15 tips for creative optimization – Google, Facebook & Tiktok

Creating an approachable narrative for your creatives can be a troublesome task, especially when targeting multiple audiences on multiple social media platforms. One of the most challenging tasks for creative and campaign management teams was, and still is, the ability to manage creative optimization in order to create bespoke creatives that resonate with users from a variety of placements, while still maintaining profitability. As creating a variety of creatives to fit a variety of social networks can prove to be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor.

Data-based decisions for creative optimization

In order to create successful ads and grow a loyal customer base, you must tailor your messaging and design to their environment, and the best way to accomplish that is by making data-based decisions in your creative strategy.

This process begins, as all dynamic creative optimization work begins, with examining your acquisition campaigns’ historical data on each ad platform, and identifying which networks and placements drive the most traffic, engagement, or conversions to your product.

Taking into consideration the low attention span of today’s users, make sure to communicate your main message and showcase your product right at the beginning of your ad.

Attention is one of the most valuable assets a user can give your business – after that comes engagement, conversions, and revenue. But how do we instigate attention when individual users scrolling on individual social media platforms react so differently?

Here are some of Alison’s digital creative best practices for dynamic creative optimization – for Google, Facebook and Tiktok.

Google ad creatives best practices

Google shares many digital creative best practices with Facebook placements, yet if there’s one thing we’ve noticed, it’s that a deeper focus on key elements is essential for success in Google creatives.

1. Zoom in on your product. Showcase a highlighted closeup of your main message right off the bat with your creatives, utilize hands to point, device preview and enlarged views to navigate the users’ eyes to immediately understand the purpose value of your product.
2. Leverage emotions. Right after your opening scene, engage your audience with a plot, and develop a story to try and hook them in.
3. Clean your screen. Remove any unnecessary elements in your app/product preview, make sure there are no background noises to distract your audience’s attention.
4. Call to action. Whether you’re using an enticing plot, humor or even a product review in your creative, make sure to end with a bang – A strong CTA is crucial for user engagement, so make sure it’s bright, centered, and eye-catching.
5. Use influencers. Contrary to popular belief, Google, similarly to Tiktok and Instagram, recommends leveraging influencers, celebrities and CGI in their creatives, especially for youtube.

Facebook ad creatives best practices

Facebook owns a wide variety of placements, and while it’s challenging to create a universal creative that fits all audiences, here are some common recommendations to keep your ads inclusive.

1. Short attention span. As a quick-scroll type platform, your creatives’ first 3 seconds are key to your success. Focus on making your opening scene count, and less on the rest. And even more so – 
2. Make short creatives. Facebook recommends video ads last up to 15 seconds, the reason being a more universal approach – most Facebook placements produce better results with shorter ads.
3. Feed-friendly formats. While all sizes are welcomed on Facebook ads, producing portrait and square fit ads are the better way to go.
4. Sound off. Consider the very likely possibility that many users have your ads muted, and react with texts, subtitles and suggesting graphics to pinpoint your message and attract the eyes.
5. Experiment with more CTA options. Facebook creatives are usually shorter, your ad makes its point and moves to your end-card or brand slogan, so test CTA’s that immediately connect with your message (for example, a special event offering 2+1 for a limited time could have its creatives’ CTA saying “Order 2 and get 1 free!”).

Tiktok ad creatives best practices 

Tiktok creatives have a completely different work-process. With a 3-5 day creative fatigue and never-ending trends, one of the most common observations of successful Tiktok creatives is to trust your influencers.

1. Tiktok Creator Marketplace. Developing a creative from scratch can take days, weeks or even months, while an ad can be deemed fatigued after less than a week. For this reason, Tiktok allows for businesses to partner with a creator, and choose the right influencer for your product.
   While choosing a high-traffic celebrity or a mid-tier creator both have their advantages and disadvantages, our best recommendation would be to trust your partner, and allow them to play a big role in content creation – That’s how they got to where they are today, after all.
2. Sound on. 88% of Tiktok users have stated that sound is essential for their experience on the platform. Make sure your background music, voice over or text-to-speech is engaging and fits your message.
3. Vertical formats. Although Tiktok allows landscape and square creatives, a full screen 9:16 aspect ratio is a proven top performer for Tiktok ads, in terms of creative impressions.
4. Creative lifespan. Creative fatigue happens much faster on Tiktok, so be prepared for a higher rate of creative refreshment by creating multiple versions and iterations, or even use it to your advantage, by utilizing:
5. Tiktok trends. Bottle cap challenge, The Renegade dance, and many more trends and special effects have shown to resonate better with users, making your brand more relatable, and thus, helping you create a loyal customer base.

Closing Remarks

Although similar, creative optimization creating ads for Google, Facebook, and Tiktok is a distinct process.
Your messaging, your first three seconds, and your product should be highlighted and considered major parts of your initial concept, but the first thing you must do is accept the fact that each ad platform requires an individual creative strategy if you wish to maintain long-term success and growth on all of them.

While these tips can be helpful as best practices, consider a more data-droven approach based on your own creatives and campaign data. Alison takes the guesswork out of producing results-driven creative assets by providing intelligent creative insights. It integrates with popular media and measurement platforms like Google, Meta, Snap, TikTok, and IronSource in addition to supporting mobile measurement partners through AppsFlyer and Adjust. Once integrated, Alison looks at all available account data to identify creative insights and make recommendations around ad creative, like characters, colors, sounds, text, and more. That means you’ll understand which creative elements resonate with your audience and which need to go.

Ready to give Alison a try? Book a demo!