The Best Ever Advertising Design Ideas for Great Results

One of the toughest jobs for any new business is to produce stellar ads without the help of a big-budget ad agency. The key is to engage your target audience because for advertising to succeed, it has to be remembered. Even on the tightest budget, you can create successful advertising design ideas by following these tips.

Create an “aha” moment

 If you’ve ever wondered why the word “new” is used so often in advertising, it’s because our brains are actually alert for new information. One of the most exciting parts of creating advertising is that great ads have the ability to open minds. Your ad can show your customers a new way to achieve a goal or provide unique insight. The rewards will be greater audience attention and elevated response rates.

Design for the ad environment

 There are literally hundreds of forms of advertising-from billboards, websites, and taxi-tops to ads on supermarket clocks. And ad environments sometimes differ within a single medium, such as when magazines offer four-color display advertising and small-space shopper ads.

Become familiar with the nuances of the media you choose, and design your ads to meet their specific visual and editorial requirements.

Address the right audience

 How well do you understand your target audience? Your ads should immediately appeal to prospects and speak to them in their own vernacular, including buzzwords. The ads must ring true, without the use of gender or cultural stereotypes, or exaggerated claims, so prospects automatically understand that your offer directly relates to their needs and wants.

Have a visual focal point

Unless you’re creating a sale ad for a newspaper featuring multiple products, use a single, eye-catching visual to provide the central focus. Competing visuals can make a small-space print ad or online ad appear cluttered. With so much competing advertising, make your ad stand out by virtue of clean, clear design, with an appealing focal point and simple elements.

Make something happen

Any ad worth it’s salt should move a prospect to take some kind of action. If you highlight a strong benefit in your headline and include details in your body copy, your prospects will be excited to learn how to take advantage of what’s promised.

It’s essential to close by providing a call to action that takes prospects to the next step, whether that means making a purchase or visiting your website to learn more. Great ads build interest, are remembered, and get results.

Present a powerful benefit 

Want to create a headline that pulls in readers? Use it to highlight a desirable benefit or offer. Understand what your customers want that you can provide.

Put your promise upfront in your headline, then use your ad’s body copy to explain how you’ll deliver that benefit.

#1 Think mobile-first

A simple but important tip is that all your Facebook ads should be optimized for mobile, as that is where the majority of your audience will be viewing them.

That means vertical content, emojis, and high-resolution images!

Not only do vertical videos and photos mean that users don’t have to rotate their phone screens, but they also dominate the most real estate on the mobile news feed.

Vertical video is a great way to produce Facebook ads mobile-first

#2 Utilise carousel ads

Carousel ads allow up to 10 photos and videos in 1 post – and the best part is they each have their own link and call to action. This is great for brands wanting to display multiple e-commerce products.

Time on the ad is likely to increase, as there’s more for users to look at. It also increases the likelihood of someone clicking through, as the chance of seeing something that sparks interest is higher than on a single image post.

Carousel posts allow users to scroll through multiple images and are more likely to convert.

#3 Create video ads

As with our Instagram video ad tip, video ads also perform better on Facebook!

Facebook Blueprint’s advice is to shoot your video ad vertically (coming back to our mobile-first point). They also recommend keeping it to 15 seconds max but aiming to grab attention within 3 seconds.

Also bear in mind when creating your Facebook video ad that 85% of them are watched without sound, so text and subtitles are necessary!

Video ads instantly grab attention due to autoplay when scrolling.

#4 Test and iterate

The advanced set up of Facebook ads manager means you can run tests to see what performs best with your audience. Then you can do more of what is working and stop ads that are not performing.

Test everything from images, copy, ad format, and placement to narrow down the most effective ad for your objective.

Check out this guide on Facebook ad testing for optimal results.

#5 Make your call to action stand out

Regardless of ad format or content, the key to a good Facebook ad is a clear call to action. You want the viewer to instantly know what to do when they see your ad: whether it’s to ‘Shop Now’, ‘Sign Up’, or even ‘tag a friend’ in the comments.

The bottom line

We tend to overvalue ideas. We think that if we have a good idea, people will immediately see its worth. Yet that’s hardly ever the case. As computer pioneer, Howard Aiken put it, “Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.”

Have you added this target segment to your business strategy yet? What are you waiting for?

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of collaborative innovation. And put it to good use in adapting to changes in your business environment.

It’s up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on  Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

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