Here’s How To Build Ad Creatives that Convert 🚀

Ever since the pandemic came into effect, there has been a massive shift in customer acquisition spending on digital ads, which continues to grow moving forward. 

As the attention spans of the customers keep decreasing, businesses are constantly looking for new avenues to communicate with them in a very short time frame. This means digital display ads are no longer enough to garner their attention and drive conversions. 

Video advertisements appear to be attracting more customers. In the US market, the total spending on video ads was 63.8 billion dollars in 2021, which is expected to grow to 134.5 billion dollars in 2026.

We had a chat with Sally Ann Lopez, Senior Director at the CMO Council – a peer-powered network for marketing executives and decision-makers – about building and optimizing ad creatives to gain an edge in the saturating digital media and stand out as a brand!

Current Trends in Digital Advertisement

Digital ads continue to grow even when we’re shifting back to the old ways of working. This is because organizations witnessed the impact and benefits of going digital and meeting their customers through their preferred channel.

Today, in the world of advertising, videos are a popular choice of communication among customers. They are drifting towards short-form videos that can deliver a brand’s vision, advertise a new product, or briefly introduce a brand in the shortest possible time.

Building Impactful  Video Ads 

Your first interaction with your customers shouldn’t be a lengthy one. They don’t expect to watch a 5-10 minute video to know your brand. Instead, they prefer acquiring information through short videos in a consumable and bite-sized format in the first encounter. Later, they can explore longer pieces. 

Platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook have algorithms pushing video-based content more than static content, encouraging users to create more of them. So to make a mark in the crowded digital space, create attention-grabbing ad creatives with short and compelling copy. 

Sally further reveals, “People realize sometimes less is more, they're going with brighter colors, they're going with more impactful visuals, they're going with colors and visuals that will stand out against the crowd. So for the videos, they're using different production techniques to have that little edge.”

Which Channels to Target?

Ad creatives need to be channel-specific as people come to different platforms for different purposes. For example, Facebook and Instagram are social media platforms, with Instagram focusing on video content. Therefore, the ads on these platforms should cater to this audience only. Similarly, ads on an e-commerce site like Amazon would be more sales-focused, suiting that audience. 

Meanwhile, there are also channels popular only in certain regions, which Sally explains in the example below.

“Chat Commerce has become a big topic of conversation within Europe, Latin America, and APAC, not as much as the United States. So I think regionally, that's very contextual. Also, your demographics will be very contextual in where you need to focus in terms of your channels.”

Analyze where your customers are and how they behave on these channels. For example, track where your website traffic is coming from and interact with your salesperson to understand your customer behavior and the recent trends.

Based on this data, optimize your ad creative for their preferred channel – maybe recreate the ad in a different language, have a text overlay in some areas of the creative, or have a text callout to have a dynamic conversation with your customer. 

Efforts that Go into Creating Impactful Video Ads 

To do less, you need more!

Building successful video campaigns takes a great deal of effort in the backend, involving multiple teams and stakeholders. Organizations hire in-house talents or outsource some parts of a project to an external agency or contractors to work on ad-creatives. 

Sally lists 4 prerequisites for marketers to base their ad campaign decisions on. 

• Know the stakeholders you’d be coordinating with – copywriter, designer, web developer, videographer. Figure a way to streamline work between them to understand the best way to collaborate.

• Figure out a way to seamlessly collaborate between the team so that everybody is bringing their best to the table. This teamwork and cross-functional alignment are critical for a campaign’s success.

• Look at the digital assets you created in the past for email, socials, or websites in the content inventory and devise ways to repurpose those with a spin.

• Understand where you want to optimize your spending. Would you like to focus your company resources or insource some talents to have total control of your digital assets? If you have other spending priorities, it’s better to use some of your resources and have them collaborate with an external agency or contractor.

Tracking the Analytics

To measure the effectiveness of your campaign, you need to understand where your customers are coming from, what kinds of ad creatives work, and what resonates with them. And for that, you need real-time analytics tools at your disposal!

Real-time analysis helps you optimize your campaign and make informed decisions about campaign adjustments. You need to be well-versed in your KPIs and know what you’re spending on the creatives and how much ROI (reach, clicks, engagement, and conversion) they are bringing.

Sally says, “The customer journey is not that simple and straightforward anymore. We have a very convoluted customer journey. So it's not just like clicking on this ad and then purchasing it. There are different steps involved for one conversion to happen! We're trying to drive profit. So, no matter how unique you feel your campaign is, if it's not driving folks down your funnel, then you're in trouble.”

Summing It Up

Building high-performing ad campaigns is not a one-person job. It takes a multitude of resources, a lot of processes in place, and cross-functional collaboration to produce ROI-driven ad creatives. 

On top of that, you must keep a close eye on real-time analytics to track your progress and figure out where you need to pivot!

Tune into our podcast Spilling the Magic Beans to gain insights about high-growth marketing campaigns from experts every week.