The Facebook Roundup: Volume 2

October 19, 2018

As the name implies we will be taking a look through the good, the bad, and the downright ugly advertising we’ve found from the previous week.

Those that land in our “good” selection are ones which really bring forth best practices, creativity, and effectiveness. The “bad” are ones that had a possibility at potential but weren’t exactly making the cut. For the “worst”, and we mean no hard feelings to those at the bottom of the list, is that special feeling you get when your stomach doesn’t settle (that sudden lump in the back of your throat).

We’ve gone ahead and marked off the various areas worth noting and will explain a bit of why or why not they are good for the ad.

So let’s begin with Volume 2.

The Good

Topping out our list for this week is Dollar Shave Club which is a business that provides razors through the mail at a steep discount compared to what you would find in a drug/retail store.

The ad we’ve found really does a number of things right:

The basic copy backs up its brand and promise
The copy also explains there is a “zero commitment, zero fees” which is bound to catch attention
The image is absolutely on point showing what subscribers will receive versus what they can expect when going to a drug/retail store (along with cost differential)
They use a branded short-URL for tracking clicks (definitely great for analytics)
There are plenty of likes, comments, and shares which means it’s picking up pace

In all this one really stood out this week because of the image. It may have been improved if they showed the amount of razors they include with their mail but even so it does the job well at conveying the monetary benefit.

The Bad

Next up we’re taking a look at an (older) ad that came from InfusionSoft.

The sponsored post isn’t all that terrible, per se, but it really doesn’t do the company justice because of a number of reasons:

The copy is entirely too long (most people want to read a quick blurb but this ad really goes the extra distance when it should have been, maybe, just the quote)
Bonus points for having a branded short-URL but the special character (the arrow) isn’t exactly coming across as professional
The image, though sincere and personal, is hard to relate with without the copy; it would have been better if they used an image that was easily translatable (but then again it was linked too roughly with the main copy)
There are a good number of likes, comments, and shares which is always a bonus.

Overall we wouldn’t really call this bad, per se, but it could have been better in a lot of areas – especially in the copy. The copy is simply too long to really catch your interest and you’d almost pass it off as just another piece of content rather than something that’s promoted.

The Downright Ugly

Fiverr is great, no doubt about that, because they connect people that need services but don’t exactly want to pay a huge budget to get things done.

But…

The sponsored post put together by them really falls flat and it’s because one main reason:

In the comment sections you can see that individuals aren’t exactly excited about their services. The problem with that ad is that if you were to dig into these comments you’d see a ton of disgruntled people that aren’t be addressed. Failure to address followers are one of the main items you should strive to do if you’re on Facebook so essentially the followers were able to derail this sponsored post in no time at all.

The other parts of the advertisement really hold up well from the short copy to compelling image but the fact Fiverr didn’t bother to respond to the nay-sayers really puts this at the bottom of our list.