What Makes a Social Media Ad Good or Bad?

Here are some key factors that play a role in determining the success of a social media ad

Relevance

A good ad should be relevant to the audience you are targeting. It should speak to their interests, pain points, and needs. For example, if you are selling sports gear, an ad featuring a celebrity athlete endorsing your product would be more relevant to sports enthusiasts than a generalised ad about exercise that tries to target a wide audience. 

Visual Appeal

Social media is a visual platform. While long-form content may work for blog sites that produce how-to guides, with everyone being so busy nowadays, advertising companies only have a few seconds to captivate and engage their target audience before they lose interest. A short blurb of text paired with a relevant image will capture your viewer's attention and a good social media ad should be visually appealing, using high-quality images or videos. The ad should also have a clear call-to-action and be easy to understand.



Value Proposition

A good ad should have a strong value proposition. It should clearly communicate why the viewer should care about the product or service being advertised. The value proposition should be unique and offer a clear benefit to the viewer.



Targeting

Social media ads offer advanced targeting options, allowing businesses to reach specific audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. A good ad should take advantage of these targeting options, ensuring that the ad is shown to the right people at the right time.



Relatability

Even well-established brands may miss the mark on relatability when posting ads. To be more successful in reaching your target audience, it's important you are giving them content they understand and relate to. There isn't much point in releasing a perfume ad that contains cars and motorbikes. Who would this ad reach? It's likely many would not be able to relate to ad's content such as this.



The Difference

The above tips are indicators of a good social media ad. Bad social media ads, on the other hand, often fail to meet these criteria. They may be irrelevant, lack visual appeal, have a weak value proposition, or be poorly targeted to the wrong audience. 



Example of a Good Ad

Ikea did an excellent job of advertising their hotdog during an election in 2022. For many Australians, the 'democracy sausage' is a staple food to enjoy after voting, hence why this Instagram post captured the attention of people online. The advertisement was simple and relatable, all while promoting a product that held relevance.

Ikea also followed up with another post with tongue-in-cheek humour about parliament seats. This is a great example of using humour to relate to your audience, and encourages reactions online.

Example of a Bad Ad

Jon Loomer Digital released a Facebook ad which promoted a free e-book to their viewers. It may come across as an effective ad as they provide new audiences an incentive to interact with the brand. However, in its attempt to be ordinary and inoffensive, the ad misses relatability and relevance.

The sponsored post doesn't target a specific audience or explain how it provides value to the viewer. To increase the effectiveness of the ad, it should make more effort to be relatable so that more people interact with the brand more consistently. Another way it could be improved upon is by being clearer about how and why the brand adds value to a viewer's life.

Creating effective social media ads require a thoughtful approach that takes into account the needs and interests of the target audience. By following these tips, you will be sure to stand out from your competition and continue generating results.