Strategies for Crafting Facebook Images That Boost Clicks Count
In a recent series of tests, a team of marketing professionals set out to determine the visual components that drive the most clicks for Facebook ads. Over the course of a few weeks, they tested 35 different ads, each with a unique combination of font families, sizes, positions, colours, illustrations, images, chart/data visualizations, call to action, branding, memes, and design elements.
The results revealed some unexpected findings that could revolutionize the way advertisers approach Facebook ad creation.
- Short-form video storytelling emerged as a powerful tool, with videos immersive, easy to consume, and grabbing attention quickly. Using visual sequences that tell a story or demonstrate a product’s impact emotionally engages viewers better than direct sales pitches. For example, before-and-after or customer journey visuals create emotional connections.
- Carousel format also showed impressive results, with ads featuring multiple images (carousel) demonstrating up to 72% higher click-through rates compared to single image ads on Facebook.
- Authentic user-generated content (UGC) or influencer content was found to make ads feel native and trustworthy, improving engagement and conversions.
- Bright colours, human faces, and clear, uncluttered compositions were discovered to attract attention and improve message clarity.
- Mobile-first optimization was crucial, ensuring that visuals were designed primarily for mobile viewing, ensuring clarity and impact on smaller screens.
- Tests around visual variations were also found to be beneficial, using tools such as AI-generated video ads with avatars to help quickly test which visual style or composition resonates most before finalising creative.
Interestingly, images were found to be responsible for 75% to 90% of ad conversions on Facebook. The top performing ad from the second test utilised a more metaphorical image of a beautiful night sky, while the third most popular ad design included a graph, with 86% more clicks than the average for the sample.
An ad with a dark colour scheme received 131% more clicks than the sample average, and the darker colours were found to stand out well against Facebook’s light grey and white background, with white text easy to read against a black background. The magic wand in the third popular ad directed the eye directly to the title of the ad, while the title or text in the third popular ad was the only thing that was white, making it stand out.
The most popular ad involved the use of a meme featuring Oprah and received 145% more clicks than the sample average, while the third most popular ad from the second test used coffee as the popular topic and built the visual around it, with fun and whimsical icons that helped the ad succeed.
In summary, short-form video storytelling combined with carousel images, authentic UGC visuals, and bright, clear designs optimized for mobile yielded the best performance in the tests of 35 Facebook ads over weeks. These elements drive higher engagement, click-through rates, and emotional connection with the audience.
- Integrating short-form video storytelling into Facebook ads, accompanied by carousel images, could significantly boost click-through rates, considering videos immersive, quick-grabbing, and emotionally engaging.
- The use of user-generated content, particularly images with bright colors, human faces, and clear compositions, can improve the trustworthiness, engagement, and conversions of Facebook ads.
