11 Steps To Create The Perfect Social Media Ad

Getting your business noticed online is only getting more challenging, as every day new businesses are opening up and creating more competition for consumer attention. The go-to strategy for many companies, therefore, is to leverage social media to get in front of their target audience and convince them to make a purchase.

But the perfect social media ad won’t come about without a little forethought and planning. If you really want to persuade potential customers, consider the following tips as recommended by the members of Young Entrepreneur Council. Implementing these steps could give you a significant leg up on the competition.

1. Define Your Goals

The start of any successful ad campaign begins with defining your goals. Your ads should have a very specific, measurable purpose. That way, you will be able to objectively tell whether or not they are working and to what extent. Creating measurable goals will also allow you to analyze multiple campaigns, so you can improve the lowest performing ones and double down on the highest performing ones. – Shaun Conrad, My Online Accounting Course

2. Consider What’s Trending

Keep it current. In this day and age, trends are global and taking over the social media space, so it’s crucial to understand what’s trending, as well as how to implement that into your campaign. This could be using vertical imagery, pop culture references, etc. Just make sure your content still speaks to your target audience! – Shay Berman, Digital Resource

3. Focus On Your Ideal Client

Always make it about your ideal client. So many businesses get this wrong. They focus on themselves, why they’re great, what they offer—but all ads (and all marketing in general) should be about is what’s in it for the end user. Period. – Ryann Dowdy, Uncensored Consulting, LLC

4. Aim For Clarity

To create a high-quality social media ad, companies should make their offers easy to understand so users can decide whether they’re interested or not. If there’s any confusion about what your offer is, customers are likely to turn away and move onto the next thing. – Jared Atchison, WPForms

5. Determine A Call To Action

You may have the most relatable, vulnerable, informative, entertaining ad ever, but without a call to action, the efforts you put in to make sure your ad will reach and touch more people will be in vain. All the emotions, relatability and info the customer has should have the perfect directive of what to do next. Without it, all the excitement for the ad will just be gone. – Daisy Jing, Banish

6. Plan For Further Optimization

The perfect ad will never come on the first try. You will need to do A/B testing to narrow down various options. Over time, you will find a formula that works best for your business and target market. To mix sports metaphors, approach this more like training to run a marathon, rather than expecting to throw a knockout punch. – Salvador Ordorica, The Spanish Group LLC

7. Choose Strong, Relevant Images

To create a good social media ad, it’s important to use relevant, strong images that convey the right message and push customers in the right direction. Images can spark users’ interest and encourage them to take the action you want them to take. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms

8. Tell A Story

The perfect social media ad tells a story. Don’t just try to promote your business or product to people directly. Instead, build their interest with a backstory about your company or create a story that your audience could experience through your brand. When you create stories, you’ll get more engagement and more click-throughs. In general, you should see better results. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

9. Factor In Timeliness

I believe the key to creating a compelling social ad is timeliness. I use retargeting campaigns on Facebook and Instagram to reach out to users who visited our site but didn’t place an order. I use this opportunity to give people who know we exist an exclusive coupon if they come back and complete a purchase. We’ve dramatically improved our conversion rate with this strategy. – John Turner, SeedProd LLC

10. Create Engaging, Value-Driven Content

There is so much content out there and, even worse, there are so many ads out there. Stand out by grabbing attention and entertaining viewers so they want to give your ad the time of day. You know your target audience (hopefully), so give them something that’s intended for them before you ask them for something meant for you. – Brandon Harris, Playmaker

11. Personalize It

If you want your social media ad to be effective, you need to personalize it. This means tweaking your ad for different audiences. All social networks have options where you can target people based on interest, locations and other details. Create multiple audience groups and change your copy and images for each group. You’ll get better results than if you shared the same content with everyone. – Blair Williams, MemberPress