Is Our Facebook Ad Copy Length Too Long?
Online Fundraising Testing Series Part 4
In support of using data to make better fundraising decisions, ProActive Content has completed this 4-part series based on some online fundraising experiments from NextAfter.
See Part 3 – Best Location for your Email Signup Form
Today’s question:
Image by TeroVesalainen from Pixabay
Why Doesn’t Anyone Respond to Our Facebook Ads? Are They Too Long?
If you visit the ProActive Content Facebook page, one thing will immediately stand out: We don’t spend much time on Facebook. But that’s going to change, so you’d be smart to go Like it now so you don’t miss out on what’s coming…
So while we don’t yet use Facebook for its potential, we’ve been involved in various ways – usually from a distance – with Facebook campaigns and funnels for other businesses and nonprofits.
A common observation is best summed up by NextAfter in their analysis of today’s experiment:
Many Facebook ads use calls to action that ask “way too much of you compared to the amount of information that’s been given.” Businesses and nonprofits are both equally guilty.
As a result of that pretty fundamental error, they spend too much money on Facebook ads and get very poor results.
Two short text sentences and a picture, and I’m expected to buy a product, attend an event, or sign up for a free consultation? Um… no. Not going to work. The gap between where the prospect is now and what you want them to do is too great.
People respond in incremental steps, not in big leaps. And the more extreme the action, the more steps it will take to get people to go there. Especially on Facebook.
In this line of thinking, signing up for an email list is a relatively small step.
You’re not buying anything, calling anyone, going anywhere, or committing to anything. You’re just signing up for an email list. But even that step is a big one when a person stands at the beginning of the donor’s journey, knowing nothing about your nonprofit other than the ad now in front of them.
So will you convince people to join your email list with a couple sentences and a picture?
Let’s find out:
NextAfter ran a study comparing two Facebook ads. The only difference was in the ad copy length. One used three sentences and an image. The other wrote out a much longer paragraph and the same image.
The results:
The longer copy earned a 316% higher email signup rate.
316%!
This persistent nonsense about how “no one reads long copy online” just isn’t true, and test after test bears this out. (See Part 1 of this series testing copy length on donation pages. That’s your money page!)
See the two Facebook ads in NextAfter’s study
Why Does Longer Copy Work Better, Even on Facebook?
Facebook ad copy length works the same as copy anywhere else, be it email, direct mail, online, or wherever.
It simply takes more writing to communicate a message if you want it to have an impact.
The longer Facebook ad in NextAfter’s study begins by raising real questions people think about, in this case regarding heaven and what it’s like. In asking this question and expanding on the importance of knowing the truth about this, the ad connects with its target audience’s deeper emotions.
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
It makes people think, “I have wondered about that. I’d like to see what this guy says about it.”
In contrast, the shorter ad copy length has no room for anything other than the bare bones details of the offer and the call to action: Here’s a devotional about heaven. You should sign up. Done. No emotion. No connection to the reader. Just pedestrian functionality.
You must know your audience in order to connect with them. But you must do more than just “know” them. To truly connect, you must activate their inner thoughts, feelings, and emotions. You must make them wonder. You must get them to want something, and your ad must promise the fulfillment of that.
You simply can’t do that as well in two sentences as you can in six.
316% increase. 316%.
Rarely have I ever seen results with numbers that high. This conclusion is about as ironclad as any could be.
Stop writing terse and minimalistic Facebook ads. Unless you want to keep asking why no one is responding to them. Your Facebook ad copy length should be longer. If you’re worried it’s too long because no one else uses that much copy, it’s probably still not long enough.
Want More Online Fundraising Experimental Data?
See the discussion of three other NextAfter experiments:
Part 1 – How Much Donation Page Copy Should We Have?
Part 2 – Are Your Emails Overdesigned?
Part 3 – Where Should Your Email Signup Form Be Located?
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