Stop Washing Money Down The Drain And Start Writing Ads That Perform

If your ads underperform and you can’t really tell what's wrong, then this article is specifically made for you. Let me preface this by saying I was exactly in your shoes. I vividly remember trying to write my first ad for my uncle's business. Countless and countless hours of research. Big corporations: Coca Cola, Heineken, McDonald’s. Many marketing guru’s all sharing their “proven” methods of doing sales. Some said you need to plug your socials or your name every chance you get. Others said that irritates the client. Each one was contradicting the other. A total war of opinions into what makes a good ad. Overloaded with information. All this research made everything more confusing than it had to be.

The Truth On Why Most Ads Underperform

The deadline was approaching so I did the only thing that came to mind. I created this monstrosity of an ad, injected with every type of sales trick I had noted on my paper. It was like a cake recipe…except I took every ingredient I had available. Salt, cocoa, lemon, paprika… ANYTHING.

Arguably, when cooking, it's usually a good idea to mix ingredients that complement each other, not dumping everything in sight on a plate. That applies to marketing too. Deadline arrives and I submit the final version of my ad. Uncle takes a look at it. “Seems good, let’s put it to the test”, he says. I waited a good 3 days before calling him. 3 days of constant anxiety and worries before building up the courage to call him and ask for the results. Caught him by surprise. “What do you mean by results? What are we looking for exactly?” he asked. “Did we get any clients from the ad? Like did we get to sell? ” I asked. My uncle smirked and said:“This ad was for brand building Thomas. Getting our name in front of people’s faces. Brand name recognition, you know that right?” “Yeah of course, I get it.” I reply. In fact I didn’t get it. Sure, I was familiar with these terms, but I had no idea how this would profit the business. At first I thought that he was trying to relieve me. That he tried to avoid telling me my ad sucks upright, just because we are relatives but apparently he was dead serious. I didn’t understand at all, but let me tell you something…neither did he. He had no idea what he was talking about either.

Start Fixing Your Marketing

These principles changed my approach in marketing and performance once and for all. They don’t require hundreds of hours of research and certainly not hundreds of dollars that will bring back nothing to compensate for. You don’t need to rediscover the wheel! By the end of this article, you’ll be able to pinpoint why most ads don’t work and how to fix them. First off, know that what is measured, improves. When spending money on marketing, it's good practice to be able to tell the value you get back, in measurable quantities preferably. We have to know what works and what not, if we are getting what we paid for. If we can’t measure, we are essentially gambling our budget. A common mistake amongst young business owners. Want to know how to instantly increase ad performance? Start tracking your ad. How do you do that you say? Determine what you want out of your ad first. We call them performance indicators. You want people to sign up to your newsletter? Add an opt in page.

You want people to contact you? Add a response mechanism.

Now you can measure the success of your ad. You can test and improve.

One of the most essential things I do when I start working with a client is to determine the result we want from the ad and actively monitor and measure it.

“Every ad will have a purpose and a performance indicator relative to the preferred result.”

Forget vague marketing ads. Blasting money wherever.

Strategize, analyze, improve. That’s how you get true tangible results.

There are many ways to implement this structure and it's applicable to every business including yours. If you want to know how we would plan this for your business, click here and fill out the form.