4 minutes

Selling on social in 2022: Making the most of creatives & formats

When it comes to social ads, the world is your oyster in terms of creatives and formats to get stuck into. Playing it safe doesn’t always pay off, in fact, those making the most of newer ad formats see higher levels of engagement. You’ve got to quite literally ‘beat the scroll’ if you want to stand out.

Our recent Selling on Social in 2022 series covers the tried and tested tips our experts have honed over their years in industry. If, like many of us, you’re more of a watcher than a reader, you can skip to the video conversation over on our YouTube here.

For those of you that are still with us, here’s a run down of our top tips to get those customers hook line and sinker…

 

Give collection ads a go

If you've got a lot of products to show off, whether it’s different collections, categories or brands, then using collection ads is a no brainer. It's a great way to highlight multiple products within one ad plus increase your average order value! 

By integrating your product feed you can create collections or manually select specific products in order to up-sell or cross-sell to those who have already purchased from you. For example, someone may have just purchased a bed from you so now we could show them bedding, throws, cushions? You get the jist.

Extra tip: have a think about who you may need to exclude from your targeting!

 

Dynamic ads, our new fave

We have seen buckets of success with this ad format lately (hence why they’re our new golden child). In a nutshell, they work by dynamically generating an ad whenever a shopper expresses interest in an item from your product catalogue, which is then delivered to that person automatically on mobile, tablet and desktop. Dynamic ads disguise themselves as every other single image, carousel, Stories or collection ads on Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network, meaning your customer is effectively none-the-wiser.

Let’s say your customer has previously purchased a certain brand from you, you’re able to then hit them up with new arrivals you’re stocking from that same brand you know they’ve bought previously. 

Note: Dynamic ads aren’t for everyone, especially if you have less than 20 products. As a rule of thumb, if you have 10+ items but they’re diverse, or 20+ products, it’s worth considering adding dynamic ads into your social strategy.

Incorporate video in your strategy

It’s no secret that video drives insane amounts of engagement and growth, and as of 2022 users spend as much as 100 minutes per day watching video - it actually accounts for 82% of all consumer online traffic. It’s also been known to have lower CPC’s and better CTR’s - win win! When we say video, we don’t just mean one format, there’s stacks to test, specifically in short form.

Think about the recent success of TikTok and Instagram Reels… your customers have short attention spans so you’ve got to capture them quickly with content they can relate to, whether it’s informative or entertaining. Create video content that aligns with those you’re looking to catch mid scroll and you’re onto something.

Word to the wise: Be sure to make your video ads accessible to everyone. It’s important that your content (and budget!) isn’t potentially wasted by skipping adding things like captions for those that have hearing difficulties or simply choose to keep their phone volume off! 

Take advantage of user generated content

The simplest of them all - user generated content. It needs no introduction, it’s content your wonderful users have generated for you to repurpose into your brand ads without the need for a photographer/videographer/graphic designer and the whole shebang that comes with art directing a creative shoot. The truth is it’s something that was often overlooked until the pandemic forced brands to use what they could during any one of three national lockdowns. 

The content comes directly from the user, and the beauty of this is it naturally appears organic in a feed because well, that’s how it started! Shoppers don’t realise they’re being targeted with an ad, which apparently makes all the difference as 1 in 3 shoppers end up purchasing if they've engaged with an ad that came from user generated-content. People buy from people!

P.s make sure you seek permission from the user before creating ads with their content!

Get creative and take advantage of free tools

We’re unfortunately not all blessed with a 10 strong team of talented creatives at our disposal to hop on ad creation at the drop of a hat. That doesn’t mean to say you can’t produce really engaging content using tools that are completely free to you. Canva’s a beauty and is used by stacks of fellow marketers for its foolproof design tools to spruce up a very ‘meh’ graphic and even create GIFs.

If you’ve got a little bit of budget to play with, consider upgrading to their Pro package to access even more pre existing templates to chop and change to suit your brand - they’ve got templates and graphics for every possible format you could require so it’s well worth paying for if you can. 

Try and test to see what works for you

Test, test, and test again. There’s an overwhelming amount at your fingertips with social ads and knowing what’s right for your brand or what drives the most engagement isn’t something you’ll ‘just know’. You’ve got to test anything and everything to figure this out - lengthy process yes but far more efficient than wasting budget guessing what does/doesn’t work and sticking with it for the sake of keeping something running. 

Ditch your learnings from previous employment too - what works for one brand doesn’t necessarily work for another and vice versa. Even when you think you’ve nailed it and you’re seeing serious results, don’t sit easy, test every so many weeks to ensure what you’re doing is still performing the best out of all other creatives and formats! Your future self will thank you.

If you’re looking for advice on your own social ads, we’re well equipped to review what you’re already doing and spot opportunities for further growth. Learn more about our paid social offering and access a free audit using the button below!

 

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