What We’ve Learnt About Running Ad Copies And What Works With Each Campaign

When we run social media boosts for paid content, we always ask our clients who their target audience is because the boost will then be customised to appeal to those audiences.

But do our clients know what their audiences are attracted to?

What is the best feature image that will catch their eye?
What is the best title that will convince them to click in and give them value?
What words in the caption reflects the attitude that they would vibe with?

We used some real campaigns as examples for the quiz below to see if you can guess which ad performed the best.

1. Regional Differences

The two images below were used for a piece on dual diamond certification, and the ads were boosted to both Singapore and Malaysia. If one of these two images were shown in an ad to you, which would you find more attractive?

Answer:

So, this one’s a bit of a trick question, because Image 1 actually performed best in Singapore (over 80% of the clicks), whereas Malaysians overwhelmingly preferred Image 2 (70% of the clicks).

In fact, the more formal jewellery store picture only accounted for 3% of the Malaysian ad clicks, whereas the proposal shot fared better in Singapore, bringing in 12% of the click throughs to our website.

Observations: The top performing title for both ads was actually the same, which means that the performance difference is very possibly because of regional preferences in terms of imagery.

2. Topic Nicheness

We highlighted Bayu Harvest, the winners of the 2019 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) App Challenge in Chile. These are 2 of the titles the piece was boosted with.

1) This M’sian App Won 1st Place In A 2019 International Competition, Now It Helps Rural Farmers

2) This Duo Created A Low-Data App That Gives Rural M’sian Farmers More Pricing Control

Answer:

And if you picked Title 1, you resonate with almost 100% of the people who saw the ads.

Observations: The mention of the winners helped to raise interest and it contained an element of doing good too. Although the second title was more detailed in how the app was helping, it was possibly too niche a topic to capture a wider audience.

3. Trendy References

We’re upping the ante here with not 2 but a total of 4 images, from a piece written on the performance of the Samsung Galaxy Note20 5G, using its gaming capabilities as an entry point.

Answer:

If you couldn’t decide between Image 1 and 3, well done! They were actually both highly preferred compared to Image 2 or 4, which showed screenshots of popular games Genshin Impact and Among Us.

Observations: The use of the game screenshots might have led to the assumption that the piece was a review of the games, and not the phones. However, a caption with one of the games mentioned actually became the top performing ad of this campaign.

4. Word Choices

The launch of Vettons meant that we needed to introduce a new e-commerce app to our audience. For this campaign, we actually ran 8 different titles, but we’ll make it easier for you and show you only 4.

1) Get Prizes Up To RM77K From This New M’sian Shopping App On Its 7.7 Launch

2) There’s Another New Online Shopping App In Town, Here Are 5 Reasons To Download It

3) 5 Things To Know About A New Shopping App That’s Here To Challenge The Big Boys

4) 5 Things To Know About A New E-Commerce App That’s Here To Challenge The Big Boys

Answer:

You may have noticed that Title 3 and 4 are very similar with a single word change, but sometimes 1 word can make a world of difference.

The top performing title was actually Title 4 (34% of total link clicks), followed by Title 2 (29%). Title 3 came next at 11%, closely followed by Title 1 (9%). For extra context, Title 1 actually had a limited run time, as the boosting period started before the app’s launch, and continued some time after. We disabled all the ads that mentioned the launch event and prizes on the day of the launch itself.

Observations: Speaking of timeline, Title 3 was the original title that the piece was posted with, and we only created the ad for Title 4 swapping in the words “e-commerce” after we noticed other ads with that perform better. In the end, Title 4 overtook Title 3 by a mile.

5. Overused Concepts

Microsoft was looking to educate readers about their cloud productivity solution, highlighting its features and capabilities. We ran the ads with these 4 images.

Answer:

We ourselves were a little surprised at the results of this one, with Image 4 drawing in over 70% of the clicks in this campaign. This image consistently performed well across very different audience interests and title combinations. 

A very distant second place went to the Image 2, accounting for 15% of the clicks, followed by the Image 3, bringing in another 13%.

Observations: Although the top performing picture looked simple, it also highlighted what were some of the most unique features of the product, which we think helped to draw attention to click in. Image 1 had the poorest performance probably because it’s a very common and predictable image style (top-down desk view) that looks too much like a polished stock image.

6. Sass & Specialities

When BigPay launched their remittance feature and wanted us to write about it, we happened to have 1 person who owned both a BigPay card and a Singaporean bank account, coupled with an insatiable curiosity to try out new tech.

Of course we got him to try out the feature and put his thoughts down.

1) Let Me Convince You To Forget About Pricey Bank Fees When Sending Money Overseas

2) I Used A M’sian E-Wallet To Transfer Money To My SG Bank Account. It Cost Only RM5.

3) BigPay Says They’re Taking On International Money Transfers, Let’s Just See About That

Answer:

We can clearly see the appeal of Title 2, which deliberately included a very attractive part of the service: the RM5 cost.

Readers agreed, taking Title 2 as their top choice, but the sass of Title 3 also managed to draw in a few hundred clicks of its own.

Observations: A straightforward and easy-to-read title works wonders when the USP of a product is strong enough to draw attention on its own.

BONUS: Captions Matter

Shopee runs a Global Leadership Programme yearly to attract young talent and expose them to the e-commerce industry through on-the-job training and education.

In this case, Post 1 was the clear winner, attracting over 72% of the total clicks. Post 2 came in with about 18%. The title and caption were both more personalised, with a clear indication of who the target audience is and the benefits.

Work With Us

Providing extra value to clients is one of our priorities, which is why there are so many variations of boosts and titles to reach the right audience and optimise the performance.

Curious about what title, image, and caption works best for your target audience?

You can contact us at malaysia@grvty.media for our content recommendations and personalised content angles.