Struggling with META ads? Want CTRs that are 5%, 6%, 7% or higher? DM me for the internal sheet we use to scale messaging & CTR in all of our accounts.
Hook-writing is a fine art. It seperates the haves and the have nots.
The most important dichotomy is between “Problem Unaware” and “Problem Aware”.
Here are a few of my absolute favorite hooks for Problem Aware campaigns:
The skills that grew you to $5M/year are NOT the same that will take you to $10M+.
At some point, you’ll need to specialize to continue scaling.
We’ve done this for many brands in that exact situation — here’s how we use ads and marketing to take you to the next level:
Our testing strategy is what gives beauty brand owners peace of mind when it comes to their ad account.
We test RIGOROUSLY. I’m talking 40-60 of pieces of creative a month.
Here’s how we test on the front-end to save money, and drive results on the back-end:
Here’s the
#1
mistake I see beauty brand owners make when doing market research.
They’re going to META ads or TikTok ads library and looking at other MARKETER’S ads!
BIG mistake.
Marketers tend to make ads for other marketers, not people.
Ad-copy can make or break your campaign performance.
Now, running an agency, poorly written ads drive me NUTS.
Here’s a quick summary of Bad vs. Good copy in ad headlines:
META Ads hack for Womens beauty brands: Write & test 40 hooks with your top performing ad in a link click campaign
(YES a link click campaign, I promise they are not completely useless!!)
Spend $5 on each ad.
STOP making new ad creatives. You’re wasting your time and money.
For 99% of ad-creatives, you shouldn’t be creating them from scratch.
Proven techniques for copy and visuals are everywhere.
Here’s a recipe for beauty brands to micro-test ad copy:
Find 8 popular/viral videos from TikTok or Instagram in your niche (minimum 10k views).
Look at the text hook they used in the video, use that info to brainstorm 40 more hooks.
One of the reasons beauty brands we work with see serious revenue growth (up to 150% growth in the first 3 weeks) is because we grow as they do.
That’s what being a growth partner is all about.
We don’t just run ad campaigns.
We don’t just make ad-creatives.
High-intent Promise Headlines
So thick & full 💖
Why this works: This makes the end user wonder what is thick and full, and why is it thick and full. It invites them to watch the video to find out.
We’re talking about putting out 40-60 ads a month.
If you’re not doing this, you’re not scaling…
This is our bread and butter.
We’d love to share with you more about our client case-studies (book a call with us!)
When we sign a client, we show them right off the bat that we are HUNGRY.
We’re ready to rock.
We send them emails daily, see if we can get things rolling early prior to onboarding.
We aren’t just testing with live ads and acting reactively.
We’re getting ahead of the curve, testing what works today, and deploying that to your company/brand.
Bad
- Watch this moisturizer transform your complexion
Good
- Watch this Ceramide Moisturizer keep your face healthy, clear, and resilient.
Notice the details highlighting the BENEFITS succintly.
3 - Funnel and Offer Strategy
Ad-creatives and campaigns are all well and good, but if the funnel isn’t functioning, you’re going to be wasting ad-spend inadvertently.
Increased traffic is only a win if you have the right back-end flows to support it.
Another common question I get from clients and other agencies:
Should the ad-creative be an image or a video?
To start, it really depends on the platform.
My rule of thumb is this —> Whichever translates the value-prop the fastest.
2 - Hooks and Ad-creative Testing
Our testing process is one of our most important processes.
We perform rigorous testing on the front-end (with low budget), so we KNOW what will drive conversions and clicks.
It’s just a much simpler method for understanding what language converts best, instead of blurring the metrics of ad creatives.
Small tip, but when you are running multiple ads across multiple campaigns with multiple changes, it can get messy pretty quickly!
Increased traffic is good, but if your product page isn’t converting you’re wasting thousands of dollars on ads.
Poor landing page, boring or irrelevant content, annoying popups, low-quality CTA’s, etc.
These all lead to high bounce-rates and ruin your chances at conversions.
1 - Meta and Google Ads
Chances are good that you are leaving money on the table with your ad-strategy.
It’s not a criticism, you’ve made it this far!
But the level of specificity and testing it takes to continue scaling is high.
If you were to test 40 hooks (40 ads) at $100 each, that’s $4,000 dollars.
Instead of testing in a conversion campaign we test these 40 hooks in a link click campaign at $5 each, that’s $200.
You’re saving $3,800 with this test.
Benefit Hooks
With these, you propose a benefit that a PROBLEM aware person may be interested in. Problem/solution hooks can be turned into benefit hooks and vice versa. It’s all about structure.
“The fastest way to XYZ”
“Watch me use [product] to get [desired end result]”
Case Study: How I created $19.7MM in revenue off of $1.18MM in spend in a year and a half MOSTLY using Google search and shopping campaigns.
#googleads
#ppc
Sort the ads by highest link CTR to lowest link CTR - we’re using link CTR as an engagement metric
This allows us to cheaply test ads ($5 each) and figure out which one is the most engaging before we spend lots of money in a conversion campaign.
But… Real quick… These variations convert because they DO NOT sound like the brand is talking to the end user. It sounds like something you might hear in a peer to peer conversation, or something you might see organically on TikTok.
Of course, ad-research is an absolute must when it comes to running Meta/Google Ads.
But you need to know how to do it right…
Here’s how we use research to find winning patterns for our clients:
Problem aware copy examples are designed for the “I have a problem, but I don’t know what to do about it and I am unsure of what mechanism can fix it” crowd.
POV Hooks
POV: Watch me install clip in extensionssss 💖
Why this works: You invite the user to watch you perform their desired end state which you then show in the video. Adding POV in front of your benefit makes it feel more organic.
Take the top 10 hooks (by CTR) and push them to a conversions campaign.
Now, you have a testing method that can appropriately identify high performers without having to spend much money, as opposed to always launching ads in a conversion campaign.
SO much of the performance comes down to the hook. That’s why we start here.
And the majority of the performance of the hook comes down to testing and analyzing.
Data should be driving decision-making when it comes to deciding the copy and creatives, period.
Our recommendation is to focus first on the hooks and creatives, test rigorously, and then consider targeting options.
Your audience is out there, and your creative will help you find them.
Bad
- Save money using our gut support supplement!
Good
- Does your gut support supplement contain XYZ? If not, you may not be absorbing all the nutrients properly
That’s where TikTok organic is key.
Here’s 5 simple searches to get your started:
1. Product vs.
a. Search: Hair Extensions VS.
2. Product fail/problems
a. Search: Hair Extension Fails
Myth Buster Hooks:
Myth: Hair Extensions rip out your hair Fact: Extensions are the safest way to XYZ...
Why this works: You’re addressing your end user’s fears right away in a way that feels organic and intriuges them.
Bad
- Lose Weight!
Good
- Lose Weight Without Any Hunger!
It’s better because it adds a kicker to the initial benefit statement, addressing a common objection.
We then write 40 hooks for our client’s product, and initiate our testing procedure.
Basically, we want to see what language will drive the most clicks and engagement.
We then move the top 10 performers from that test to a conversion campaign.
This process is tedious, but the rewards downstream are WELL worth it.
By front-loading the testing with small budgets, we can ensure that the big-spends are going to get the traction that they deserve.
That’s right. META is scanning your copy, your videos, the facial structure of the people in your ads, even the colors in your ads and going and finding users who are most likely to convert on a martix of attributes in your ad.
That’s why wide open targeting works.
Also — Don’t fall into this trap…
Be careful when analyzing competitor’s ads, especially if their ads look overly branded or have been running for a short period of time.
Try/watch me XYZ Hooks:
Watch me install these clip insss 💖
Why this works: You invite the user to watch you perform their desired end state which you then show in the video.
First off, TikTok is a treasure trove of hooks.
We look through the top-performing ORGANIC (key is organic) videos in the niche, and start to brainstorm hooks and find hook patterns for the product or service at hand.
Bad
- The fastest way to lose weight!
Good
- The fastest way to go from 185 to 160!
This one is WAY better because it ties an abstract result and makes it tactile and believable (add a before and after photo for even more potency)
Equals (=) Hooks:
Good lipistick = self care
Why this works: To be honest, we have no idea, we think it’s a departure from the OBVIOUS benefit hook. We see this all over social at the moment. It’s our Trojan horse.
This one is superior because instead of honing in on an assumed intention-driving concern (cost), it focuses on concerns that this segment would likely resonate with more.
Nightmare hooks:
My $4,000 extension nightmare is over... now I use these...
Why this works: You’re throwing our a bombastic, eye catching statement, then providing a solution.
Problem/Solution Hooks — keep reading for highly engaging variations…
Pose a question, give an immediate answer.
“Tired of PROBLEM? SOLVE WITH PRODUCT or TRY THIS INSTEAD…”
“Always feeling bloated and don’t know what to do about it? Try this…”
First off, the hook is the most powerful aspect of any creative.
We write 40 hooks and run them through a link click or what we call internally, an “engagement” campaign. $5 per ad.
It’s not just hooks either.
We do this with our ad-creatives and video content as well.
That way we get straight to the high-performers without experimenting with big budgets.
BEAUTY BRANDS! I can almost guarantee you are under-valuing the importance of your hooks.
We see wildly different results in CPA based on nothing more than changing the hook.
META’s advertising algorithm has changed. It’s no longer taking input data into account…
META’s data is now completely modeled.
It’s not enough to just have quality ads anymore.
There are so many metrics you can zero-in on:
- CTR
- Hook Rate
- Hold Rate
- Impressions
But end of the day, what we focus on above all others is Conversions.
That’s the king metric for us.
One thing that bothers me about ad-agencies is how long clients have to wait for results.
“You’ll know if it’s working in 2 or 3 months”.
Brother.
Our process produces results in 3 weeks.
We’ll know whats working/not working right away.
Hot take: The agency & the ad buyer are dead.
In 2024, you need CMO level strategists who have worked in your vertical that understand how each marketing channel works in tandem with other channels to scale brands.
Is your email strategy the best it could be?
Most people don’t know this… but my business partner and I are both previous CMO’s…
Would you rather have an ad-buyer throwing darts at the wall? Or a CMO implimenting a proven growth strategy?
We play chess. Every move we make is productive and methodical.
Tired of Your Ad Agency NOT taking initiative?
Here are 3 questions you should ask when interviewing new agencies.
1. Do they have a testing structure that's more than 2-3 steps?
Anyone can make or set up ads. The framework the agency uses to scale MATTERS.
Struggling to scale your META ads? Try cost caps.
We're easily 2-3xing the amount of conversions in our accounts right now using cost caps.
Keep reading to find out how to use cost caps.
You get dinged for low a conversion rate, a high bounce rate, or even terminology on your product page that META percieves as medical even if you’re not selling a medical product.
You have to think holistically about your overall approach with advertising.
Money loves speed afterall.
By starting with the low-hanging fruit (Meta or Google ads, offers, landing pages, etc.), we create capital that can be invested in other more stable areas of their business (SEO, CRO, Email, etc.).
The
#1
mistake I see Shopify brand owners make is thinking their brand is just their colors and messaging.
Really, it's the stories your customers tell about you.
What does your customer service look like?
When was the last time you went out of your way for a customer?
If your offer is straightforward, an image is likely perfect.
If it takes seeing it in action to understand, opt for video.
Annnnnnd don’t forget: the hook is going to make or break the ad.
We look big picture at the funnels, flows, products, ICP, and competitors.
From there, we can see where the highest-leverage moves are for the brand.
That way we can fix the most problematic bottlenecks one by one until everything is working synergistically for our clients.
Wholistic thinking is essential.
You and your ad buyer need to think through offers, landing pages, copy, inventory, etc.
They are after all, one of the most important pieces of your business.