ad_new, Author at Above Digital

How This Tweak Increased Our Facebook Ad Leads by A Whopping 89%

Posted on August 15, 2016 by ad_new

With a user base of over 1.7 billion people across the world, it was only a matter of time that Facebook’s Ad platform developed into one of the most powerful marketing tools available in the world of digital marketing.

With giving users the option of handpicking audiences based on their age, gender, location, income, job, and almost any other demographic one can think of, it has fast become a marketer’s dream. Despite its growing popularity there is a “but” involved.

There is no guide to the platform i.e. there is no one “get-em-all” approach to it. Despite all the different guides and digital marketing gurus around, no one will ever tell you how much money you should be incurring for engagement or leads on the platform. This is probably because the algorithm behind Facebook Ads works differently for different businesses and industries.

We are assuming you already have a pretty good idea about how Facebook Ads work and the different objectives one can choose in order to optimize their campaign.

While there are numerous tweaks and changes one can undertake in order to improve results, we will be providing a real time example of a client that got a whopping 89% increase in leads due to this one tweak.

Our client handed us the responsibility of running their marketing campaigns on Facebook, one that focused on bringing about more customers and thereby sales.

We optimized our campaign to “Clicks to Website”, mainly because it has proven to be fairly cost effective for us in the past. This option allows ads to be targeted towards people who not only belong to your target market but are also known towards taking action on ads they have come across previously.

Even with our experience and expertise in Facebook ads, there are times when our campaigns don’t guage much interest from prospective customers. We were getting a lot of clicks onto the landing page linked with the Facebook Ad however actual conversions were few and far between.

With such a mixed response from our campaign, we decided to incorporate a few tweaks here and there. Running a Split Test campaign running the same ad but with different objectives, gives us the opportunity to practice a Trial & Error method.

With the Split Test Campaign, one of the ads continued running on the objective of “Clicks to Website” whereas the other was now optimized for “Website Conversions”.

The results of running this split campaign took us by surprise, sales for our client increased considerably. On exploring the campaign’s insights we found that the one optimized for “Website Conversions” got us the most customers. It allowed us to get our client an increase of 89% in leads.

You might be wondering why this happened. How did tweaking the campaign ever so slightly get us such an amazing response? We have uncovered the reasons behind this below

Every Facebook Ad is optimized for a specific objective

In its early stages, our campaign didn’t fare well and the reason behind not getting desired results was fairly simple. Our ad campaign wasn’t optimized correctly.

You might think why we didn’t go ahead with selecting “Website Conversions” since we were aiming to get more leads from our adverts. The reason why we did was because the “Clicks to Website” objective is slightly less expensive, is proven to have worked for us in the past.

While our targeting remained constant throughout, you won’t be the only one to think as to why we our previous ad wasn’t getting results. Our ad was being showcased to wasn’t one that would take action, only those who would Click on it i.e. Clicks to Website optimization objective.

How does Facebook do this? Based on actions taken by users through the social platform. In other words, Facebook’s algorithm does almost all of the work for you; needing only for you to tell it what exactly it is you wish to get done.

After changing the objective to Website Conversions, our ad was now being shown to a more relevant audience, those more likely to take action and convert.

Whatever your ultimate goal is for your ad campaigns, be clear while selecting your ad objective. If you wish to get people signed up to your email list, to buy your product or attend your seminar then make use of the Website Conversions objective.

The incorporation of this tweak after running a Split Test campaign worked for us, who are to say it won’t for you. Make the right choices and sit back and watch Facebook do wonders for you.

Here’s Why Your E-Mail Subject Line Should KISS It

Posted on August 1, 2016 by ad_new

We are presented with countless emails every single day, resulting in an inevitable overload of information. With everyone running on packed schedules, it comes as little surprise that most mails are left unopened.

According to findings, nearly 33% of email recipients ponder over whether or not to open one’s email based on the subject line.

With so many mails to sift through, how can you ensure yours stands out from the masses? We suggest your email subject line should KISS it.

When we say your email subject line should KISS it, don’t go sending across cheesy emoticons we often make use of on social networks. That’ll only result in you getting blocked from the recipient’s list at the very least.

By KISS, we mean to say Keep It Simple Silly.

According to MailChimp, arguably the most popular email marketing service around, short descriptive subject lines got a better response and open rate when compared to cheesy attempts to entice individuals.

Being memorable is almost every marketer’s dream, however implementing a strategy revolving around humor for subject lines isn’t the best time to put it to use, thereby urging you to KISS.

There are a number of ways you can ensure your email subject line should KISS it.

Be Clear

A clear subject line depicting the crux of your mail’s body is said to have received more clicks than other clever attempts to capture one’s attention. The minimalist view that underlines the importance of “less is more” couldn’t have been more fitting.

Your subject line should be understandable. Professionals wish to know exactly what they are clicking on. There is no room for unwanted surprises or time wasting. Avoid witty ambiguous statements.

Don’t showcase your selling skills

You might be inspired by the Wolf of Wall Street however we urge you to avoid using “Salesy” terms, it will only result in your mail ending up in trash

Be Precise

While many marketers would argue that humorous and creative subject lines work best, we often overlook the importance of simplicity. 50 characters or less should do the trick

Make it Personal

Everyone is dealing with an overload of information through selective perception. In order to catch attention, make your email subject lines more personalized. The mere use of the words like “You” can do wonders.

At the end of the day, the best strategy one can employ while devising email subject lines would be to put themselves in the recipient’s shoes. This will allow you to filter out those that you wouldn’t open yourself.

“You never get a second chance to make a great first impression. Make yours count”

How Your Image Impacts Your Ad Performance on Facebook

Posted on July 1, 2016 by ad_new

We recently wrote a blog post on how Facebook has recently disabled their 20% text rule for ad images.

Since then, we’ve altered a lot of our campaigns in order to get the best reach possible with the new guidelines.

Images can be one of the most powerful factors in determining how well your ad is going to perform. So changing the way we create ad images meant noticing a significant difference not just in the reach of the advert, but also on the impact it had on the audience it was being shown to.

Here are a few of the things we noticed when playing around with different images:

Reach Vs Click Through Rates

While images with less text may have a better reach, you will need to keep a sharp eye on your stats to see whether the people being reached are even noticing your ad.

If the click through rates are low, the ad is simply not grabbing people’s attention.

So while your ad may be technically “reaching” a lot of people, it is not really performing unless the audience being reached is clicking and taking action on the advert.

Branding, branding, branding

Not using text in images means you are limited in what you can say through your creative – which is why you need to focus heavily on your branding elements.

People who are interested in the services you offer will recognize your colours, logo and design elements instead, which is what will make them take a moment to stop and go through what you are offering in your advert.

This is something especially important for people who do regular, long-term advertising on Facebook.

Strong Headlines

In the past, a lot of advertisers relied on their images to grab attention. However, it’s now become increasingly important to have strong, solid headlines to do the talking.

Your keywords should stand out, be placed towards the start of the sentence – and try to keep your headline simple. Snazzy headlines are great for creativity, but we’re trying to show our audience what we can offer them in the span of a thumb-scroll.. So make sure your headline immediately shows your value to them!

What changes have you made to your images and campaigns since Facebook’s 20% text rule change?

Are you facing problems with making your ads perform after this new rule has been implemented? Drop me a message to share your concerns.

Your Reception Is Killing Your Leads – Here’s How You Can Stop It!

Posted on June 15, 2016November 4, 2022 by ad_new

We have recently started offering our lead generation clients a call tracking service, that allows them to record all telephone enquiries made through our advertising efforts.

And the results from implementing this have been jaw-dropping!

Not only has it helped our clients significantly improve their profit margins, it has played an instrumental role in ensuring they don’t lose calls because of their reception.

What we found after implementing the system:

Out of every 50 customers who are calling to enquire, 10-15 calls are going unanswered. Which means 10-15 potential customers are being lost!

Over 60% of potential clients have the same concerns when enquiring. By listening to the calls and seeing the patterns, we are now able to comprehensively answer these objections in order to confirm the booking.

Simple questions are often mishandled by the reception staff, causing the lead to lose trust or get frustrated and hang up.

There’s so much confusion – upon playback, we are able to clearly distinguish what the client is asking about. And in a lot of cases, the receptionist is responding to a completely different concern, causing confusion that prevents the client from taking action and booking.

People are busy, and they want their objections and concerns answered before they take the time out to come to your premises. Do not push for a consultation, push to really answer their questions.. And the end result will be an actual booking. The receptionists that push for consultations tend to frustrate clients, who either hang up or book a consultation only to cancel it later.

Listen. We’ve heard so many calls where the reception staff is providing an information overload, without really waiting to listen to the customer to find out about what they are actually concerned about.

After implementing the call tracking system, we found that around 7 out of 10 calls are lost by the reception – not because of lack of interest from the customer, but because the call is not handled properly.

With this information, our clients are now able to convert those 7 lost calls as well – thereby increasing their profit, without having to spend more on additional marketing.

We couldn’t be happier about this development!

Want to know more about call tracking? Drop me an email and I can share more information on how it works.

Facebook Disables 20% Text Rule – But Don’t Use Text In Your Images Just Yet!

Posted on June 1, 2016 by ad_new

Over the past few months, Facebook has slowly started disabling its 20% text rule for images used in Ads.

The previous rule prevented advertisers from using over 20% of text in ad images, and was supported by the handy Grid Tool.

Now that Facebook has disabled this rule, advertisers are free to use as much text as they would like in their Ad images.

So does this mean I can finally use text-heavy images while advertising?

Well, yes.. and no!

While it is technically possible to use text-heavy images, you will sacrifice your ad reach significantly by doing so.

This is because Facebook has started giving preference to ads that use little to no text in their images. The more text your image uses, the less Facebook will push the ad to its audiences.

Why is Facebook doing this?

While there is no solid answer to this, we believe that Facebook is trying to optimise user experience and would hence like to eliminate images that have a blatant “advertisement” look and feel.

Here is an official statement from Facebook regarding the recent change:

“To help advertisers achieve their business goals while providing people with an enjoyable experience on Facebook, we’ve had a policy limiting excessive text (more than 20%) on images in ads. We’re always looking for ways to improve the experience for people and advertisers, which is why we’re testing a new solution that will allow ads with text to run, but based on the amount of text in an ad’s image, the ad won’t reach as many people. We will continue to monitor how this test impacts advertisers as well as people and will iterate to ensure we are creating the best possible experience. We’re testing in certain situations but are not changing the policy across the board at this time.”

Bottom line: while your ad may not be rejected when you use a lot of text in the image, it will not be fully pushed to the audience on Facebook.

What do you think of this change? Do you think it will have a significant impact on how well your ads perform?

Send me a message to let me know your thoughts, or drop an email for any questions on this latest change implemented by Facebook.

If You Aren’t Converting At Least 10% Of Your Website Traffic, It’s Time To Ask These Questions

Posted on May 1, 2016November 4, 2022 by ad_new

A successful, optimised website should be able to convert at least 10% of its traffic into leads.

We aren’t saying that every lead is going to be a sale. A lead can include anything from a visitor giving you their email address, to them actually purchasing an item or leaving an enquiry.

But your website should be generating action from the hits it’s getting. After all, it’s not just there to look pretty – it’s meant to help you generate new customers for your business.

If your website is failing to make even 10% of its traffic take action, there is something seriously wrong – It might be time to put on the thinking cap, and ask yourself these questions:

Do I give enough opportunities for a visitor to take action?

This question tackles the essential point of call to actions. Are you actually calling out to your audience to take action? Do you have lead magnets and capture forms that are giving the visitor a reason to give you their email?

Is my traffic relevant?

If you’ve already armed your website and landing pages with the right call to actions, the next question to ask if whether your traffic is relevant.

Are the people visiting your website the right audience?

Are they the people who have the need and purchasing power to use the solution/service you provide?

Are they qualified visitors who are actually looking for your service or product currently?

Analysing these factors will help determine whether the problem is your website, or the people being sent to your website – after all, someone looking for a Toyato is not really going to convert on the landing page of a Lamborghini.

Am I answering their objections?

If you have the right traffic and the right kind of call to actions, you might need to put yourself in your potential customers shoes and think about what’s stopping them from taking action.

A lot of times, people may have a legitimate interest in your product or service, but are having concerns, questions or hesitations. Your website needs to foresee such objections and answer them for the customer, in order to instill confidence that allows them to take action.

Is there a demand for what I’m offering?

If you’ve answered yes to all the above points, the final step is to evaluate the demand for what you’re offering.

Whether it’s a product, service, or a special offer – the lack of conversions might be stemming from a lack of real demand or desire.

Here are a few common problems that are usually culprit for a lack of demand and desire:

Price – is your product/service priced too high or too low?
Presentation – many times it’s not what’s being offered, but how it’s being offered, that can cause problems
Offer – creating offers that portray true value is an art. Using the right offer and phrasing it in the right manner can be a deciding factor on how well it performs.

Tackle these 4 questions and you should be well on your way to converting at least 10% of your website traffic.

And the best part about a 10% conversion rate guarantee is that it’s scalable. You can increase your leads by simply increasing your traffic – provided you have a big YES to all the pointers mentioned in this blog.

CASE STUDY: How Finding The Right Targeting Can Skyrocket Your Lead Generation on Facebook!

Posted on March 14, 2016November 3, 2022 by ad_new

We’ve seen a lot of people in the industry that practice open Facebook Advertising – i.e: creating ads and not targeting them to a specific or narrowed audience.

Most businesses that are advertising tend to target just by gender and location, and ignore other demographic or interest based targeting.

While this may work for certain kinds of products/services, it is not advisable for several reasons:

Open targeting may reduce your cost per click, but it can actually increase your cost per lead.
The quality of leads often drops due to the lack of targeting to the kind of customer your business is looking for.
Your ad might not even reach the right kind of customers, and will instead keep showing to irrelevant audience that may be more dominant/active on Facebook.

We decided to test this in one of our campaigns – and the results speak for themselves!

About the campaign

We created a Hair Transplant campaign that was targeted to men.

One ad set used open targeting – only specifying gender (men) and age range.

The second ad set targeted only Indian men with an interest in specific hair related products, within a certain age range.

This is what the ad looked like.

The results?

The ad that was targeted to a specific audience received a significantly better response.

The cost per click reduced from AED 0.75 to AED 0.41.

The unique CTR – which basically means the percentage of people who saw the ad and clicked on it more than doubled – from 1.11% to 2.48%.

And the number of leads increased more than x5 times!

Ad set 1 (Open targeting)

Ad set 2 (Specific targeting)

Results like these are exactly why we always insist on testing targeting – while it can take some time and budget to do this testing, it reaps amazing results once the golden targeting has been determined.

Still keeping your ads open? Tell us why!

CASE STUDY: 8573% ROI – Yes, It’s Possible!

Posted on March 1, 2016November 3, 2022 by ad_new

At Above Digital, we’re constantly applying new strategies and methods on our client campaigns – which is why we’re proud to say that our campaigns show a consistent improvement month after month.

In the month of February, we hit a new milestone for a particular client: reaching a goal of 500+ leads generated through Facebook Marketing in just 30 days.

Psst.. the result was 8573% ROI!!!!

Campaign details

Services being advertised:

Hair Transplant – AED 5,000
Botox & Fillers – AED 950
Laser Hair Removal – AED 1,499
Mesotherapy – AED 349
Carbon Peel – AED 1,200

Average cost of service – AED 1799

Total amount spent from February 1st – February 29th – AED 11, 625

Strategy

We used a mix of lead ads and click to website objectives to increase the results from the spend of the client.

The goal was to decrease the gap between number of clicks and number of leads, in order to increase the returns from the allocated budget.

Results

The campaign generated a total of 554 leads in the month of February – 380 through Lead Ads and 214 through appointment bookings on the website.

With the average cost of service being AED 1,799 and the total leads equalling 554, the potential revenue generated from this campaign was an astounding AED 996,646!

That’s 8573% return on investment.

Now who can say they see such amazing results from other marketing sources?

The Best Places to Find Free Stock Images

Posted on March 1, 2016 by ad_new

Images have the ability to tell a story in a quick glimpse as compared to the endless paragraphs on a page.

But finding the right image for your website is truly a task. Those of you, who’ve tried searching for free stock photos on the Internet probably know what a hassle it is.

Free stock photos are very difficult to find and even if you end up finding one – chances are high of them being, watermarked, blurry, with poor resolution and uninspired.

Fortunately, you don’t have to settle for anything less than you deserve. There are plenty of resources available which give you access to high-quality stock photos without any hassle or significant cost.

So, if you’re drained of the usual unexciting stock photography and clichéd pictures that cost way too much, check out the below list of the world’s best free stock photo websites for designers, business owners and anyone else:

Unsplash

It adds 10 new royalty-free photos in every 10 days which boast of breathtakingly attractive beautiful landscapes. Just scroll down the home page to see foggy rivers, faraway mountain ranges or even battered signs in all their high-resolution glory.

StockSnap.io

It dishes out hundreds of high-resolution images each week which are interesting and versatile. And the plus point, all photos are free from copyright restrictions, and no attribution is required.

Startup Stock Photos

The name may sound specific to startups, there are plenty of professional options to use no matter what industry you’re operating within. You’ll surely have your hands full with these free images.

Pexels

Pexels is committed to adding at least 35 new photos each week. These photos are carefully handpicked from a variety of free image sources to ensure that you’re getting only the best of the best.

New Old Stock

This collection of vintage photos comes from the public archive via Flickr Commons. According to the website, the photos are free of any known copyright restrictions.

Picjumbo

Picjumbo happens to sport a great collection of food shots, so if you’re running a restaurant or nutrition-themed startup, you might find it worth your while to take a browse.

Pixabay

Pixabay is truly a web designer’s dream. It not just offers an accessible search feature, the images are completely brilliant.

Little Visuals

LittleVisuals is an exceptional site, run according to more of small-scale, handpicked approach than most stock-photo sites.

Be sure to check each website’s license page for specific details.

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Why Your Website Isn’t Generating Leads – And How To Fix It!

Posted on February 22, 2016November 4, 2022 by ad_new

The prime reason businesses have websites is to bring in more business and to generate leads online. However, it’s unfortunate to see that most websites are unable to actually bring in solid results.

There are a number of reasons your website might be underperforming, and today we’re going to go through some of the most common mistakes we see on a daily basis.

You haven’t defined your target audience

Your website works quite like other forms of sales & marketing – it’s vital for you to know who your target prospect is. Your website should speak to those in your target market(s), speak their language, and be full of benefits for them.

The best way to define your target audience is to create buyer personas – they help you know what your customers priorities are, what truly motivates them and what will make them choose you over your competitors.

Your content is not powerful

Be it blogs, white paper, case studies or your website copy – each has a role to play in attracting potential users. In order to secure a place in the search engines, your website must have informative content that users find interesting and helpful. Your content must be able to address user problems & offer possible solutions.

There are no calls-to-action

Once a user lands on your website, he or she needs to be driven to take some action. This is where a call-to-action helps – it is a link or graphic that takes people to more information about a topic, usually a conversion page. Calls-to-action should be strategically placed alongside, within or below content that is related to the premium content on offer.

You haven’t designed a proper landing page

For a lead generating website, landing pages or conversion pages act as the bread and butter. A good landing page is targeted to a certain stream of traffic and has an interesting offer behind a lead capture form – this allows you to convert a higher percentage of your website visitors into leads with which you can follow up.

Your offer is not understandable

No one likes guess work – and when it comes to website visitors, uncertainty is a total turn off. The user coming to your website wants to be shown a guided path at each step. If you have placed an offer ensure it is clearly readable as well as understandable. Your offers headline, image and call-to-action should be very precise & clear for the user to understand.

If you think your website is not generating any business for you, then there’s definitely something wrong! Set up a free strategy session with one of our experts to know more on how your website can be optimised to generate leads.

Author: ad_new