How to Write Effective Ads that Actually Convert in 2022

Tips for Writing Effective Ads

You’re not an idiot, things are just harder than they used to be.

We’re officially seven months into 2022. If you’re looking at your P&L and ROAS numbers and thinking damn this is tough, I promise you’re not alone. Cutting back on things like lavish spending, events, activations, and excessive hires are all things we are dealing with. Candidly I’ve found it the easiest just to rip off the band-aid and start building for a better future today.

Over the holiday weekend, I finally finished my murder mystery book and got to crack open Drew Eric Whitman’s famous Ca$hvertising. I read it, so you don’t have to find time to read the entire 200 page novel, but the one thing that stood out to me is that no matter how good or bad things may be going, you still have 100% control over how you craft your message and market your brand. 

The 8 Human Desires That Never Change

Here’s a task for you. Block off 30 minutes and start writing ads with a different perspective than you ever had before. 

According to Ca$hvertising, human beings are biologically programmed with the following eight desires:

1. Survival, enjoyment of life, life extension
2. Enjoyment of food & beverages
3. Freedom from fear, pain, and danger
4. Sexual companionship
5. Comfortable living conditions
6. To be superior, winning, keeping up with the Joneses
7. Care and protection of loved ones
8. Social approval 

Does this get you thinking? It did for me.

For the past five years, I'd say 99% of our ads are about "enjoyment of life." Why have we never tried anything else? Sure it's worked, but who knows if other angles could be more effective. This week we are testing "winning & being superior" and "social approval" of being the coolest person in your friend group or at the beach. 

I’m not saying all of these angles will pop up off and increase return on ad spend by 10x…. But I’m also not saying they won’t.

AI Copywriting Tools

Speaking of crafting clear and concise messaging, have you heard of Pencil? It's an AI tool we use to generate ads by fully automating copywriting, video editing, and branding. What's that mean? Essentially Pencil takes our store data and their artificial intelligence tool creates content that actually performs and is based on the content that is already driving the highest return on ad spend.

One of the most frequent questions I get is “When is the right time to hire a full time designer?” 

Well, the answer is simple, but finding one is hard as hell. We’ve had great luck with finding the right candidates through LinkedIn, although lucky breaks aren’t something to rely on long-term. I always recommend starting with a tool like Pencil or a freelance designer to see if they can grasp your brand.

My senior designer is booked for the next few months so we’ve turned to Pencil to help create all different types of performance marketing content. Even better, they’ve reduced the cost & time to produce content by almost 10x. Turnaround time is ridiculously fast and now I don't have to worry about hiring, managing, and finding a $50,000 designer.

Want 3 Free Ads a Month? Just click here to try it! The Pencil team is hooking it up this week. Nothing to lose, so go get some free creative!

Human Wants

Did you just read the checklist above and say “My product doesn’t do any of those things”? You’re not alone! That’s why humans also have nine learned secondary wants that are equally important and drive consumer purchasing. 

1. To be informed
2. Curiosity
3. Cleanliness of body & surroundings
4. Efficiency
5. Convenience
6. Dependability/quality
7. Expression of beauty and style
8. Economy/profit
9. Bargains

I’m drinking my own Kool-Aid this week and came up with this: 

• Convenience: CROSSNET is the best & most portable backyard game on the market. Set up in 5 minutes. Extremely portable. Available with next-day shipping or at your local retail store. Quickly breaks down to be stored and can be stashed for your next beach day. 
• Quality: CROSSNET is made of the MOST HIGH-QUALITY material and is built to be weather resistant and last even the harshest of climates. Our first CROSSNET from 2017 is still standing and in action without any defects. We’d only put out a product that we 100% stand by and why we have our lifetime guarantee. 
• Bargain: For the next 48 hours we are offering $25 off the best backyard game of all time. This is a limited deal for you and will be our biggest sale of the summer. DO NOT MISS OUT. 

Copywriting 101

Your customers don’t care about your big vocabulary, only what you can do for them.

1. Use Short, Simple Words
2. The Shorter Your Sentences, the Better
3. Use Short Paragraphs to Keep the Reader Reading
4. Speak to the Reader! Use the pronouns - you, me, I, she, he, them

“Limit your opening paragraph to a maximum of eleven words.” - David Ogilvy

Features vs Benefits

Consumers buy based on what the product will do for them, not on what ingredients it has. Lead with benefits, not features. 

Example:

Product: Rolls Royce Phantom Coupe

Feature: Top-grade, hand-selected seat lathers

Benefit: Luxurious comfort in all climates

Feature: 453 horsepower, 6.75-liter v-12 engine

Benefit: Power, control, supreme reliability

Our team is so guilty of jamming product features down our customer’s mouth that we’ve missed out on talking about the benefits and how we actually make our customer's lives better! 

Here’s my quick stab at it:

Product: CROSSNET

Feature: Height-adjustable for men, women and children

Benefit: Get the entire family in on the action 

Feature: Includes backpack, ball and pump

Benefit: Everything you need to start playing right out of the box

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