How to Ruin an Ad – Recap

/

For the last ten weeks, we’ve been running a series titled, How to Ruin an Ad. Whether you’ve been following along or you’re taking this opportunity to binge read the entire series, we hope you learned how to create more effective advertisements.

Take the time to check out all 10 parts here:

Thanks for reading!

How to Ruin an Ad – Part 10

/

Welcome to the latest edition of our current weekly blog series, How to Ruin an Ad. As is most obvious from the title of this series, each week we’ll be identifying a key element of an ad that, when missing, is sure to reduce its effectiveness.

Last week’s ad was ruined by not testing it.

Today’s ad is ruined by: Not Standing Out

The best of intentions can be destroyed due to a lack of creativity. Among consumers, there is a greater awareness of advertising than has ever existed before.

People today are exposed to more ads than they can handle, so they are hyper-aware, and have developed a near superhuman ability to ignore ads they don’t want to see.

This includes commercials, emails, banners and billboards.

And so, the worst thing you can do is try to reach someone with the same old look and feel that every other company uses. Your ad needs to stand out if it’s going to get attention. And attention is crucial for an effective advertisement.

Ads stand out when they look different than the ads around them, use different language, or provoke different responses. We see and remember ads that make us laugh, cry, and think in ways we’re not accustomed to. We see and remember ads we’ve never seen before.

The key for advertisers is this – don’t be boring. Stand out and attract attention so that your ad has a chance of being more effective. If it doesn’t get seen, it doesn’t work.

Did you enjoy this post? Do you have a surefire way to ruin an ad you think we should cover in an upcoming post? Share it with us in the comments or by email.

How to Ruin an Ad – Part 9

/

Welcome to the latest edition of our current weekly blog series, How to Ruin an Ad. As is most obvious from the title of this series, each week we’ll be identifying a key element of an ad that, when missing, is sure to reduce its effectiveness.

Last week’s ad was ruined by not measuring performance.

Today’s ad is ruined by: Not Testing It

Sometimes proofing alone is not enough. Some ads require you to follow through and take some sort of action.

If you are producing an ad with a call to action, the best thing you can do before the ad is finalized and public, is to test out that call to action yourself.

That might mean dialing a phone number to make sure the right person opens it. That might mean clicking on a link to make sure the right page opens.

Make sure your measurement tools are working correctly, and that your potential customers will have the best possible experience, the one that you intended for them.

Too many good ads go unsuccessful due to error pages, bad phone numbers, incompatibility issues on mobile or with some browsers, etc. This is easily avoided with some quality assurance testing. Test every ad before it goes out, or before it goes live. Doing so might cost you a little time, but it will save you money and embarrassment that comes with public advertising mistakes.

Did you enjoy this post? Do you have a surefire way to ruin an ad you think we should cover in an upcoming post? Share it with us in the comments or by email.

How to Ruin an Ad – Part 8

/

Welcome to the latest edition of our current weekly blog series, How to Ruin an Ad. As is most obvious from the title of this series, each week we’ll be identifying a key element of an ad that, when missing, is sure to reduce its effectiveness.

Last week’s ad was ruined by not proofreading.

Today’s ad is ruined by: Not Measuring Performance

An ad is an ad is an ad. It doesn’t matter that one looks prettier than the other, that one has a shorter headline, or a stronger call to action. What matters is whether or not an ad works.

What do I mean works? Every ad that a company runs has a goal attached to it. If you are a direct marketing company, that goal is usually a certain number of sales or leads, or a target cost per conversion. If you are branding, that goal is probably a measurable lift in brand recognition and positive association.

So the most important thing about your ad is whether or not it works. So did it? Did your ad work?

Too many companies can’t answer that question. The problem is, they start advertising before they have a mechanism in place to measure the effectiveness of their advertising. That’s a surefire way to blow through a lot of hard-earned money.

Marketers need to be able to measure the performance of every ad that they run. Whether you are using a free tool like Google Analytics, an expensive CRM like Salesforce, a custom-built database, or something else entirely, you must be able to state with confidence whether an ad worked or not.

That’s the only way you’ll know what ads drive your business and pay for themselves. It’s how you will optimize your advertising plan for growth and stop wasting money you can’t afford to be without.

Did you enjoy this post? Do you have a surefire way to ruin an ad you think we should cover in an upcoming post? Share it with us in the comments or by email.

How to Ruin an Ad – Part 7

/

Welcome to the latest edition of our current weekly blog series, How to Ruin an Ad. As is most obvious from the title of this series, each week we’ll be identifying a key element of an ad that, when missing, is sure to reduce its effectiveness.

Last week’s ad was ruined by not fulfilling a promise.

Today’s ad is ruined by: Not Proofing

Nothing helps your brand lose credibility quicker than a typo in your ad. And believe it or not, it happens more often than you think.

You would think that most companies have enough people looking at every ad before it goes out for this to be a non-issue. After all, you’re spending money to show the ad to potential customers, sometimes a lot of money. So wouldn’t you go to great lengths not to make such a basic mistake?

You should. Even if you work for a small company, make sure you have at least two or three people who did not create the ad look at it before it goes out. Make people go out of their way to find things that are wrong with it.

Is everything spelled correctly? Is the punctuation correct? Do our sentences and headlines make sense? What about phone numbers and URLs?

Don’t kill your ad’s effectiveness by forgetting to proofread.

Did you enjoy this post? Do you have a surefire way to ruin an ad you think we should cover in an upcoming post? Share it with us in the comments or by email.