Why Most Ads Fail, And How To Avoid It

I remember my first ad campaign – it was an absolute BOMB.

I remember thinking I knew exactly what I was doing (I didn’t have a clue)

And as a result I wasted hundreds of my client’s budget for very very little in return

And I see hundreds of business owners every month making this exact same mistake

Fortunately I learned one crucial thing from my flop, and it’s stuck with me for every ad campaign since then, and allowed me to run it successfully. 

My Greatest Mistake

It’s very easy to think the ad you created came from heaven itself. 

But unless you have spent weeks doing deep market research, the first ad you create usually doesn’t do very well.

Because it’s everything in it is an assumption

You assume people are going to like your offer

People are going to find your headline enticing

Are going to read your body copy

All because you thought it was good, and if you think it’s good, everyone else must think it’s good as well right?

This is how ads fail ladies and gentlemen.

Because what you think works, is most of the time very very different from what the audience wants.

And how do you find what the audience wants?

TEST TEST TEST!

All successful campaigns can be traced back to one element

Scrupulous, unbiased testing.

The ad creative

Headline

Body copy

Offer

Landing page (if you’ve got one)

Take each element above and test them one by one to see which one brings in the best results. 

For example if you’re selling water bottles and your USP is the fact they’re 8 litres big, some headlines might be

“The water bottle that NEVER runs out of water!”

“Tired of running out of water at the gym?”

“Why this water bottle is turning the heads of gym rats across the UK”

(Crap headlines for the most part but you get the picture)

Try each one out for a couple of days of budget and once you see the one that increases your CTR or conversion rate, move onto the next part and repeat.

One element at a time you’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t bring in any conversions.

And by the end you’ll have an ad that’s proven to bring in results, that you can turn on and off whenever you want to increase customer flow.

Testing can be a long process and it’s hard to know exactly what to test with, so if you’d like someone to handle your testing and produce a winning ad you can flick on and off to attract your best customers,

Then drop me a message at josh@reddragonmarketing.co.uk and I’ll be more than happy to go through it with you.

Have a great day

Josh