Galit Gan
Creative Director
& Co-Founder

Juliana Soto von Arnim
Junior Digital
Creative

You may have noticed that the impact of online ads is dropping because of how intrusive they have become. While ad blocker downloads increase as people prefer not to see advertising while browsing, brands have started to look for less intrusive and more engaging ways to attract their audience with digital advertising.

Finding the perfect strategy to achieve great results in your marketing campaigns can be a long and difficult process, but it is feasible and very much lies in the creatives.

The Creative Team of Whichit is here to give some tips that can help you make the most of your advertising. Facing the constant challenge of coming up with ideas for creative and engaging ads for Whichit’s diverse client portfolio, they have accomplished extraordinary results with them in past campaigns. See some case studies here.   

Today, Whichit’s Creative Team shares with you 6 easy ways for making an ad stand out from the crowd:

1.   Appealing copywriting

People come across dozens of ads every day, therefore, you need to make sure that your advertisement captures your audience’s attention in seconds. You can get there by creating a headline your audience is interested in and is written in a way that will make them curious enough to continue reading. People pay attention to a header that is teaching them ‘how to do’ something, stating an interesting fact, asking them a question, or giving them a direct offer. When creating a powerful headline, also include the most important benefit of your product or service. Once you have it, test it and rewrite it when you see that it is not getting the expected results anymore.

For example, if your audience likes travelling, you could write an attention-grabbing headline such as ‘How to travel for free,’ or you could invite them to answer a question like ‘What’s your dream holiday destination?’. 

2.   Tell them something they don’t know

Be creative and choose to provide content that will lead your audience to engage with your ad. Start by mentioning a trending topic or a seasonal event coming up. Including numbers or statistics to support your idea is encouraged, since this will not only show credibility but also prove how helpful your product or service has been for your clients. 

Also, consider engaging your audience with a personality quiz in which the outcome is based on their preferences, for example, ‘Discover what type of traveller you are’. This type of content is always popular because the audience enjoys discovering and sharing the result they get in the end. A meaningful interaction like this will result in a loyal customer for years.

3.  Use striking images

90% of the information our brain processes is visual. People love visuals, and advertisers know it. Captivate your audience by including exciting graphics in your digital ads. Always consider the colours you’re going to use. Try not to choose a background that is too flashy, bright, or one in which your product is lost. Also, if you’re using text in the images, make sure it is readable and is not getting lost in the details of the image. Never neglect your branding and be consistent with what you include in your ads so that your audience can easily identify you.

It is not about making the elements in your ad compete with each other, but highlighting the most important message. Read more tips on how to make your ad awesome.

4.   Make your ad interactive

Bringing the audience to interact with your ad will draw more meaning out of it and can result in a win-win situation for the brand-consumer relationship.

Interactive ads create a richer experience for your audience, and making them more involved will generate greater interest in the brand. But, ‘Interactive ad’ - What does that mean? Interactive ads are defined as involving mutual action between consumers and producers without having the consumer click through. Asking the user to play a little game or take part in a quiz will be a great way to increase the click-through rate of your ad, as interactive content generates 2x more conversions than passive content (source: Kapost).

Click the example to see a great idea for an interactive ad>>> 

5.   Personalisation makes the difference

McKinsey’s study found that companies using “data-driven personalisation as the core factor for marketing and sales decisions can improve marketing ROI by 15% to 20%”. Data is the key here. The clever use of data and real-time information will allow marketers to create online ads that are relevant and personalised, engaging the right people with the right information.

How can you actually do that? Walk the extra mile and split your target audience into smaller groups (by interests, ages, etc). Tailoring your message to individuals using different creative and copy will increase the chances that your ad can actually make an impact.

Retargeting is not only for advanced marketers! Ad targeting based on individual online behaviour can be easily achieved by placing a Facebook/Google pixel into your campaign. A retargeting campaign is not limited only to online advertising. A good tip is to place a Facebook pixel in emails and then retarget the receivers who open with a personalized paid ad (check how you can do that using MailChimp).

Whichit’s Creative team embraces personalisation whilst using a bespoke Call-to-Action. “While creating an interactive ad unit, we are tailoring different commercial offers, based on the users’ outcomes or interactions. This way we significantly increase the chances of the user to interact with a commercial offer that is relevant for him”, says Galit Gan, Co-founder & Creative Director of Whichit.

6.   Pick the right ad size

Effective digital ads are designed to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. The size of the elements you include in your ad, like logo, headline and copywriting, will determine which size is best for you. Also, a tip that will help you collect more clicks is using the most effective size ads recommended by Google.

If you’re including text over an image, use a size that will help your audience read it easily like ‘Medium Page’ (MPU) or ‘half page’ (Double MPU). If your headline and copywriting are both short, use the ‘Leaderboard’ size so they don’t have trouble reading your message, but take into consideration that in this case, your image will be minimal. Check below some ads from Ebay:

That’s it for now.

Are you ready to start creating your ad?
Try Whichit and get the process started!

Whichit is an online platform that allows you to easily create your own interactive ads and run it on multiple channels. The ads are fun, innovative and undisruptive, enabling you to gain actionable insights about your audience while they interact with them, all in real time. Additionally, Whichit contains an interactive analytics dashboard that summarises the data collected from your campaign in a way that’s very easy to comprehend so you don’t have to spend hours on it.

References:
Seiter, C (2016, June 1) 8 Winning Headline Strategies and the Psychology Behind Them