The importance of effective and engaging creative assets for paid social campaigns is hard to overstate. On most media platforms, ad delivery is determined primarily by three factors: whom we’re targeting, what we want them to do, and how much we’re willing to pay to get in front of them. Paid social is different. 

With paid social, success is driven by "total value."

For every ad targeting a person, regardless of what type of bid and objective it’s using, Facebook calculates a Total Value in order to rank it against other ads targeting the person is eligible to receive. The curveball here is User Value, and the biggest factor in the user-value calculus is quality of creative. It makes sense if you think about it: Facebook wants users to enjoy their time on social media, and they’re less inclined to keep showing ads that users skip over or show negative reactions to (hiding the ad, leaving negative comments, etc.)  

Good social serves as a funnel with 3 stages, each with a specific content strategy.

KNOW Media Strategy: Introduce users to your spa as not just a service provider, but as a wellness resource. Assets should be optimized for mobile devices and focused on consistently providing content that’s relevant and useful for our target audience.

LIKE Media Strategy: Craft content that’s relevant to the lifestyle and aspirations for our target customer, with the ultimate objective of driving affinity and time spent on brand. These interactions should be the opposite of transactional.

TRUST Media Strategy: Deliver strong calls-to-action and reasons-to-buy for current and prospective customers. These users are already educated from our KNOW and LIKE campaigns and are likely to convert. 

TRUST Media Strategy: Deliver strong calls-to-action and reasons-to-buy for current and prospective customers. These users are already educated from our KNOW and LIKE campaigns and are likely to convert. 

General Advice

Important info to consider when making social assets

• People hold their phones vertically 90% of the time.
• Vertical video formats (4:5 and 9:16) take up more space on a mobile screen. This extra space means more attention and more real estate for your message.
• Videos that are less than 15 seconds match users’ attention spans and are better able to communicate messaging, which leads to improved performance outcomes.
• As much as 85% of video plays in feed take place with the sound off.

Build for mobile displays (where +90% of views will come from)

• Vertical aspect ratios (9:16, 4:5, 1:1)
• 15-seconds or less
• Designed for sound off
• Show the brand in the first three seconds

Creative content checklist

• Is there a clear marketing objective/media KPI? I.e., for product consideration, give the audience a reason to consider the product as timely as possible.
• Is the creative relevant to the audience that was used in the campaign?
• Is there a call to action? Does that align with the your marketing goals?
• Is the brand present in the creative? 

Additional ideas for content types