Companies in the US spent $165.47 billion on digital advertising in 2022.
Why do we spend so much on digital marketing?
The key to increasing sales is reaching your customers where they are. Around 4.9 billion people worldwide use the internet, a figure expected to continue growing. Capturing this huge potential audience base is one of the best ways to spread the word about your business.
That’s not to say it’s easy.
With hundreds of thousands of businesses paying big bucks to professional marketers to ensure their success, it can be challenging to keep up.
But you can still capture the interest of your target audience in your unique way. Read on for all you need to know.
How To Create Engaging Ads: The Only Guide You Need
With creative, engaging ads, you can keep your brand fresh and relevant in a world that sees the premature end of 14% of businesses due to poor marketing.
Here’s how you can do that:
1. Target Your Audience
It’s tempting to cast the widest net to reach a broad audience. But the most effective strategy is to micro-target potential leads that are more inclined to interact with your ad.
To get the best bang for your ad spend, take the time to build your buyer persona, taking these into account:
- Demographics (age, gender, location, etc.)
- Your product’s value-adding proposition
- Any reason that will keep them from reaching the end of the sales funnel
Understanding this information can ensure the success of your marketing campaign.
2. Use the Right Ad Style
Not all ads will resonate with your audience.
For example, Reels on Instagram have a 22% higher engagement rate than standard videos. While this seems promising, it won’t be much help if your business provides solutions to seniors and older adults.
So, the idea is to target potential customers with the ad styles and content they prefer.
Here are some of the best formats to keep your audience engaged:
- Images: Photos and graphics are the most basic and easy-to-use ad formats. Use the correct aspect ratios to create the desired visual impact.
- Videos: These showcase your products in a highly engaging format, which explains its audience reach of almost 92%.
- Playable ads: This ad format generates $11 to $25 for every 1,000 impressions.
- Stories: This ad style accounted for 35% of all Instagram ad impressions.
- Slideshows: They draw people’s attention to your feed, which can boost your ad campaign. You can use PosterMyWall’s slideshow maker to create engaging, high-quality animated content with your branding elements.
3. Create Content Around Your Ad
Your ads should not be created to sell but to entertain.
89% of consumers either don’t care for ads or straight-up dislike them, likely because of their intrusive nature. They are also tired of being told what to buy. The only way to get these folks to develop a positive attitude about your ads is by engaging and entertaining them.
So, instead of taking a salesperson approach, opt for storyselling.
Create engaging content around the ad to grab—and retain—your audience’s attention. In doing so, however, don’t forget your goals from the ad post.
4. Include a Compelling CTA
Without a CTA (call-to-action), your viewers won’t know what step to take next.
A CTA button on your ad will guide customers to take appropriate action. Simple and straightforward phrases will work best: “Sign up for our newsletter,” “Click here to learn more,” or “Click here to make a difference.”
By driving your audience to take a specific action, your ad messaging will bear fruit, boosting your conversion rate to help you reach sales targets.
5. Test Your Ads
There’s no way of knowing how your ad will fare and how your audience will react. That’s why we recommend A/B testing to make informed choices.
Also known as split testing, you can pre-test your campaign by showing different versions of your ads to different groups of people to gauge their effectiveness. You can compare performance metrics to get real-time feedback, after which you can modify your ads as needed to create maximum impact.
Something to Remember When Creating Ads
Five billion people use the internet via their mobile devices, so it’s not surprising that 55% of website traffic comes through it. To maximize your ad conversions, make it a point to create a mobile-responsive visual experience.
Take Home Message
More than 7 million advertisers use PPC ads, so it can be difficult to get yours in front of the right people. However, with these genius tips—and a lot of help from PosterMyWall’s tools—you can make sure your ad comes through winning in the sea of marketing copies, creating an impact where it counts.
