The key steps are establishing an objective, visualizing the creative and implementing the ad.
Objective
An advertisement begins with identifying the objective of the campaign. Some of the more popular objectives include:
- Engaging/capturing your audience’s attention
- Driving a specific action such as donating to your political campaign, or clicks to your website.
Deciding your objectives from start to finish provides a greater chance of success. Choose one action you want the audience to take: awareness, consideration, or conversion.
Awareness
Build top-of-mind awareness and interest for your campaign or candidate.
Consideration
Get people to start thinking about your campaign, your ideals, or issues, and look for more information about it.
Conversions
Encourage people to carry out a specific action, such a donating to the campaign or voting.
After deciding your objective, it’s time to choose who to target. You may begin with a look-alike audience which is found using existing data already stored on Facebook. An example of this would be targeting the people who’ve already donated to your website. Another option is uploading an email list if you have a specific group in mind. Choose a target location, add interests, demographics and complete narrowing down your audience by adding required categories. The more specific the audience, the more targeted the ad will be to the people who need to see it.
Creative
The headline of your ad means the difference between a person that clicks the ad or a person that continues scrolling and ignores it. The headline is the first text the audience sees, meaning you must choose your words wisely. Brainstorm different catchy ideas while keeping the action you want the audience to take in mind.
Regardless of the style of ad, a headline should speak to the viewer. Engage with them. The headline should focus not on what/who you are, but instead how you will help them.
Visually, choose an image or graphic that complements the ad’s headline. If the graphic happens to have text, it shouldn’t be the same copy as the ad’s body. Have a nice balance of playful to serious while keeping the target audience in mind. Also, remember you want the audience to share ads with their networks. Make the graphic “shareable.”
The final step in the creative process is coming up with a call to action, otherwise known as CTA. These are the first words the audience will see while scrolling through their timeline. Flexible CTAs perform better than those stuck to a rigid objective. For example, “Read about my issues” won’t perform well compared to something like “Redefine your freedom”. Call to action copy is picking the right number of short action words that entice your audience.
Other CTAs that perform well:
- Take control today
- Join our team
- Build a better future with me
Brainstorm call to actions and try different action words to see how they perform.
Implement
When it comes to political ads, there are more steps to take in implementation. Facebook, Google and other ad platforms have other requirements and policies when creating a political ad.
In the last few months, both companies have cracked down on ad requirements in the hope to increase transparency. When ads with political content appear on Facebook the advertiser is required to include information about who paid for them.
An ad with political content on Facebook can be identified by the label: Sponsored – Paid for by (blank). The label is followed by who paid for the ad. Click here to learn more about how Facebook is recommitting to protecting election security.
How we approach ads
We work with several campaigns, causes, nonprofits and corporations across the country. Our team knows how to utilize paid media to benefit campaigns and the candidate.
Over the years, we’ve worked with campaigns of all shapes and sizes to build digital strategies designed to motivate individuals to vote, donate and get involved. Reach out to learn more about what other services we offer that will deliver results.