Titles too general or descriptive won’t make users click on your ads. Headline formulas that once proved to be effective eventually burn out as users get used to seeing them. In this article, we’ll talk about methods to get the headlines right for native ads.
Headlines are obviously a very important part of native ads and a powerful tool to win more conversions. While visuals may attract user’s attention first, a catchy headline is what ultimately hooks a user into clicking on an ad.
On MGID, headlines have a maximum character count of 65 and must adhere to certain compliance rules, such as proper grammar and punctuation, simple vocabulary, correct spacing, and capitalization, etc. Also, you cannot use uppercase letters for exaggeration or mention contact information. While keeping these compliance rules in mind, what else could be done to maximize the performance of your ads?
Let’s talk about a few best practices that you could follow to make this type of microcontent work for you.
Use desires and offer solutions
First of all, embrace the fact that you cannot create users’ desires or needs. Instead, you should listen to your target audience and offer solutions to the problems they already have. However, you should also stick with your offer and avoid grabbing someone’s attention in a way that is misleading.
Stay relevant to your offer, but focus on the problems and desires of your clients. Remember that readers would always love to know more about themselves (e.g. through quizzes and interactive games), their actual problems and how to fix them, benefits they can get, etc. To get some fresh ideas about what your customers may be looking for and how they think, you can apply social and search listening, for example, using tools like Sprout Social or AnswerThePublic.com.
Spark the interest, but don’t give everything right away
In reality, it doesn’t matter that much how great your offer is to win users’ clicks. Whereas the final point of the sales funnel should include all information needed to make the informed decision, the title is here only to get the attention and spark the curiosity of potential customers. To do this, search for unusual details, unexpected yet relevant questions, intriguing gaps, and anomalies.
The most effective ad copies hook customers with some precise and sought-after benefits or calling out their problems, but do not disclose all the information right away. When there are gaps within your ads, potential leads will naturally be driven to close that gap. For example, you can hint at unique benefits or features of an offer, such as: “Free Gift Included,” “This Will Save You Hours of Cleaning.”
Use local memes and cool twists of language
Do not hesitate to use bright adjectives, epithets, metaphors, power words, figures of speech, homonyms, and idioms. Do note however that aggressive and eloquent titles are not always the most successful. Native ads tend to work better when they are blended into the surrounding content and grab the readers’ attention naturally.
One way to strike the right balance is by finding some phrases or ideas often repeated by your target audience and twist them with some unexpected intrusions. When using these idioms and culturally relevant language, your goal should be to provoke an emotion that drives clicks, such as fear, joy, envy, surprise, etc.
Final thought
To get customers interested, ads should contain simple, lively copies written in a tone of voice that resonates with the target audience. Also, don’t be limited to some common formulas; stay relevant, and include carefully-crafted gaps and unusual details in your microcontent. Finally, don’t get too attached to particular well-performing headlines and be ready to test out new approaches.
If you still cannot master writing attention-grabbing titles for your ads, you can get a free consultation from the MGID creative team. Our copywriters are always ready to help and guide you through the process.
