eCommerce Mission Control

Hello,

This week, we discuss what makes a great video ad and review some of the most common mistakes we see when auditing ad accounts. The next time you get this newsletter will be after the 4th of July, so here’s to hoping you have an amazing 4th.

Up and to the right,

Luke & The Astronaut Party Team

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Ad Creative Breakdown: Magic Spoon & the Art of Video Advertising

By Angellyne De Perio

It’s no surprise that video is still the best way to introduce a customer to your product or brand through advertising. You can pack in a ton of information around the features, solutions and even handle any objections to testing the product. In our opinion, video is that scalable creative format that allows you to tap into colder audiences.

But there are two big challenges to creating video ads:

1) Can you get the user to stop scrolling enough to watch the video?

2) Are you keeping them engaged enough so they can retain some of the information or even better, they respond to the call to action?

We watch a lot of ads for research, like 50+ ads a week. This week, I am breaking down eCommerce darling Magic Spoon’s product features video ad that I think answers those two challenges.

Scroll through Magic Spoon’s ad library, and you'll know that this brand is serious about creative testing. The brand runs a wide, diverse range of ad formats and concepts. Because Magic Spoon started as an eCommerce company, it’s familiar with the need to create engaging internet content for its target customer.

So, what’s working with this ad in particular?

The Hook: 

We can make some assumptions that this hook is working well because they have a few variations running, and they’ve been running these since March. They’re investing money to keep it ’s break down the winning tactics in this hook. 

1) Using the word “THIS”. I’ve seen this word bait as a winning tactic in so many ads. The word “this” particularly is prime audience bait. Here’s why – you want to find out what “this” is, and to that, you need to keep watching. By not sharing immediately, we’re trying to hook the audience in for the next few seconds.

2) Audience targeting with a problem callout. Within the first 2 seconds, your audience can decide if this is a product they need…because it’s spelled out for them. If they are someone who is counting carbs or worried about their diet, this is what you need. This also acts as a booster signal for the algorithm. 

3) Casual language. The term “GOATED” is internet slang. I know we all know what it means, but just in case…GOATED is the past tense of the word “GOAT” which stands for Greatest Of All Time. This sneaky ad is trying to act like a regular friend on your feed…and it’s probably working. 

4) Native text captions. Speaking of acting like a friend on your feed, this ad also uses the native caption style built into the Instagram and TikTok platforms. Bubbled caption text like this has also been a historical winner in our testing. Part of the reason is probably that it reads like organic content. Another part is that this is already really easy to read. Nothing fancy here.

5) Super interesting visuals. Here’s where we get “fancy” and by fancy, I mean visually stimulating. The investment isn’t necessarily in the footage quality. It’s more about the “what”. I’ve seen many Magic Spoon ads, and this flexible bowl is their leading star. It’s funky, it’s eye-catching, it’s doing something odd, and it’s also available for you to buy. There’s a weird stress-relieving connection built into the visual of the bowl being squeezed that probably taps into the internet’s ASMR addiction too. 

The Content

A general rule for video ads on social media is that something needs to happen every 3 seconds. It doesn’t have to be a crazy action—something as simple as zooming in, introducing a new element in the frame, or even switching up the text. 

Magic Spoon uses handwritten notes as a way to point out product features and they change out the notes every few seconds. Sticky note ads are also a staple concept in many ad accounts. This concept feels like user-generated content, but the nice thing is that the brand picks out what features to highlight. 

A few other elements that were engaging:

1) Over the shoulder angle. We’re back to making this feel personal, as if a friend is sharing their notes with you. We know POV videos work really well – not just in ads but in organic social media too. 

2) Colors, colors, colors. The way they use color here might not be every brand’s cup of tea, but it makes sense for Magic Spoon. Their brand is all about being playful and being bold. The background of the video shows off their product packaging AND uses colors that generally attract the eye. Color is a powerful tool for drawing attention. 

The Call-to-Action

The two biggest things to call out here are: promo AND urgency.

The copy is not even specific to a clear discount. (In my opinion, that would make this ad even stronger to test some sort of intro offer.) But their ending copy suggests that you might miss out on some special pricing or that the product might go out of stock. 

Final Thoughts

There’s a ton of fun elements in this Magic Spoon ad but to keep it simple, the biggest takeaways are tied into the biggest challenges:

1) Stop the user’s scroll by using a hook that addresses a personal problem, teases out a solution and has a very interesting visual. 

2) Keep your customer engaged with dynamic video content; add in some sort of human element (hand, handwriting, VO) to build that connection between product and user experience. 

The best part about this ad? Anyone with a smartphone can make it. 

The Most Common Mistakes We Find in Ad Account Audits

By Beth Teutschmann

I've audited my fair share of accounts in the last 7+ years of my professional life as a digital media buyer. Here are some of the top 5 mistakes I see for both Google and META ad accounts.

Google

1. Forgetting to uncheck “Search Network” and “Display Network” when setting up Search campaigns. Ads shown on the Search Network never really deliver any meaningful results, and if you want to advertise on the Display Network, create a separate campaign that’s optimized for Display. (Though in our opinion, Display ads typically don’t return many meaningful results either.)

2. Using old match types. As of July 2021, Broad Match Modified (BMM) keyword types are no longer valid. I’m still seeing accounts with some BMM keywords in the mix. 

3. Erroneous ad copy setup. For Sitelinks and Ads, Google’s AI will determine which Descriptions it will show to any given user. It might show two descriptions, or it might show only one, and the order they’re shown in can change too. That means that each description must be its own complete sentence and idea. I recently reviewed a Google Ad account that was treating each Sitelink description as part of the same sentence (one was the first half of the sentence and the other Description was the second half of the sentence), meaning that if Google pulled only one Description or didn’t have them in the right order, the Sitelink description made no sense. 

4. Using a lot of negative keywords at the ad set level. As Google aims to simplify its platform, utilizing many negative keywords at the ad set level is no longer necessary. Negative keywords at the campaign (and account) level still make sense, but micromanaging more than that just isn’t necessary anymore. Google’s AI has improved enough that it’s pretty good at serving up the proper ad set based on the keywords you’re bidding on. 

5. Messing up your location settings. When choosing your ad’s location, ensure you use the appropriate Target. The options are either People in or regularly in your targeted locations or people in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your targeted locations. For most eCommerce businesses, check the option for people in or regularly in your targeted locations. Otherwise, you’re spending money on impressions that won’t yield results. 

META

1. Creating TOF campaigns for every product/product category/etc. Like Google, Facebook is simplifying its ad-buying process as much as possible. Their AI has also gotten better. As a result, it’s really no longer necessary to have a different campaign for every product or category. All of your TOF campaigns should be grouped into one campaign with CBO (you can - and should - still have different ad sets and audiences for products with different target markets though). Some sources claim you should group all TOF/MOF/BOF under the same CBO, but we’re not entirely sold on that yet. 

2. Utilizing Ad Set Budget Optimization over Campaign Budget Optimization. Speaking of CBO, there’s really no need to manage budgets at the ad set level anymore. For the most efficiency, you should be using CBO. 

3. Not having a testing campaign. Testing new creative is essential to ensure the ads you release into the wild have the best chance of thriving. The best way to do this is to have a dedicated creative testing campaign separate from your TOF/MOF/BOF campaigns. Typically CBO will work, but this is one instance where you can utilize ABO, especially if you want to test two audiences against each either. 

4. Not having a standardized naming convention. When more than one person is utilizing an ad account, a standardized naming convention is necessary. That way, you (or your team or agency) know where each campaign/ad set/ad belongs in the funnel. 

5. Not using Advantage+ Ad Placements. Because Facebook’s AI has improved, there’s no need to specify which ad placements you want your ads to appear. Make sure you have ad creative optimized for each ad placement, and let it rip. 

Joke of the Week

An SEO marketer walks into a bar, bars, tavern, pub, public house, Irish pub, drink, drinks, liquor, beer, alcohol…