Online display advertising is amongst the most effective ways to reach out to the target audience. Why not? Today, people are mostly online which makes video advertising the most-sought-after medium of taking any brand to the masses. However, it’s necessary to create videos that can grab the attention of viewers instantly and compel them to see the ad to the end. Designhill conducted an online session where video marketing expert Tony Christensen has given insight on how to target your potential customers through video ads. Have a look!
We all have seen those ads while watching videos. Sometimes, they pop during the middle of the video or many times before the starting. But, how many of us see those video ads from start to finish? Well, most viewers quickly click on the Skip Ad button as soon as it appears. This mostly defeats the purpose of the ad since people, especially those who are seeing the ad for the first time, leave the ad quickly.
Ideally, a video ad must grab the viewers’ attention in two to three seconds. It’s true for any video ad format. Today, video ads come in formats like skippable or non-skippable in-stream ads, video discovery ads, out-stream ads, masthead ads, and bumper ads. But, how to drive people’s attention immediately and keep them engaged to the end?
Keeping this in mind, Designhill, the leading creative marketplace decided to conduct an online session on the art of creating ads that can sell. We invited the video marketing expert, Tony Christensen, to show how to create ads professionally. The online session was organized on 5th March 2021 on the topic – The Art of Ads: Creating Videos That Sell.
During the session, Tony delivered on a variety of video ads aspects and shared the tips with the attendees. He advised on the structure of video ads and what works best to grab viewers’ attention. Also, he elaborated on how to have hooks.
About Tony Christensen
Tony Christensen is Founder, Tony Does Ads. He particularly is fond of doing Facebook and Instagram advertising and currently working for the NOW Marketing Group as Advertising Manager. Tony has done many advertising campaigns for conferences, speakers, and business owners across the globe. He also creates weekly advertising videos on his YouTube channel.
In this post, we have shared the original source video where Tony has shared his expertise stating the art of creating responsive ads along with the summarized transcript to make it more understandable for our readers. Have a look and learn the art of advertising in just a few minutes.
Transcript: Here Is What You Need To Follow While Creating Your Video Ads That Sell
01. Quantity Is Greater Than Quality
Tony Christensen: I have five main takeaways that I want you to know to create the art of ads. So, we’ll start with the first one here. This quantity is greater than quality. Now, let me explain this.
“The best ads don’t necessarily look like ads.”
This is one of the things that I love telling business owners. I have worked with some companies that paid expensive creative agencies making good videos like TV commercials. But with a lot of ads, the best performing ones are the ones that look native to your newsfeed.
So, when you are scrolling and you see something that looks like an ad, you are not there looking for it. Unless you are like me who is an ad nerd. I look at every single ad. But, most people want to ignore ads and keep scrolling. If it looks like an ad, they are not going to look at it. So, this is one of the main points that I want to say here is the best ads don’t look like ads.
Cell phone videos perform better than studio shoots
Tony Christensen: This is another point to make along the line of quantity is greater than quality. Typically, cell phone videos are going to perform better than those big expensive studio shoots. I work with different business owners. sometimes they talk of getting the right camera, the right team, editor, etc. You might spend a bunch of money on one huge professional video. If that one professional video doesn’t perform very well, you have lost the money you spent.
Whereas, you can put that time into more than six smaller videos that don’t take up as much time. You tried different angles with those videos, and maybe four of those don’t work. But, then you at least have two videos that you can learn something from.
A lot of time, you run ads to get data and see how people respond to things. So, this is why I say quantity typically is better than the quality. Because you are being able to test more and with testing more you get more data. Then, you can see very quickly what is working and what’s not working.
Organic content is a lot better than high-quality content
Tony Christensen: Organic-looking content is usually going to perform a lot better than high-quality content. A lot of people trust others to leave reviews. You can think of Amazon, for example, where you might be reading through all the reviews. You might see somebody with five stars it has. You don’t know those people, but some people are leaving reviews. But, they still trust that a lot.
Trying to guess what people want to hear
Tony Christensen: So, focus more on trying to get that organic content, that user-generated content. This is typically the content created from customers that you might have if you reach out to them. Sometimes people can do this from the post-purchase flow. So if someone bought from you, then send them an email asking for a video or an image, etc. We already mentioned taking photos of things that you like here in the presentation and tagging us things like that.
To motivate people, you can do giveaways, gift cards, etc., to get more value out of these people. Because then you can turn that into an ad. But make sure that you get the promotional permissions from someone. You don’t want to run their head and make money off of them.
Unboxing Videos
Tony Christensen: For e-commerce, if you are shipping products to people and your boxing experience. I think of iPhones. They have a fancy box, and it’s a nice and thick cardboard material. The unboxing experience gives a classy and nice feeling. So, unboxing should be good. Get your customers to film themselves doing an unboxing.
Reviews Videos
These videos can say that you bought this and you love it. You can tell the reason for buying the product and why you should use it every day.
Endorsement Videos
Then endorsements videos are also helpful. These videos are primarily talking more about getting sort of an influence. Or, a celebrity can endorse your product. Another thing that people do is doing magazine endorsements, different TV show endorsements, etc. Typically more money is spent there on those things but you can do other endorsements like I did showing like Social Media Examiner, for example.
So, you can do your niche endorsement to your industry as well. You can find a leading industry publication that mentioned you or. Then, you can leverage and run your video ads.
Reaction Videos
Reaction videos are good ones. This company would make paintings of people’s pets. They make pets look like a prince or a queen or. It’s a cool ad that they run. So they show people gifting this product that they are selling. They are filming the happy reaction of the person opening it up. That shows how valuable the product is. Then, why should you buy it because you can then get that reaction from your friends and family as well?
Product Demo Videos
Then, use product demo videos. We all have seen that shampoo ad showing how the product is used. It may be something more complicated. Or, it is a product that people are using to get some sort of outcome with a process involved.
Before and After Videos
Before and afters videos can be great. I have a client that does house washing and house cleaning the exterior of the house. They can show before what the house looks like they can show that process. So again, it’s sort of a product demo there but it’s more of the process of what they do. They can show the after of how that house looks after they have cleaned it and done their service.
I wanted to give you a bunch of ideas on what you should do with your videos. First, you can run videos that you can use. That is the main point. Quantity is far greater than quality. Again, you can test a lot more. That is the main point of view. Of course, you want to have good quality videos, if you can. But nowadays you have good cameras on most smartphones. So a lot of those videos are going to do well because they look native to the platforms.
02. Hook Your Audience
Tony Christensen: The second point about creating videos that sell is to know how to hook your audience. When I talk about hooks, I mean by the very start of your video. We will get into some of the issues that I see and how you can get over those, and be successful with your hooks.
Do not treat Ads as Movies
So, one of my main points I love to make is that ads are not movies. A lot of business owners and people I work with haven’t been in the advertising space that long. They try to make a video and think of it a lot more like a movie. What I mean by that is a lot of times we have a slow intro. They’ll say, produced by this person, and you might show a logo.
Many business owners create their videos similar to those old ways where a logo pops up. It will be very slow, they might show the outside of a building and slowly go into it. But, you have to realize ads are not equal to movies. This is because, with movies, you are buying a movie ticket to go.
Well, now, we have to talk about a little bit different things that have changed out quite a bit. But back in the day where you could go to the movies, you buy a movie ticket. You go into the theatre and pay for something already. So, you are in debt to the movie. It can have that slow intro and there can be commercials at the beginning. there is that thing that you have already paid for that you are waiting to see, what did I pay for.
People want to avoid ads on social media
Tony Christensen: But ads are completely the opposite of that. You are on social media to catch up with friends or family and get entertainment. Some people want to get news. Things that they can share tag people on, get a laugh, etc. They are not looking for movies. People are trying to avoid ads in most cases. So you want to think about that and have that different aspect when it comes to creating your videos.
Movie trailers, though, are a good example as they are fast. It might put you right into the peak emotion of the movie. Then, you are like, well, what’s going on? What do we want to do with our ads with our hooks?
Catch attention right away
Tony Christensen: Therefore, capture attention quickly. Put the most compelling part of your video at the very beginning to grab interest. We suggest you do this within the first three seconds. So here, this is exactly what Facebook is talking about. They are talking about hooks. So I wanted to show you this is a typical video, someone that might not have had a good hook. I want to show you here, you can see this is the start of the video. this is over time. This line is our audience retention.
So, basically, in this graph here, we had 100% of people watching the video. you can see it quickly dropped to, 31% right about here and then went almost down to zero towards the end of this video. Its very beginning part is what we are referring to as the hook. you can see it’s basically like a roller coaster dropping off there. This is how videos perform if you don’t have a hook.
Now if we have a hook that grabs people’s attention, you can then look at some metrics. You might see that the audience will stay a lot higher. It will typically drop a little bit because people might be scrolling. Or, not all of the hooks will grab everyone’s attention, and it is natural. But you will see it dropped off like that. If your hooks are performing well, you might see it taper off and be a lot higher up or at 50% or so.
Over time this percentage of people seeing an ad goes down gradually because things happen. People are a lot on their phones now and they might get a notification. Their dog barked and they had to go run in to attend to their dog. People get distracted a lot.
But mostly, the hook matters because if we can get people’s attention, the drop-off won’t happen. We can get people watching to the end. So, quickly showcase your brand identity. Then, people talk about it and want to get more information. The more we can get our point across earlier in the hook, the better it’s going to be. Even if we have that drop-off, we will still get 60% to 70% of people to see that main message.
This is an interesting study. Facebook commissioned Nielsen, who does the Nielsen ratings, which is like the TV viewership reports. They looked at the cumulative impact of ad recall on brand awareness and purchase intent. they found that within the first 10 seconds, you get the majority of your main impact on the ad recall. The ad recall was 74% and brand awareness 65% in purchase intent.
What this is showing you is you should get your main point across right at the beginning of your video. You want to hook them with that in the first three seconds. But right after that, get your main point across. This way, people get that value. Otherwise, it may start tapering off and at the end of your viewership might dropdown.
Different Ways To Hook A Potential Customer:
01. Put Them Straight Into It
Tony Christensen: Here is an example from a beanbag company. In its ad the very first kind of hook shows a kid jumping into this beanbag It looks incredibly soft and comfortable. So, that is like their hook and main angle that they are wanting to show you. I want to buy this beanbag right now because I love this ad. It puts you right into jumping into this soft, fluffy beanbag. What’s also cool about it is they are showing it outside as well. They are showing the different value propositions. You can bring the beanbag outside or inside. Also, they are showing the mom and child using it.
So, they are showing different avatars, and how people can use them and leverage them in different areas. Similarly, for your hook. This is something that shows exactly the angle and the kids jumping. So, you want to jump on that bean bag as well. The main thing that they wanted to get you to know about their beanbag.
02. Ask A Question
Another way that you can hook is by asking a question. You might see a video on Facebook of a coach asking some questions. The coach may be asking that are you struggling to stay focused and follow through with the goals that you created for yourself? Questions like these can also be a hook that reels people in.
03. Call People Out
You should also pay attention to calling people out while using the hook to grab their attention. So, one way that you can do this is to say things like hey marketers, hey advertisers. Calling people out means they think that he is talking to me. then you want to know what he has to offer me as an advertiser or me as a marketer.
04. Get Creative
Tony Christensen: Another tip to hook your audience in your ad is to get creative. Some of my friends have made cool videos on different platforms. For example, they have videos on TikTok, where they have tonnes of different hooks like people are dancing and doing weird things.
But, there are the ones that have worked fairly well for me and some of my friends. In such videos, people hold up the paper, and it has like a sentence or word on it. Then you drop it, which is a little bit creative and different. So, think about how you can make different hooks that stand out a little bit more. I’ve even done some videos where I’ve purposely put the video upside down. that is something you are not used to seeing. You might think, Oh, they messed this up or something, but then halfway through the video, it might flip back around.
Do things like that to get creative and catch people off guard. It is a pattern interrupt. They are used to liking seeing typical posts and videos. But when they see, that stands out a bit more. That helps in grabbing their attention and hooking them in to start watching your message and your video.
05. Make A Bold Statement
Tony Christensen: Make a bold statement or put a fact or something you would state that the beginning can work well. An example of it is an ad by a company called Dr. squatch that sells fancier and healthier soaps for men.
The ad says that the soap that you are using is not good. they believe in him cursing there. But that is a bold statement and a great hook. In the ad, you see the shower curtain. You are curious to know what’s behind this. So that is an open-loop where you are guessing what is behind this. It piques your curiosity. You want to keep looking into the video to see if you will pull the shower curtain away. Then, what’s behind it. You probably haven’t even watched from afar soapy lather. They see a guy is using a different bar of soap, so he’s comparing them there. But I wanted to show that main hook at the very beginning. I think that is a great example of a bold statement there.
06. Design For Sound Off
So, from Facebook designed for sound off. People choose to watch videos with the sound off in many situations, such as in public places. This is an example of a video ad of Dr.Squatch, which is not a great example of designing for sound off. This is because you might not get what he is saying at the beginning there. So they might want to add something like text overlays.
But, that beanbag example is a great one where we didn’t even need the sound at all. It’s a guy jumping into the beanbag, and you see how comfortable that beanbag is, they are getting their point across.
07. Show Your Message
Show your message more, that is the power of video. Same thing with image ads, as well. But you can show happy customers, you can show the quality of your products. You can show the pain point that people might have that your product or service solves. So, you want to get that message across visually as much as you can. This is because it is so powerful.
So, for example, here is a video from a company called Freshly. They are like a hello fresh, where they believe to send you like cooked meals and things like that. But they are very visual here. They are showing the pain point of having to deal with dirty dishes. Therefore, they show that message and they might show you how great their meals look afterward.
It is sort of showing you that pain point, which might hook you. You might relate to this a lot as this looks like my kitchen right now sadly. Then you’ll see later how their service works, how their products work, and you don’t have to deal with dishes.
Some Don’ts You Should In Mind
01. Avoid Slow Intro
Tony Christensen: Alright, so what you don’t want to do is a slow intro, you want to hook people right at the beginning. When I say that a lot of times, you should have someone talk right at the beginning, too. So, sometimes they start the camera, they start talking three seconds before they walk into the room or something.
If you don’t have someone talking, then have motion, or overlays, or something having some movement. But, I highly recommend it if you do have someone talking. Make sure that you have them talk at the beginning.
02. Don’t Show Your Message At The Beginning
Tony Christensen: Then, don’t show your message. You should show your message from the main angle. The point that you want to get across as early as possible. Because like I said, you are going to have people drop off naturally anyway. But, then that can also be sort of a hook as well, where you are showing that angle at the very beginning.
03. Don’t Show Branding In The End
You should also avoid showing your branding at the end of the ad. I recommend that you should use your logo design and another branding at the beginning.
03. Keep Them Moving
How do we keep them engaged and keep them looking at their phone or on their computer? It sounds weird, like keep people glued to their phone, but you get the point. Keep them watching your video.
Jump Cuts
Tony Christensen: You should keep people engaged with your video once they have been hooked at the beginning. One of the ways you can do this is by using jump cuts. Some of those Designhill videos are a great example. They have tonnes of motions happening. One of the mistakes starting with videos is they repeat the same scene for way too long. This is before they change scenes like zoom in or a text overlay, etc.
Pop-ups cut is when you film from a camera angle from one direction. Then, you might have another one in another direction. What you can do is splice them together and have it transition fairly quickly. It shows a different angle quickly. That is called a jump cut.
Change something every three seconds
Pop-Ups – Another way you can engage viewers with your ad is to have something change every three to five seconds, even like the slides is an example where I’m talking for a little bit. Then I have some sort of little pop-up.
But, you want to have something pop up. It could be a text overlay, zooming in a little bit on the person, or even zooming out. It could be movement, having someone walk. There were big, like Dollar Shave Club commercials where it was like a one-shot of a guy walking that had movement. So, keep you attached to the video in a lot of ways.
New Scenes – Or, you can have a new scene as I mentioned, so I could be talking here, and then all of a sudden I’m talking outside. So, keep something changed every three to five seconds. See if you can bring that down to two to three seconds. You might see that a lot on Tik Tok as well.
So, have things change as quickly as possible, almost like faster than you are comfortable with. For instance, in the Designhill video they have played here, they quickly showed one word at a time. That grabs your attention and keeps people locked in. Because if you go wait longer than that five seconds, people start to get bored and might scroll on.
Text Overlays – You can do that easily with a little text overlay, some zoom, some movement, etc. Alright, so I want to show the Doctor Squatch commercials again. You will notice this from the start to the end, they have a lot of different things, changing motion, etc.
Then, they show their products in the end. But you could see in there how many different angles that they did. A lot of times, they ate little zooms in and out. That keeps you engaged and watching to the end. They added some humor there.
Here is another example from the GoPro ad, which is very engaging. It is high energy. They are showing different ways of using their product and different avatars of people that are riding dirt bikes, they are hiking, and are underwater. They are traveling, and all these kinds of things. This is a way that you can visually talk to your avatar as well. Show how you’ll use your product or service in different areas.
You should show that you might be using it, what hobbies these people might have. But you’ll see tonnes of different transitions in this ad. It is very quick moving in a lot of the higher energy, things even like movie scenes. We get into that, like war scenes and actions, shots, etc. You see a lot of this where it’s moving quickly. This is because it wants to give you an adrenaline surge and bump there. They will have a lot of transitions very quickly.
Get to it
So, when it comes to all of these transitions to keep people engaged, you want to get to it again from the beginning. You should keep the energy going and have those transitions every three to five seconds. To keep people’s attention, have those zoom-outs, different texts, overlays, motion, and add captions.
Add Captions – If you are designing for sound off, then add captions if you can, then add little text overlays, or burnt in captions.
Show Use Cases – To keep them moving and engaged, show different use cases. In the GoPro ad, you see different uses of their product. These include hike people that ride dirt, bikes, dives-down underwater, showing the cameras waterproof.
Show People Smiling – This is an easy one. But sometimes, I see ads where people have a straight face. Instead, show people smiling. It shows that your product and service are helping people out and they are happy to use it. And, it shows how people are interacting with you and your services. Alright, so what we don’t want to do though, is draw it out.
Tell what is there for people in it
So one of the things that I want to point out is a lot of people will be watching you. They will ask what’s in it for them. People are going to be asking this thought of what’s in it for me. You should talk about the main benefits and features of your product. Show how will someone benefit from it and have that laid out in these different transitions that you have as well. Here is another example from GoPro. You will see tonnes of different angles and transitions here as well. That keeps you locked in from start to finish.
04. Benefits Are Greater Than Features
Tony Christensen: Another takeaway about creating ads that sell is to understand that benefits are greater than features. A perfect example of this is the very first iPod, the iPod original. One of their main sayings was 1000 songs in your pocket. Now, this is the benefit. This is what is in it for me basically, you are getting 1000 songs in your pocket. Instead they could have said five gigabytes.
What I mean by benefits far outweighing features is speak to people about how that product will benefit them. What is in it for them? So this will give you 1000 songs in your pocket. I might not even know what five gigabytes mean. How many songs can fit? Now, it’s like how many photos and videos can fit because it’s changed so much.
Therefore, speak about how it benefits someone and what’s in it for them. A good exercise that you can do is the book I was reading. This coach said he would give people a product to sell. Or, that they would talk about their business or service to another friend. It would have the friends say, well, what’s in it for them. You can do this exercise with someone else. This is how you can get to the root of what is the benefit of why people are buying your specific product.
Here is another example of ScrunchSac here. They are showing this make-up bag and how you can use it in different ways. But they are showing the benefits as well. So, see all your makeup at once. That is one of the benefits, we’ll get into this one. So here, they are showing a different avatar. This could be someone that is traveling. They are showing how easy it can be to use and find your different makeup. Also, what the old makeup bags were like, cluttered and hard to find things.
But, the new bag is benefit-driven as it shows you how quick and easy it is. They are showing different avatars here. Then it’s also a product demonstration.
05. What is next?
Tony Christensen: Towards the end of your video, people ask what should I do next? So, you should tell people what step they should take next. We call it CTAs or call to action, which is precisely you want people to take action after watching your video.
Set a clear CTA
When it comes to your calls to action, know that clarity is a lot better than being clever. It is way better to be clear and concise and make it simple. Do not make people think, because if people start to think then they have to decide. It usually does not work. So try to be simple, clear, and concise when it comes down to your videos and your copy.
So, if you have a longer service-based business, there may be a process involved. The process may be like first you have to fill out this application, and then we’ll have a phone call. Then from there, I’ll outline your plan, etc. You might want to say that too in the end part of the video. So, you explain that process. Designhill could do that in a video as well. That is it like when you submit a piece of work that you are looking for, creators to help you with, you can tell them, at first you submit, then you’ll get all these inquiries or you’ll get all these proposals. From there, you can decide, etc.
If it is more complicated, it might be good to talk about what that process is like. So, people know what to expect next, as well. Some examples of call-to-action include shop now, learn more, sign up, download, subscribe, etc. Typically, I like having them at the end of the video. I might have the logo like the brand logo right above that as well or under it. So, you are having that brand identity there too.
But tell people what to do next. It’s very simple. It drives people that might be on the fence. They may say let me check this out, let me learn more, let me shop now, etc. Do not make them think about what to do. It’s very simple. guide them in the right direction.
Designhill: What are the tools to create ad videos?
Tony Christensen: 80% of marketers would create more videos if they knew, easy way. So I saw someone was asking, what are the good apps? What are the video tools that you might be using? I have a nice big old list for you here.
- Animoto
- Biteable
- Offeo
- Wave. video
- InVideo.io
- InShot
- Canva
You can also use Facebook newsfeed and you see something that you like or even on Instagram. On the Facebook newsfeed, you can hit the three dots and then click on the button that says save the video. Then you can start making a swipe file. So you make a folder of a bunch of ads that you like. You might want to get inspiration from an ad that you like, you can save it to look at it later.
Facebook Ads library
There’s also the Facebook ads library. You can type in a competitor name or a brand’s name here to search for ads. But, you can’t know if an ad is performing well or not. However, you can see things like the date that they launched their specific ads. So, you might be able to know if they launched an ad three years ago or a year ago and they are still running it. In this way, you can probably say it has some sort of benefit for them.
But the Facebook ad library is a good tool that you can use again, you type in competitors, or whoever you want to look at. You can see what ads they are running, what they have for their copy etc., which is cool.
Designhill: What is your opinion on TikTok as a video medium?
Tony Christensen: I like consuming media on Tik Tok and I think it’s a good platform to get different ideas. Getting ideas on how transitions happen, how people can hook people, think that is good. But, I can’t say if it is a good medium for ads. It is a newer platform to run ads on. So, I recommend Facebook and Instagram more than TikTok because they are still figuring out metrics reporting in a lot of ways.
But I like watching TikTok, I think it is a good feel platform. You can get a lot of inspiration on how to make good short videos.
Designhill: How to calculate the ROI from an ad and know which ad performed well?
Tony Christensen: It depends a lot on how your business is set up and what you are selling. But for the most case, you want to set up what’s called the Facebook pixel on your website. It depends on what you sell, like an e-commerce product. Or, if you are selling like something over the phone or something. So, you want to set up the Facebook pixel on your website. This is the first step to track all your websites, visitors, and things.
Set up conversion events
Then the second step is to set up conversion events. That can track if someone purchases from you online, which is done through the pixel. Facebook has guidance on that. But depending on the platform you are using, it is difficult to answer concretely. This is because if you are using, for example, Shopify, you can do it easily and plug it in.
In other apps, you might set it up slightly differently through the event setup tools, where it’s called through Facebook. So it’s sort of a process, you have to install the pixel first, and then the next step is to set up conversion events, which are still done through the pixel. Once those are set up, then you can track that ad performance. After that, you’ll see how much sales you are getting from each specific ad.
Designhill: What are the most important things to create video ads, how can we effectively communicate to our target audience?
Talk to your target audience
Tony Christensen: One of the main things that I recommend is to talk to people that are buying from you. If it’s a new product or service, then, look at what people are saying about your competitors. They might have tonnes of reviews. So, one of the main things I do is diving in and researching. I think that is a good point to start.
Then, from that research, know what are the main pain points people are saying that my product solves? Next, find out what is the main benefit that people say they bought the product for? You can then leverage that and put that into your copy and videos. Also, you can get your different angles from that as well.
Designhill: What are different metrics to look at for videos and how to see if your hook is working?
Tony Christensen: You can use Facebook Ads Manager by adding a column in it for a three-second view, and then a 10-second view. From that, you can see how many people watched your video for three seconds. Let’s say it’s 100 people. Then for 10 seconds, let’s say it’s like 20 people. So I knew 80 people dropped off from three seconds to 10 seconds. This shows that my hook probably didn’t work very well there.
Then, you can look at that three-second and 10-second gap and see if it is a minute number like 50%. So if my three-second view is at 100 people watch for three seconds. Then my 10-second view is that like 51, it’s barely over 50%. That means a hook usually performed fairly well, and people kept watching. If it’s lower than that 50% mark, then I should work on my hook and make it a little better.
Designhill: Are Instagram Reels as effective as TikTok to post ads?
Tony Christensen: I am trying to find out if reels is an option for ads yet or not, but I know it’s fairly new. I am not sure if they have it as an add-on, I think they might. I typically do what’s called automatic placements. So, that means I’m showing my ad in all the placements based on what the creative is. I would say yes, though, it is an option. Again, I do automatic placements and specific reels and stories.
But, I would say Facebook and Instagram are going to typically probably be better at backtracking a little bit, though. It depends on your audience. So, if you have a younger audience like Tik Tok is good. I think from like the 15 to 25-year-old audience. Tik Tok might be a good option for you, or even Snapchat if it’s an older audience.
But, there are a tonne of people on Facebook and Instagram, which is why it’s so good. I would prefer Facebook and Instagram because their ad platform is more mature. The data is going to be better for you on that. The platforms like TikTok are still learning a lot about. I know they have a lot of minimums that you have to spend, which are typically quite high. So, I would probably recommend Facebook and Instagram over Tik Tok.
Designhill: What is better, a clean-cut transition like jump cuts or basic transitions like fade or dissolve?
Tony Christensen: I would probably say, a jump cut would be better though because it is faster. So if you have a transition that fades or dissolves. If it takes three seconds, or two seconds or one second, you can lose attention as it could take too long.
So, I usually prefer jump cuts over everything because it’s very quick. I have a YouTube background. A lot of YouTubers you’ll see in vloggers. They do jump cuts a lot, and it keeps your attention. A fade and a dissolve can be a little bit slower. I would do jump cuts over those. But you can test it. It’s always one of those, like my answers, always it likes to test it.
Designhill: How important are the colors of ads for viewers?
Tony Christensen: Colors can affect. But the lack of color can affect as well. So, sometimes you might see your newsfeed has nothing but color. If I do a black and white ad, it might grab attention because people are not used to seeing that. I see a lot of success with a lot of brighter ads and I see a tonne of ads and pastels now. So the brighter, salmon, pink, neon, that grab attention a lot.
I have seen black and white ads do well because they stand out. But there are also bright-colored ads that can perform well. So, I would test different colors. That could be an easy test you could do to see what people are responding to the most.
Designhill: What is the most important thing a creator should consider while making an ad?
Tony Christensen: You should be genuine and should speak to people’s pain points that they might have. Also, you want to think about people’s objections. For example, I was working with a new company, and they were selling candies and chocolates to people online. One of the things people might question is how long will it take to get my candy. This was especially right before Christmas time. So they were wondering, could I get it in time.
Think of people’s objections
So, one of the things that you can do is to have a review of someone that specifically says, I ordered this and it arrived the next day or arrives in two days. That is a great way that you can handle an objection. Therefore, think about the objections people might have. Then, try to answer those if possible in your ad. If someone might say it’s too expensive or will it get here in time? Will shipping take three weeks? If you have reviews of someone that says that is great to run? Or, do you have a policy that says, we ship the next day or you can mention it in the ad?
Think about the main pain points
So, I would think about laying it out of what are the main pain points that people have? I would probably mention that what are the main benefits that your product solves? What are the main benefits that people say your product solves? Now what do you think there’s always a difference sometimes there? then what are the objections people might have? How can we overcome those objections,
If it is about quality, you can speak maybe of a lifetime guarantee, or a 30-day guarantee, or a great return policy. If it’s about price, maybe you have a review, or someone says I would pay double for this, it was a great product, etc.
Designhill: What do you think of ads that show too many and different scenes as it might get the audience confused, and they can skip it?
Tony Christensen: It is one of those things where you probably want to test it. You could test different scenes. One of the ways that I do is I make all these different things separate. Then, I test them together as well. If you have too many scenes, it is not going to work. Because like that GoPro example, there were tonnes of different scenes. I think they got the message across well.
But, you can test a bunch of different angles for your different ads and see which one performs the best. Then from that, you can double down on this specific scene or this specific avatar that is performing the best.
Designhill: Is there any level of ads and how should we set the order?
Tony Christensen: I think the question is about when we like sequence ads. There are some sort of levels to how you sequence ads. I run videos for people at the top of the funnel that hasn’t heard of the brand. So, these are the ads about getting people engaged, the benefits, and the pain points. So these are two cold audiences, people that might not know about your business.
Remarketing ad middle level
Then the next level down for me typically is what’s called a remarketing ad. It’s the middle of the funnel. For those, I typically remarket to people that have gone to our website and have interacted with us on Facebook and Instagram. So, that is the middle level there. Those images or videos can work typically well. But those if you do testimonials and reviews, those typically do well in the middle of the funnel.
Bottom level ad
Then, depending on your business, there is a bottom-funnel. So, there are so many use cases that make answering such questions tougher. I am primarily talking about e-commerce here. So typically at the bottom of the funnel, we would do a remarketing list to the people that have added something to their cart. Or, they may be those who viewed a specific item but didn’t buy it in the last 14 days.
For them, you should be showing what’s called a dynamic product ad, which is like a catalog. So, if I look at a specific shirt, like this shirt, I’ll then see that same shirt again in an ad at the bottom of the funnel so there are those different layers there on that.
Designhill: Is that more playing with numbers when showcasing the benefits?
Tony Christensen: I could talk for days about the numbers and how you can show numbers differently. What I mean by that, though, is the main benefit of five gigabytes. So five gigabytes is like the spec. It’s the feature of the iPod, It’s five gigabytes, and that is rough. It could be 10 gigabytes, the first one was either five to 10 gigabytes. But instead of them saying, if that same ad was like, it’s five gigabytes, it wouldn’t have had the same impact.
So instead, they talked about the benefits like you could have 1000 songs in your pocket. That was something that people never thought about ever before. It was like we were carrying around CD players or Walkmans, or whatever. So this spoke way more to what the actual benefit? It’s 1000 songs in your pocket.
It depends on the business
Tony Christensen: When it comes to the numbers, it is a different case there and hard to answer. It depends on the business, I would say. In terms of Do, they like bigger numbers or smaller numbers? Yeah, if we are talking about discounts, I’m sure tonnes of people prefer a higher number there, right. But if we are talking about other things, or stats or higher numbers, it depends on that one.
But yeah, the main point for that was, people are going to pay more attention. they are going to see the benefit of 1000 songs in their pocket instead of if I say, five gigabytes, Because I know, I might not know what five gigabytes mean.
Similarly, if we are talking about discounts, if I say, 20% off, it might be hard for me to calculate 20% off. So actually, if I say like, $100 off, people can get that and understand that better. So, I would say if you are talking about discounts, that an actual dollar amount off is typically going to be better than a percent because it’s harder for people to think about what the present is. So there are different use cases there and a lot of ways.
So, these are the major tips you should pay attention to while creating your video ads. If you have caught your viewers’ attention in the first few seconds, chances are that they will see the ad to the finish.
However, besides a well-made video ad, your business needs to ensure that its visual identities are strong and impactful. These identities include your logo, website, business card, brochure, and many more. Make sure that you get your logo etc designed by professional graphic designers.
One of the best ways to get talented designers involved in your logo etc design creation is to launch your design contest on Designhill. This leading creative marketplace lets explore various design ideas submitted by designers from across the world in response to your design contest. So, get started to create your visual identities right away.
Wrapping Up
Creating video ads that sell is in itself an art. You need to grab the viewers’ attention in a few seconds to get your message across. Tony Christensen advises not to take video ads as movies and avoid slow intro. Showing a message right away is not advisable. Keep them engaged with jump cuts, changing scenes quickly, and other tricks.
