Best Facebook Ads
The Best Facebook Ads of 2018
The new year just started, and this is the perfect time to plan all of your marketing efforts, look back at what has worked really well, and look forward to new alternatives that can get even further. That is why we have prepared this list of the best of Facebook Ads that was seen in 2018.
When working with Facebook Ads, it is a good habit to consistently look at what your direct (and even indirect) competitors are doing, this way you can get easily inspired to create successful Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns.
As you work through this article you will be able to have a better sense of what’s working so you can get a better overview of Facebook ad best practices.
Best Facebook Ad Campaigns in 2018
We have already discussed a couple of times how Messenger Ads have made a big jump throughout 2018. More and more companies understand its value and are learning very interesting approaches to the app.
It is about time for advertisers to engage on conversation with their customers, in order to build a strong relationship and build loyalty over time.
MobileMonkey advertisers probably knew how important their Messenger strategy should be, and they have done exceptional work! Well, we don’t see unicorns every day, but we all know how popular they are online. On Instagram, feeds are flooded with users showing off everything from their unicorn body glitter to their unicorn bagels, and even unicorn Frappuccinos.
Google Trend’s confirms that there’s been an increasing rise in the search term “unicorns” since 2012, but clearly, the high peak comes up in 2017/2018.
There is an obsession with unicorns around the internet, and MobileMonkey was clever enough to make use of this, allied to Messenger. The beauty of the campaign started on the use of an image, that clearly grasps the attention of online users, and goes through the choice of Headline: “Type: Send me the secrets”. What does this do? Makes the viewer wonder, even more. You simply can’t resist knowing secrets, whoever they belong to.
On the image, there is a line saying, “Tap to play”. Again, this acts as the perfect CTA, inciting people to be part of whatever this is about. Results? Their past CPL on regular campaigns was around $150. This campaign managed to cut it down to only $5. Exceptional.
Messenger has been proven to be an extremely powerful way for lead generation. Messaging gets 15x more engagement than any email. In case you haven’t taken Facebook Messenger seriously, it might be time to include this in your strategy. The goal here was to get sign-ups for trials, through the Facebook Conversion objective. This means that Promo wanted to convince users to perform an action on their own website: signing up for a trial. What was so good about their approach, was the choice of creativity. They decided to go through a route that not all companies feel comfortable with, especially when dealing with B2B audiences.
By choosing a video, a very cute and super funny video, Promo really got the attention of everyone. That wasn’t the only reason why this ad was successful, they invested a lot on a good ad copy. This included a good attention-grabber right at the beginning of the text – “Have no fear. Promo is here! 💪”.
They were clever in introducing a problem but also providing a solution in a few words while presenting their main USPs. Now, that is what we call a good ad copy! The results were outstanding. They reached over 2 million people, with over 4 thousand reactions! That is a lot of engagement. The tangible results included a 42% increase in CTR and a decrease of CPA of 28%.
Social media is about being social. People use these apps to disconnect from stress, relax and connect to their friends. Promo clearly understood that when they designed such an approachable, funny, and interactive ad. We all know how important understanding your marketing funnel is. However, it can be quite tricky to apply the right strategies across all the stages and make it all interact with excellence.
Well, TOMS has outperformed last year. Their goal was to show that they have great on-trend products for the Fall, for both men and women with the goal of generating sales, within their EMEA region. Additionally, their goal was to improve their branding to be perceived as changemakers.
Their approach was to use a 4-stage funnel, where their stories included changemakers that would seamlessly link to their own products. Let’s go through the funnels:
Funnel 1 – Video Views
As it was said before, TOMS utilized videos of changemakers to start out their awareness phase. The videos were linked together, which in the end created storytelling of how people have been helping other people across Europe.
Funnel 2 – Canvas Ads
TOMS started here to link all the video stories to their products. They retargeted video views with a product giveaway on Facebook and Instagram where the price would be one of their shoes of the season. Users would have to go to a specific landing page, choose their favourite pair of shoes and then comment on the picture telling TOMS which shoe they chose.
Funnel 3 – Dark posts, Carousel and IG Stories
Using retargeting again, from their video views and engagement campaign, TOMS started to show these users their products, using posts, Carousel and IG Stories ads. Here, TOMS customised the images per ad format, gender and location.
Funnel 4 – Dynamic Ads
We are not saying that no conversion happened still, on the contrary, TOMS saw conversions all the way the funnel, but all the campaign has landed into this step.
Besides building awareness on their brand and on their new shoe category, TOMS utilized Dynamic Ads to get as many conversions as possible. Dynamic ads function for people who have seen products on your website.
Well, do you remember Funnel 2, where people were asked to go to their website and look at their shoe collection?
Well, there it is. TOMS created an amazing engaging community that they would be able to retarget specific products! Conversions were much easier at this stage!
Results? Besides an increase of 10% of traffic on their websites across Europe, TOMS saw an increase of 19% in sales.
And how did the well-known brands do in 2018?
Big brands are powered by huge budgets and great creative agencies to create amazing campaigns online. Their objective changes a lot from small to medium companies, as what they really perceive is awareness, branding and reach.
We lined up a few interesting and creative approaches we have seen in 2018 from big brands. Heineken has sponsored the UEFA Champions League for a fair amount of time – nearly 10 years. The brand allied to agencies to find a way to keep the sponsorship fresh and connected with their audience.
So, in 2018, Heineken came up with a new kind of highlight clip powered by social media monitoring, where research would be done to find the most shared moments from each match. This research resulted in short films that were sponsored around the hours after matches ended and posted across Instagram and Facebook.
Heineken’s ads were all about their branding and reinforcement of their relationship with sport. They got it right, as football fans are the most shareable-willing ones when it comes to best highlights of their supported team. Engagement rates went through the roof! We all know the power of good quality food pictures on Instagram, right? KFC enjoyed the trend at its maximum, making a very funny contribution across Facebook and Instagram for Mindfulness day.
KFC partnered with a creative agency, Mother, and developed together “Gravy Cocktails”, a 15-seconds video that showed their audience how to make a Southern Twist to Mindfulness Day. Through their video ad, KFC invited users to listen to their 60 minutes of the gentle sounds of deep-frying chicken on IGTV. You heard that right.
Can you think of anything more relaxing? In 2018, Uber decided to go through a different line of approach than most companies do. The company showed us a good example of how “small data” can be more meaningful than “big data”.
The “Book Life” campaign was designed on photo, video, and carousel ad formats across Facebook and Instagram, with the purpose of inspiring communities across India to seize the day. The campaign was designed to increase the frequency of rides by inspiring people to take spontaneous rides in India.
Uber identified communities in India with specific passions, through interest and location target, such as foodies, nature lovers, music lovers and wellness fanatics, and delivered highly targets ads that enticed users to book rides with uber. Nature lovers were invited to see the sunset, foodies were tempted with local treats before lunch, and so on. In the last two years, Uber has struggled to present a nice image of its brand. That is why so much effort has been made on their part, to present this personal, reachable brand, that can help you achieve more.
Takeaways & Tips
We’ve shown you a myriad of different campaigns, from a variety of brands. This wide range should serve as a boost of inspiration for you and your creative team. Hopefully, this will help take your business to new heights in 2019 using Facebook ads. Who knows, maybe in 2019 we’ll have your ads in our top!
Let’s recap the key takeaway messages you need to remember after leaving this blog:
1. Be aligned with the social media mindset
If there is one thing you need to remember, it’s this: social media is about being social. Make it fun, try to add something to people’s newsfeed.
Banner blindness is real and to overcome it you need to be creative in your designs. Always think if you would stop and click on your ads. Go crazy and use a unicorn, offer something back to the community like Uber, or tell a story.
2. Map the customer journey
This is maybe the most valuable piece of knowledge in this blog. TOMS gave us a textbook example of how to do it successfully to drive results.
3. Be open to new things
There is greatness in change. For example, try using Messenger ads if you haven’t in 2019. It is a more personal way of interacting with your potential customers.
Also, don’t be afraid to use an old ad format in a new way. For example, you could use the lead generation form native to Facebook as a quiz. You can then send the results to people by asking them to put them in their e-mail.
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