Imagine you’re invited to a networking event. When you get there, you discover that it consists of various businesses shouting over one another. If you’ve ever attempted to increase your Facebook visibility organically, you know the feeling.

Paid Facebook ads, on the other hand, give your business a platform, acting like a microphone that airs over the loud speakers of your target audience’s personal computer.

Hoping to expand your business this year? Facebook is piloting some new diagnostic tools that promise to do just that…eventually.

Facebook’s Creative Compass

Creative Compass aims to give creatives valuable insights into the effectiveness of their ads. While currently only available to select agency partners, Facebook is planning a larger roll out for all users this year. The more you know in advance, the faster your business will be able to adopt this ad-changing technology.

The diagnostic tool was built to assess key elements including the visual aspects of an ad, how well it fits with the target audience, the brand association, and message comprehension. The end result is an easy-to-interpret scorecard that takes user behavior to a new level of understanding.

You’ll still have access to your standard click-throughs and conversions information, but they’ll be supported with additional data like a relevancy score for 13 individual categories from noticeability to CTA.

Marketers will then have the ability to update ads or create new campaigns armed with deep insights on the emotional reward users get from the ad. With this knowledge, Facebook aims to make it easier for advertisers to anticipate, understand, and increase the likelihood of a user taking action because of an ad.

Facebook Advertising Best Practices 

Until the Creative Compass becomes fully available to everyone, what can you do in the meantime to bolster the effectiveness of your Facebook ads?

Glad you asked.

The best place to start is to determine your goals.Are you after more web traffic? Increased engagement on your Facebook page? More email sign-ups for your newsletter? New leads for your marketing agency? Get clear on your end goal from the beginning to structure your ad appropriately.

Some campaigns may simply be about getting more likes to your Facebook page. That’s nothing to sneeze at!

Others will send browsers to a specific page on your website, where you’ll be ready to sell them on your outstanding products or services.

Some other Facebook ad best practices include:

• Using high-quality photos that are owned by you. Avoid stock photos when you can and try to capture original images that you own the rights to.
• Creating a captivating call to action. Be it a button on your ad or a clever turn of phrase, make sure to dangle the bait in an irresistible way.
• Being selective about what you advertise. You already run the risk of users becoming tone-deaf to your ad. Save your juiciest pieces of company news, blow out sales, and heart-palpitating giveaways for your paid ads to give them extra staying power.
• Checking for typos! We shouldn’t have to say this, but we do. You also need to keep it short, sweet and focused with perfect grammar to boot. Nothing turns a potential customer off faster than a wall of words full of the wrong ‘there.’

That’s the long and the short of it. If you don’t feel like you’re a Creative Compass expert, no need to fret. We’ll show you the way.