Getting creative -_the_secret_to_facebook_advertising_success

March 2014
Predictive Lifetime Value™
for Performance Marketing at Scale
GETTING CREATIVE:
THE SECRET TO
FACEBOOK ADVERTISING
SUCCESS

Getting Creative: The Secret to Facebook Advertising Success
Nanigans | Predictive Lifetime Value™ 2
Marketers have spent billions of dollars
on Facebook advertising. They are even
spending more on Facebook for display
advertising than they are on Google. Mostly
that’s because Facebook ads work, allowing
brands to successfully scale their ad
spend on desktop and mobile. So why do
Facebook ads work?
There are three reasons:
Facebook’s extensive targeting options
(demographics, affinities, psychographics
and behaviors) coupled with optimization
strategies based on customer lifetime value
ensure that you can deliver your ads to the
most relevant audience possible that will
deliver the best returns.
But focusing on these tactics alone will fail
to bring the success that marketers are
looking for. The single, most important
element of a successful advertising
campaign that ad tech historically forgets is
“great” creative.
In this eBook we explore strategies and
approaches for effective ad creative on
Facebook and how it impacts performance.
WHAT’S INSIDE
Overview of the creative process
for understanding a brand’s identity
and identifying interesting creative
opportunities
Creative best practices for direct
response advertising campaigns on
Facebook
Multivariate creative testing and
iteration strategies and approaches
for identifying the best creative
combinations
The significance of creative iteration as
it relates to performance and scaling
campaigns
Creative
Targeting
Optimization
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Who is your target audience?
What are their interests, lifestyles,
frustrations?
What does this group of customers
want/need?
What will motivate them to click on
the ad?
DISCOVERY
The success of a Facebook ad campaign originates with the creative strategy. The first step,
one of the most crucial steps of any creative strategy, is to understand your target audience.
Equally important is a clear understanding of the product or service you are marketing.
KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
By asking the right questions and leveraging personas, you can gain a better understanding of
your target audiences including interests, lifestyles and wants.
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WHAT CAN ADVERTISERS DO?
Facebook ads are proven winners when it comes to engagement and results, but too many
times marketers are buying a lot of media, running ads and endlessly repeating their message.
This outdated model of marketing fails to drive consumer actions and drive conversions.
Worse yet, it is out of step with Facebook’s infinite number of targeting and optimization
options that ensure you can deliver your ads to the most relevant audience possible.
So how are marketers achieving success with ad creative on Facebook? As with any successful
ad campaign, it all starts with eye-catching creative that makes people stop in their tracks and
entices them to click.

LEVERAGE PERSONAS TO DRIVE YOUR AD CREATIVE
When you are targeting a wide range of people with diverse interests, it’s important to switch
up your ad creative based on each persona’s key interests and pain points. You can use
personas to build personalized ads that meet your targeted segments needs. Below are
some personas created for a foreign language learning software company.
KRISTEN
Age: 21
College student, Boston University
Boston, MA
Single
Proficiency: Third year French in
college; not fluent
Key Attributes:
Likes French; interested in
French culture, movies
Likes trying to read French
literature
Not naturally strong in
language
Has visited Paris; would like to
do study abroad program in
France
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ALEK
Age: 41
Corporate Sales for Nokia
Espoo, Finland
Married, with a son and daughter
Proficiency: Native Finnish, German,
English; decent Italian; nearly fluent
in French
Key Attributes:
Travels all over Europe selling
Nokia equipment to businesses
Has built up a strong ability to
acquire and learn language
Likes to polish his fluency in
the languages he uses for
business (Italian, French,
English)
JOHN
Age: 26
IT Professional
San Francisco, CA
Single, lives in apartment
Proficiency: Native English; can get
along in Spanish
Key Attributes:
Loves to travel
Enjoys language and culture
Watches foreign films
Not a master of any second
language
Likes to attempt conversation
in various languages
Likes to travel with people or
meet up with people when
traveling
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KNOW THE BRAND
Understanding the brand’s
positioning, identity and market
niche can have a big impact on how
distinctly you can make an impression
in the consumer’s mind. Key
questions to ask include:
Can you describe your brand?
Is there a branding guidelines
document?
What should be avoided in the
creative and copy?
KNOW THE PRODUCT
The product refers to all of the features, advantages and benefits customers can enjoy by
buying your goods or services. When developing ad creative, you should think about the key
features and benefits consumers want or need.
What is your product’s unique selling point?
Why do people use your product and which of its benefits has the largest impact on your
customers?
Who are your competitors?
How do you position your brand differently?
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DEVELOP COMPELLING CREATIVE2
So how are advertisers achieving success with ad creative on Facebook? By focusing on the
four stages of any successful consumer marketing campaign:
1. AESTHETICS: THE INTEREST STAGE
When scrolling through your desktop
or mobile News Feed, aesthetics and
images are the first things people notice.
It’s essential to focus on bold, beautiful
imagery that will engage your audience
and cause them to click. Rather than
repurposing imagery that has run on TV,
paid search, display, print or Twitter, invest
in developing high quality creative that’s
unique to Facebook.

2. LANGUAGE: THE CONSIDERATION STAGE
Now that a user has paused to look at your ad, this is your chance to hook them. Choose
words that highlight your product’s value and convey urgency; this will get consumers to
seriously consider your offer. If your ad copy doesn’t compel the user to stop what they are
doing and pay attention to you right now, then you might as well take your ad down because
it’s not helping your purpose.
CREATE INTENT (URGENCY)
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Free shipping
Value (coupons)
Limited time (expiration)
Sales
Free gift card or gift with purchase
Exclusive
Loyalty or membership points
Save when you spend
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INCLUDE A COMPELLING CTA
A call-to-action (CTA) is very important, because it is your best chance at interaction. Effective
CTAs give users a sense of what your product or service is all about and should also resonate
with the people who you are targeting.
Promotions and incentives, such as a discount off the purchase price, are effective for driving
intent to purchase. Be sure to include your CTA in the first 90 characters to ensure people
know how to engage with your content.

3. RELEVANCY: THE DECISION STAGE
Once someone has been enticed by your engaging imagery and inspired by your language,
the next step to consider is what will make them click. This is where targeting comes in. You
can have the best creative in the world, but if your ad is shown to the wrong people it won’t
matter. This stage is made easier if you efficiently leverage Facebook’s endless targeting
options based on demographics, interests and behaviors.
Relevancy also carries over to the post-click experience. Specific landing pages tailored to
different products and promotional offers are essential for providing a quality experience
for consumers and driving conversions with a personalized targeted message. The goal is to
make it as easy as possible to convert.
4. FREQUENCY
Aesthetics, language and relevancy are the three elements of a successful ad campaign,
but frequency is more important on Facebook than any other digital ad channel. Are you
updating your creative every week? If not, you are likely missing out. It may seem obvious but
it’s monumentally important that you stay on top of the latest trends so you can strike while
the iron is hot. Fresh creative, iteration and constant testing will help keep your brand current
and top of mind.

BEST PRACTICES: ECOMMERCE
1. FOCUS ON THE PRODUCT
When thinking about your ad creative, make sure your products dominate the footprint of
your ads. Busy lifetime images with a lot of background noise are too easy to skip past. Close-
up photos of products on white or neutral backgrounds are ideal.
A Facebook study that compared product focused vs. lifestyle images showed a 37% CTR
increase with product focused imagery.
Lifestyle Focused Product Focused
37%
increase in CTR with
product focused imagery

2. SHOW A SMALLER NUMBER OF PRODUCTS VS. A COLLAGE OF PRODUCTS
We’ve found CTRs are higher when you show fewer products (such as a pair of shoes) instead
of a large group of products (such as a closet full of shoes).
Many Products Fewer Products
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3. CALL OUT PROMOTIONS
AND DISCOUNTS WITHIN THE
CREATIVE
For online retailers, we’ve found
that calls to action that feature
“shop now” or “shop a specific
designer” such as “Shop Jimmy
Choo” are the most effective.
A best practice is to call out
discounts or sales as a button or
stamp on the image itself. Our data
has shown that this approach drives
higher conversion rates for Page
post Link ads.

BEST PRACTICES: GAMING
1. INCLUDE MOBILE DEVICES
When advertising mobile applications,
it’s important to include mobile devices
so people immediately recognize it is
a mobile product. This helps to drive a
higher response from quality viewers
who will not only just click on the ad, but
download the app.
2. DEMONSTRATE YOUR VALUE WITH
NUMBERS
Communicating your value by referencing
key data points, such as number of songs
or apps downloaded or time-savings, can
help to increase your CTR.

3. SHOW WHAT YOUR APP DOES
In-app images help people understand
what your app does. In this ad creative,
users can preview the exciting moments
in the game.
4. USE VIDEOS MADE FOR FACEBOOK
You have a better chance of achieving your ROI goals with videos that show gameplay and
describe game features instead of TV-style video advertising.

CREATIVE TESTING3
Once you have decided which creative you want to test, the next step is to outline your
creative testing strategy based on your goals as well as determine when to iterate on your
creative.
1. DETERMINE THE GOAL OF YOUR CREATIVE TESTING
The first step of any creative test is to define your goal. Some common ad creative
testing goals are to improve performance or to learn about what types of concepts or
themes resonate with your targeted audience.
2. HOW MUCH CAN YOU AFFORD TO TEST?
How much you test depends largely on your budget. You can choose to spend a certain
percentage of your overall ad budget or set aside a specific budget for ongoing ad testing.
The more variables you want to test (location, age, interests, device, call-to-action), the more
budget is needed. A best practice is to test thematically to top performing audience segments
and then iterate on specific ad creative with winning themes.
The table below provides a recommendation on how many concepts (themes) and variations
of those concepts to test for different budgets.
Budget Number of Concepts Images per Concept
Total Number of
Images per Week
Over $100,000 5 2 10
Under $100,000 3 2 6

Ecommerce
Product Category –
shoes, purses, dresses,
jewelry
Price point
Seasonality
CTA
Games
Game Category –
strategy, trivia, adventure
Seasonality
Location
CTA
Travel
Product Category –
hotel, flight, vacation
package
Price point
Destination
Seasonality
CTA
We recommend working with concepts—these are thematic ideas that group a number of
different images. In this example, a gaming company is testing two different versions of ad
creative. Option 1 features an illustrative approach while Option 2 features photographic
imagery.
Option 2 showed better performance. A next step is to follow up with a more specific creative
test that leverages multiple variations on a theme.
Option 1 Option 2
3. HOW TO CONDUCT AN AD CREATIVE TEST
There is an assortment of factors to consider when constructing an ad creative test and it can
vary by industry vertical. Following are some considerations when designing your ad testing
plan by industry:
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VARIATIONS ON A THEME
Once you’ve determined which theme has superior performance, you can vary the CTA and
image to see how each affects performance.
RINSE AND REPEAT
You can continue optimizing their ad creative testing by introducing new variables based on
the results of the earlier tests. In this example, the next phase of creative testing varied the
image and the placement of the CTA.

HOW TO SET UP AD TESTING
The Nanigans ad testing algorithm can help you cycle through creative while keeping
performance in mind. While creative testing sounds great, managing a test with hundreds
or thousands of creative units would undoubtedly increase the stress level of any marketer.
Nanigans’ automated tools can easily test multiple combinations of ad creative and save you
countless hours of sifting through ad data to determine the best performing ads.
To set up ad testing with Ad Engine, select your Strategy Group in the left hand navigation
area. Then select Edit Goals and Rules. The Ad Testing & Stop Loss tab will allow you to enable
creative testing. You can select:
Which goals to test on such as click-through-rate (CTR), cost-per-action (CPA),
cost-per-click (CPC), value-per-click (VPC)
The number of ads to test
The number of ads allowed
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HOW AD TESTING WORKS
1. Brand new ads, or those that have 0 to 20 clicks (where 20 is the Minimum Clicks for
Phase 1) will be pushed into the marketplace and begin running against each other.
For example if you have four ads, they will run until one (or any) of them reaches 20 clicks.
Ads that reach 20 clicks are considered to be in Phase 1 after hitting the click threshold.
2. The ads that do reach the Phase 1 Click Threshold will now be paused or remain active,
depending on how the ads have performed given your selected Testing Metric.
Thus, if all four ads have reached 20 clicks, only the top three will remain active, based
on those ads’ performance (in that particular Testing Metric) as compared to the others
within that phase.
3. This means that in Phase 1, Ad Engine compares the four versions of the ad and pauses
those that underperform. In Phase 2, the top three ads are tested and compared and any
underperformers are paused. In Phase 3, the remaining two ads are compared and Ad
Engine pauses the underperforming ad.
PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3

More ads per segment can lead to higher frequency on the RHS.
CTR is not a helpful metric for mobile so you should track a downstream event such
as a registration or a purchase.
It can be difficult to gain traction with new ads if you have too many running at the
same time for a specific audience segment. Ads with a history have a tendency to
be favored in the News Feed.
If you already have six ads that are showing good volume and performance, we
recommend launching new creative without removing existing creative.
Higher CTRs don’t always equal higher conversion rates.
Lower CPA doesn’t always equal a higher ROI (return on ad spend investment).
It’s essential to continuously monitor your test results.
Testing new (unknown) variables in your ads can increase overall costs. Mitigate
your losses by frequently pushing small creative tests.
Test new creative in your best performing segments and test new segments with
your best creative.
AD TESTING: TIPS AND TRICKS
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CREATIVE ITERATION
So how often should you iterate your ad creative? By monitoring your metrics daily, more
specifically, CTRs and action rates by ad type and delivery location, you can determine
whether you are in need of a creative refresh. This will also depend on:
Volume: The higher your daily spend, the quicker ads will saturate your target audiences.
Segments: The more audience segments you have, the more tests you can run.
Campaign Type: This will impact your frequency of iteration. For example, a flash sales
retailer would typically have a larger number of ad creative changes than a mobile
gaming app.
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CREATIVE REFRESH SCHEDULES
The following chart indicates the number of images and the frequency of each cycle based on
the budget available.
Budget Frequency Concepts and Iterations
Images per
Concept
Total Number of
Images per Week
Over $100,000 Weekly
4 iterations of best performing
image concepts
+
2 fresh concepts
2 8
Under $100,000
Weekly
(preferred)
4 iterations of best performing
image concepts
+
2 fresh concepts
2 6
Campaigns that see latency on primary conversions should review the
frequency of refresh with a view to running a longer cycle.
Campaigns with low conversion rates should take into account the number of
conversions needed to get sufficient data across all images, and reduce image
numbers where necessary.
Ad Type Range CTR (%) CPM ($)
Domain Ads (Right Hand Side)
High 0.05% 0.30
Medium 0.04% 0.25
Low 0.03% 0.15
Page Post Ads
High 2.00% 7.00
Medium 1.50% 5.00
Low 0.50% 2.50
Mobile App Installs
High 2.00% 6.00
Medium 1.00% 4.50
Low 0.50% 3.00
Below is Nanigans benchmark data for Facebook Domain ads, Page post ads and Mobile App
Install ads. If you are trending below these, it’s time to update your creative.

It’s also important to track the cadence or frequency of iteration and how it impacts your KPIs.
As seen in the example below:
CTRs increased and CPAs decreased when creative was refreshed
Leverage day over day data trends to determine when to push new ad creative
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Facebook marketers understand the power of targeting and optimization for achieving
success on Facebook, but “great” creative is what truly engages people and connects them to
the brand.
By constantly testing new layouts and styles, you can get a sense of what works and resonates
with different types of targeted audiences. The brands that will do the best over the long haul
are those who are not only invested in honing their ad creative but those who stay informed
about the latest nuances and best practices.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laurie Cutts is Director of Marketing at Nanigans, a venture
funded advertising technology SaaS platform driving the next
evolution in media buying with its Predictive Lifetime Value™
technology. Nanigans is a leading Facebook Strategic Preferred
Marketing Developer (sPMD), working with the world’s largest
performance marketers.
Predictive Lifetime Value™
LEARN
MORE
Learn how Nanigans can empower you to find and invest in your
most profitable customers on Facebook across social and mobile.
Contact us at marketing@nanigans.com.
CONCLUSION

nanigans.com
60 State Street, 12th Floor
Boston, MA 02109
info@nanigans.com
888-507-4456
Nanigans offers the only SaaS platform that optimizes to Predictive Lifetime Value™. Our technology empowers
over 250 performance marketers to find, acquire and retarget their most profitable customers at scale across
social and mobile. With over $350 million running through our platform annualized, Nanigans provides in-house
marketers a significant cost savings due a publisher-direct relationship model. Backed by Avalon Ventures with
over 140 employees, Nanigans has offices in Boston, New York, San Francisco, London, Sydney, and Singapore.

Getting creative -_the_secret_to_facebook_advertising_success

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Getting creative -_the_secret_to_facebook_advertising_success