Facebook releases new data about creating online ads that drive brand awareness

Some online ads resonate with people more than others. But oftentimes figuring out the right mix of image, copy, size and placement can be an elusive goal for marketers.

To help advertisers better understand what makes online ads generate desired business results, Facebook’s marketing science team recruited more than 700 people from around the world to evaluate more than 1,500 ads that ran in News Feed. The more than 350 campaigns analysed were measured for their impact on in-store sales or online conversions. This enabled our researchers to correlate different elements of ad creative with the results that matter to advertisers.

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Key focuses when thinking about online ad creative?

As part of this research, we’ve identified seven key creative elements that are pretty similar to what advertisers talk about when they’re thinking about their ad creative.

Focal point : The image has one obvious focal point

Brand link : How easy is it to identify the advertiser?

Brand personality : How well does the ad fit with what you know about the brand?

Informational reward : Does the ad have interesting information?

Emotional reward : The ad appeals to you emotionally

Noticeability : While browsing online, this image would grab your attention

Call to action : This ad urges you to take a clear action

The people Facebook has worked with used these seven elements to rate over 1,500 ads that ran on Facebook. What the team found is that different elements will matter more or less depending on whether your key objectives are direct response or brand advertising.

Key findings

This research revealed that ads from brand advertisers scored higher than average on “brand link,” “emotional reward” (“the ad appeals to you emotionally”) and “noticeability” (“while browsing online, this image would grab your attention”). It seems obvious to say, but when brand advertisers are trying to convey their brand, they need a clear link back to the brand. But that link alone isn’t enough. Ads need to resonate with consumers, so an element of “emotional reward” or “noticeability” helps to convey more than just the brand.

Best practices

 Based on this research, conveying a clear brand story is really important, so a clear “brand link” is key. A brand logo, or in Bud Light’s case, iconic packaging, works well here. When developing online creative, a brand should know what it represents and know to leverage existing brand awareness. When it comes to “brand personality,” it’s really important that a brand understands who its consumers are and communicates with them consistently through their creative.

One consumer packaged good ad that we rated for this research lacked this brand connection, and the results suffered. The ad featured an engaging, people-focused image, but the ad copy and the image weren’t clearly related to the brand. If you saw the image from the ad, you’d have no clear idea of what brand or industry the ad came from. The creative ended up scoring 30% less than average in both “brand link” and “brand personality.” The sole element for which the creative scored higher than average was emotional reward. But that’s probably because of the excited expressions of the people in the image.

What next

We’d ultimately like to provide advertisers and other researchers with perfect tools that can help them make the most effective ads at driving business results. As part of this and other research at Facebook, we’ve already begun to provide guidelines for advertisers to understand conceptually what makes good digital ads. We also want to provide benchmarks so that advertisers know how their ads are doing compared to other ads in their vertical.