11:54am Friday
Ever put out an ad on Google or Facebook or whatever…
And it just didn’t “work?”
Low clicks… and even fewer sales?
Here are three reasons why your ads may fail… and how to fix ’em.
1. If your ad is targeting the wrong audience, you won’t get clicks. Fix that by either targeting better… or—contrary to a lot of advice—don’t target at all!
Why not target, you ask?
Because targeted ads only show to the people you asked for.
Which means the smart Facebook and Google algorithms can’t learn who clicks and make their own data-backed decisions!
The algo knows better than me. And probably you, too. Remove targeting (except perhaps for geography), spend a few days of cash, and let the algo do it’s magic.
2. Your ad has the wrong awareness and sophistication levels—so you’re not connecting with your audience.
George Ten @GrammarHippy talks a TON about this on Twitter and in his CopyThinking community.
These ideas—awareness and sophistication—come from Eugene Schwartz’ book, “Breakthrough Advertising.”
is a classic in the Copywriting world.
In short: Markets are in one of 5 levels of sophistication.
• In level 1 markets, you make a claim: “Lose 10 lbs.”
• Level 2, you make a bigger claim: “Lose 12 lbs.”
• Level 3, use a mechanism: “Lose 12 lbs without dieting”
• Level 4, use a more complex mechanism: “Lose 12 lbs without dieting by unblocking your chakras”
• Level 5 markets are very sophisticated (the audience has seen it all). Generally you connect more with emotion than reason (more emotion than usual even).
Most markets (the people) are at levels 3 or 4… but most ads are not.
Then you also have five awareness levels. How aware is your ad viewer of your specific product? Your marketing, sales pitch, etc. moves the audience from
unaware → problem aware → solution aware → product aware → most aware.
So if your Facebook or Google ad isn’t converting—it could be a mismatch of your ad not hitting the right awareness and sophistication levels of your ideal clients.
3. The third reason your ad may not convert is that…
Your Ad is just not compelling!
Lots of ads show a company logo and some bland, meaningless copy.
Here’s a great example of an extremely useless ad:
Watch the full 15 seconds of meaninglessness here.
But the viewer sees your ad and asks herself,
“So what? What’s in it for me?”
Your copy should always answer “WIIFM.” What are the benefits the customer or client gets when buying your product?
Which is why copywriters always suggest longer copy… more text…
See, most people won’t spend money on something they don’t know much about.
So give them the info they need to know to make their decision.
Because if the customer is interested in your solution to their problem (and the copy is interesting)… they’ll read the ad! (or watch the video or whatever.)
So there you have it.
Three reasons your ad might not be converting, and how to fix them. Give these changes a try and let me know your results!