that.

If you're not familiar with what
happened earlier this year, apple

released an update to their operating
system that restricted the amount of

tracking that Facebook and other digital
advertising platforms were able to do.

So suddenly we were a lot more
restricted in our ability to

optimize and in the algorithms
ability to optimize our campaigns.

A lot of Facebook advertisers
are now going a bit more back to

basics and thinking more about
the creative and how to make great

ads that appeal to their audience.

So that's what this podcast is all about.

How to make amazing ad creative that
stops the scroll on social platforms.

That helps you attract the right people
and the right audience to your ads.

And also communicates your message in a
clear and effective, but also interesting

or entertaining way for your audience.

If you needed more convincing on why
creative is the most important piece

of your advertising, in this episode,
I'm going to be sharing three reasons

why creative is the area that you
should focus on with your advertising.

Number one is that digital advertising
is complicated and it's always

changing, but the creative part is
one part that will remain relatively

constant for years and decades to come.

Some of the best advertising books
were written over 50 years ago.

Despite how quickly digital advertising
is evolving, books on copywriting,

on consumer psychology, and marketing
from the 20th century are still

very relevant and useful today.

Although our technology is changing
at a faster pace than ever before,

humans stay the same as we always have.

And our needs, desires and
behaviors have remained constant.

This means that the messaging that
we use to reach people will remain

the same well into the future.

And yes, of course there are different
trends with content, for example.

Right now, TikTok style videos
and reels are super popular.

There's going to be trends that we
cycle through and there's often certain

marketing tactics that become really
effective, but then they get overused

and people wise up to them and we shift
through different things like that.

But overall the basic understanding of
humans, our desires, and the way that

you speak to people, the messaging
that you use, is quite predictable.

Human nature is something
that hasn't changed.

So, if you can learn how to appeal
to people's desires with your

advertising messaging, that skill
is going to be relevant for you.

Whether you're doing digital advertising,
whether you're running billboards or

whether in 30 years from now you're
using whatever new type of advertising

technology has been invented.

So reason number one on why you
should focus on your ad creative.

Is that understanding this and learning
this is a skill that is timeless

and is going to help you be a better
marketer overall in your business.

Learning how to understand the
psychology of humans, of why they

engage with your ads, the way that
they do and how to communicate with

them, how to write good copy, how to
craft a message that attracts attention

and creates desire in your audience
will be extremely valuable for your

advertising for the rest of your life.

Reason number two for why you
should focus on your ad creative is

that your ad creative is actually
the best form of targeting.

Having the right messaging in
your ads is one of the best ways

to make sure that your ads are
being seen by the right people.

The Facebook algorithm has come a long
way and I really believe that targeting

in terms of on-platform targeting
that you set up as an advertiser is

not as important as it used to be.

The algorithm can take care of most of
the targeting for you if you give them

good ads that attract the right people.

Think of Facebook's lookalike technology.

You can give them an audience, like
say your website visitors, and upload

it to Facebook and what they'll do is
analyze that audience and find out what

things they have in common and what
factors connect all of those people.

Then they can find more people who also
have those similar traits or people

that look like your initial audience.

Facebook also does this
on all of your campaigns.

When you first launch new ads, as soon
as people start interacting with your

ads, people start clicking on them.

Facebook begins taking note of who
those people are, who is taking an

extra second to stop and look at the
ad, who's clicking on it, who's liking

it or watching a lot of the video.

They're paying attention to those
people, and then they do the same thing

that they do with lookalike audiences.

They'll try to figure out what
factors those people have in common

or what traits those people have that
are engaging with your ad and they

try to find more people like that.

So as people are attracted to your ad,
Facebook learns who they are, and will

try to find more people like that.

As long as your ad creative is speaking
to the exact right person that you

want to attract, and begins to attract
the right person, facebook is going

to find more people like those people.

Facebook has more data on its
users than we will ever have

access to as an advertiser.

So making really good ad creative and
giving it to the algorithm to find

the right people for you, is the most
effective way to target on Facebook.

In fact, I usually recommend
removing most of the restrictions

on your targeting and allowing the
algorithm to have more control.

This is called liquidity on Facebook,
and when your campaigns have higher

liquidity, you're giving the algorithm
more control to find the people

that they feel are best for you.

Facebook's machine learning is amazing
at taking care of the technical stuff

and finding those people for you.

But what it can't do is create
engaging ads that resonate with humans.

So it's up to you as the advertiser to
know your product, know your audience,

understand their buyer psychology and
be creative with how to present and

communicate the benefits of your product
to your audience in your advertising.

So reason number two on why you should
focus on ad creative is that good ads are

the best form of targeting and will give
the algorithm the best chance at success

in finding the right people for you.

Reason number three that you should focus
on creative is that creative is really

important for when you're ready to scale.

Once you've got your ads working and
profitable, you're probably going to want

to increase your budget significantly
and start reaching a lot more people

and getting a lot more customers.

But ad campaigns almost
never scale linearly.

What I mean by that is that if you're
spending a hundred dollars a day and

you're getting a CPA or a cost per
acquisition of $10, If you suddenly

increase your budget to $500 a
day, that $10 CPA is probably going

to increase maybe to $15 or $20.

Just because you're able to get
good costs on a low budget doesn't

mean that those costs will continue
as you increase your budget.

The reason for that is because of
the economics of supply and demand.

It's easy for Facebook to find maybe
five customers a day for you, but

when they suddenly need to find 30,

they're going to have to work
a lot harder to find all those

potential customers for you.

So it's probably going to cost you a
bit more because it's more difficult

to find those people and the ad
auctions might be more competitive.

The best way to keep your ad
costs down as you're scaling is

to find new audiences to reach.

And new messages to reach them
with or a new creative variation.

Different people resonate
differently with different messages.

So adding a new creative variations
is the best way to try to sell

your product to new people.

As your market gets saturated,

giving them fresh, new creative
is the best way to keep them

engaged and responding to your ads.

It's very unlikely that you'll be able
to scale with a limited amount of

creative and not being able to know
how to make new creative and come up

with new angles, new hooks, or new
messaging ideas for your advertising.

So reason number three, why you
should learn and focus on ad creative

is because it's going to make it
a lot easier for you to scale your

campaigns and keep your ad costs down.

Alright, recapping this episode, the
three reasons that your ad creative

should be your primary focus when
you're planning your advertising

strategy, they are number one.

Digital advertising platforms are
complicated and always changing.

But if you can master the skill of
understanding buyer psychology and how

to write copy and messaging and all of
the things that are important for good

ad creative, those are skills that will
stay with you for years and years to come.

And will help you, no matter what
platform you're using for marketing.

Reason number two is that your ad
creative actually helps your targeting.

If you have good creative, that
speaks to the right audience.

You'll attract the right people
to your ads and also help the

algorithm find more people.

That are in your target audience.

And reason number three, why you
should focus on ad creative is

because it's going to make it easier
for you to scale and keep your costs

down as you grow your business.

I hope that this episode has given
you a lot to think about and has

inspired you to put more time
and effort into your ad creative.

If you're not already.

Thanks so much for listening
to the ads with Leah podcast.

I Keep testing your ad creative
and i'll talk to you next time