An ad copy is a piece of sales content that highlights the key features and benefits a customer will receive by making a purchase. It also addresses the possible objections a potential customer might have with the aim of converting them into buyers or clients. Using the right ad copy is essential in online marketing and failing to get this right can lead to a demise of a marketing campaign.
Travis Chambers, the Founder, and Chief Media Hacker at Chambers media shares with us the top 4 ad copy types that online marketers and media buyers will need to run in order to scale their campaigns further.
These are the ad copy formats that he and his team have used to scale their Facebook marketing campaigns to millions of dollars in revenue, and the data comes from pure ad performance results.
This analysis is a data-backed customer research hack that costs $0 and takes less than 2 minutes to implement. And with that small investment, you will pre-answer any objections your target audience might have.
So here are the top 4 types of ad copy to use in 2022 and beyond.
- Storytelling-based ad copy
- Question-based ad copy
- Benefit-based ad copy
- Feature-based ad copy
1. Storytelling-based Ad Copy
Storytelling in advertising is all about relating to a customer and the pain they are feeling, that you can solve with your product or service. Human beings have been telling stories since the first human being set foot on the earth and that's because it has more meaning to people.
This is an uncommon type of ad copy that is based on first trying to sell your customer a story and then pitching him/her a product.
"This is the ad type that scales performance more often, but also the hardest to get right without an elite copywriter or multiple failed trials. Info product marketers, I think are some of the best marketers on the earth - the people who sell courses.
It is very difficult to do and a lot of them if you notice, use the storytelling-based copy."
So storytelling equals relating with pain and when you can relate with pain it equals money.
2. Question-based Ad Copy
These ad copies are all about leading customers in with a question that sets up the solution to the answer that they're searching for. This is where you ask a customer a direct question related to their problem so that you can convert them into buyers.
You're actually creating the problem by asking a question, and when we humans are asked a question, we want to find the solutions because we're human beings and we like to solve problems.
3. Benefit-based Ad Copy
Benefit-based ad copies explain how using the product or service will benefit the customers, helping them visualize how they will feel. This is where you show the customer a potential benefit from your product.
Note: This is the most common ad type but not always the most effective.
4. Feature-based Ad Copy
This is where you tell the customer your product or service features, hoping that they will convince him/ her that you are the best on the market. Feature-based ad copy will help you to sell customers innovative or surprising product features that will potentially solve their problems. It's about giving them facts, information and telling them what basically your product is.
Testing the Performance of These Ad Copies
Travis tested these copy types and he discovered that around 88% of offers and products always have one ad copy type that performs far better than the other 3 combined.
Regardless of whether you are in niche marketing, B2B, or B2C. These ad copy structures always get used and always improve ad performance. A/B testing all these 4 ad copy types is very important. If you don't A/B test all 4 ad copy types to find out which one's the most attractive to your audience, you might be leaving an additional 60% of your ad performance on the table.
5 Tips to Further Roid Your Ad Copy
Here are some specific words and terms that will always increase ad performance. And by always we mean most of the time always.
We recommend taking notes on this. These tips are very powerful and you might see a 10%-30% lift in performance just with these very small tips.
1. Call to action URL: If you put a call to action link in your copy, on average based on the top 1% of the top 2 000 Shopify stores, you will have a 14% lift in performance.
2. Free shipping: If you put the words free shipping in your copy, expect an 8% increase in ad performance.
3. An exclamation mark (!): If you use an exclamation mark in your copy, expect a 7% increase in ad performance. “It's almost like an exclamation mark is like someone shouting at you. I've made enough ads to find out that when someone shouts, people generally listen. So the exclamation mark is the copy version of shouting at somebody.”
4. Using the word "You": Using the word "You" is very important because we humans love ourselves and we care more about ourselves than anybody else. So when you make an ad targeting someone, you need to address them specifically.
5. Using a reserve mark or trademark: Using a Reserve mark or a trademark gets you up to a 6% increase in ad performance. This is because of its perceived value.
Grade Reading Level
Another discovery that Travis and his team made on what makes or breaks any ads, and is making 1 out of 10 social media ads throw away their ad budget is the grade reading level.
"It's shocking, in the United States of America, almost half of us have a grade reading level below 7th grade. It's really embarrassing because your average American can't read beyond 7th grade. So if people don't understand what you're saying, you're not going to get the sale.", Travis says.
However, this may be different in luxury goods if you're marketing to people in Dubai, you get that college reading level going because these people out there are smart. This is the impact of reading level.
If you type out over 8th-grade reading level, you will have a 14% drop in ad performance. And less than 10% of all ad creatives have a reading level below 8th grade. So the lower your reading level goes, the higher your ROAS.
Hooks
TikTok has made hooks more important than ever. It's the hookiest platform of all time. Travis discovered that hooks are less than 5% of an ad creative’s length, but they can impact your creative performance by up to 25%.
So Travis and his team crunched some data and here's what was found: there are only 3 types of hooks that can get you the most out of your ad performance. These are:
These are hooks with superlatives, bold claims, strangeness, and intellectual statements.
For example, "Say goodbye to plastic and choose reusable — choose organic" This ad did $1 000 000 dollars.
These are hooks that make you look, and listen.
"One of the brands we had, Mr. Cool, had one ad that did over $30 000 000 in sales. In the ad’s first 3 seconds, the guy throws a towel at the camera and he says, "Stop scrolling!" That's a sensory hook."
Here is another example that did over $2 000 000:
"As astounding as it may seem, this is not a diamond ring!" This one was sensory because it was gratifying for people to know what it is.
These are hooks that make you feel fear, worry, FOMO, humor, sadness, anger, excitement, nostalgia, shock, etc.
What Is the Best Performing Hook for Your Product?
It is very important to know what kind of hooks work in your industry. Travis and his team curated this table below shows the best hooks types to use for your product/services’ niche or industry:
Conclusion
Writing ad copy is the art of including phrases or aspects that trigger a strong urge to own the product. It's the capacity to get rid of the extras and replace them with the essentials without losing the significance of your message. The most important purpose of any advertisement text is to trigger a response from the target audience for the advertisement. It might be as simple as going to the brand's website, enquiring or filling out a form, or making a purchase.
