10 Facebook Ad Design Tips (To Drive Performance)

Learning how to create Facebook ads that convert is not easy. You have to deal with the million dollar question: What kind of ad should I create?

You’re in the right place! Pencil has used AI to generate ads for thousands of campaigns for over 100 users and most of these ads have seen double ROAS when compared to brand baselines.

For all of these ads, AI learns which creative design elements drove the highest performance, so we summed them up below. 

‍

1.Curate generated copy well

‍
Avoid writing generic lines.

TRUST US, the best Facebook ads have copy lines that match their scenes.The easiest way to do is to input any and every keyword that relates to the assets you placed in your brief. For example, if you uploaded a video of a fashion shoot, input keywords like "Style", "Express", or "Attention".

Design tip: the shorter and punchier the copy lines, the faster and better your ads communicate to your viewers.

‍

‍

2. Use bold fonts for headlines

‍
If reading off from your ad takes a lot of effort from viewers, it's likely that either your font weight is too light or your font color clashes with the background. We recommend using bold fonts on either headlines or limbic words.

You can easily do this by setting the appropriate primary font when setting up your brand template. 

‍

3. Choose complementary colors

‍
In the world of Facebook ads, contrast is key. It would be best to review your generated ads and ask yourself the following questions:

• Do any of the colors clash? 
• Is there too little of a difference between some colors? 
• Do any of the colors seem unclear? 

If you answered yes to any of these questions, fret not. Take inspiration from your brand's website. Look at its background colors and CTA buttons, and try and match it to the colors in your brief. This should also help you decide when to use supporting colors for limbic words or highlights.

By the way, we've made it easy to check how your colors are applied with the brand template Preview.

‍

‍

4. Upload clear brand logos

‍
No viewer wants to see blurry assets— same applies to logos.

Design tip: Make sure to input the best quality logo onto your brand kit, because your ad quality is a reflection of your product, and company.

‍

5. Try UGC

‍
Nothing relates better to an audience than UGC. Raw, genuine video content is known to boost the effectiveness of ads—consumers prefer it!

Experimenting with the creative use of UGC could help you stand out in a sea of traditional ads.

‍

‍

6. Showcase your solution

‍
No matter the industry you’re in, your product or service probably solves a problem.

If this is true, say it! Leverage on this by starting your ad off with the problem you’re trying to solve and following up with lines that show that your product is the perfect solution.

This is the most basic form of storytelling that we've seen to work time and time again.

‍

7. Capture viewers’ attention fast

‍
Make sure to start with a scene that grabs attention.

Use zoom, crop and trim and to translate what you're selling in the first 3 seconds.

‍

8. Stick to simple and clean layouts

‍
Steve Jobs has always put emphasis on "focus and simplicity"—today, Apple is one of the most recognizable brands in the world.

Out of our many templates, most Pencil users prefer to use simple layouts because they don’t add clutter around your imagery or obstruct from view.

‍

9. Add branded outro scenes

‍
Before your ad ends, give your brand one final shout.

Do this by adding your logo and a call to action on your outro scene to prompt a clear next step from the audience.

Design tip: make sure your logo contrasts well with your background.

‍

10. Start with a wider variety of assets

‍
This is a tricky one for most.

We recommended starting with 2 types of assets before adding in more. Do note that assets that seem to look good together usually result in better concepts—but you can also always remove and add as you please. After all, with Pencil you can generate as many times as you want. 

For a more detailed how-to, here are some of the ways we recommend matching up different types of assets.

‍

In conclusion, Facebook Ads are visual so doing a solid job on your ad design will pay off big time. We hope this blog post helped, or even gave you a bit of inspiration.

We want to hear from you! Which design tip will you be using on your next batch of Facebook Ads? Connect with us on our social media channels (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter) and let us know.

If you want to try out Penci for yourself, sign up for a free trial here.