7 Facebook Ad Call to Action (CTA) Tips, Techniques & Best Practices

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Want to know the tips, techniques and best practices you need to use to create a great call-to-action for your Facebook Ad?

Unsure if your call-to-action is converting as well as it could be? Well worry no longer.

In this article, I’ll show you the top 7 Facebook Ad Tips, Techniques, and Best Practices to create Calls-To-Actions (CTAs) just like the pros.

Let’s begin.

The Call-To-Action is the Most Important Element of your Facebook Ad. Here’s Why:


The call-to-action (CTA) on a Facebook Ad (in the sidebar) is the “Title” text in blue at the top of your Ad. This is the most important part of your Ad. It’s the most important element of your Ad to convince people to click. If you have a good image, it will draw people’s attention. But the CTA is where people will make their decision to actually stop and click. The description text can help, but the majority of people will have already made their decision to click before they read it.

#1: Include An Action Word


Your Ad needs to convince people to take an action – click on it. One way to think of your ad is acting like a motivational speaker. Tell your audience to get off the couch and go do something that will improve their life:

This CTA from one of Wishpond’s client’s The Barre Code is a great example of this:

Another way to use action words is to focus on how people can do a routine acitivity easier or better. This can be either something in their business life, like making sales calls or creating landing pages, or in their personal life, like exercising or cooking. Here are a few examples you can try:

  • Convert More Sales
  • Rank Higher on Google
  • Lose Weight Faster

#2: Keep your Call-To-Action to the Point.


You have microseconds of people’s attention to get them to understand and click on your Ad. So don’t get all whimsical and cryptic in it. Make it something that a person can understand at just a glance.

Here are a couple CTA examples proven to convert:

  • Get started
  • Sign up
  • Claim my offer

#3: Promote a Benefit, Not a Product


The biggest mindshift online marketers need to have when moving from Google Adwords to Facebook Ads:

Lack of intent.

Google Adwords are so powerful because you can show them to people who are interested in buying your products RIGHT NOW. With Facebook Ads, you don’t have that same intent to capitalize on. You don’t know what people are thinking about when they’re on Facebook (Spoiler Alert: It’s not you!). So you have to give them something to pique their interest. Something that gives your audience value.

Here’s an example of a great ad from Sleeknote:

Notice how they talk about the value that you can get from popups vs. talking about popups themselves?

#4: Ask a Question


Questions are a great psychological technique to get people interested in your Ad. They work for two reasons:

  • They have a conversational tone that pulls people in.
  • People tend to ask questions in their mind when they have a problem to overcome. They don’t just think “Need more sales next quarter” they think “How am I going to get more sales next quarter?”.

Here are a few examples of questions to use in your Facebook Ads:

  • Need to Buy a V-Day Gift?
  • Want her to notice you?
  • Need Help w/ Uni Essays?

#5: Use Negative Words


This can be tough to get right, but it’s a very powerful way to pique people’s interest. Negative words like “Stop”, “Suck” and “Terrible” can stop people in their tracks. People are self-conscious by nature. They’re worried constantly about whether they’re making the right decisions. Capitalize on this fear by using negative words in your call-to-action.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you should tell people they’re idiots. Instead, focus on things that people are always trying to improve and plant the idea in their mind that you may have a better way to do something than they currently are. Yes, it’s just like Inception.

Here are two more examples:

  • Is this the end of Email?
  • Email is dead. Now what?

#6: Keep it Short and Prominent (News Feed Ads)


In News Feed Ads, you have more flexibility with how much text it contains. But this doesn’t mean you should go nuts with it. In my experience, the exact opposite is the best practice. The shorter you can make your CTA, the easier it is for people to read it (and the more likely it is that they will).

Here’s a recent News Feed Ad from Infusionsoft. While it’s a great case study for their company it include 105 WORDS over 627 CHARACTERS. When you have as much text as this Ad, most users will be overwhelmed by the wall of text and simply skip over it.

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#7: “Free” is your Best Friend


The easiest way to get someone to click your Facebook Ad is to offer them something of value for free. It’s like saying “Hey, check out what I have to offer, it’s totally free!”. For the majority of your Target Audience, they will have a (at best) mild interest in what you have to offer. So they’re likelihood of paying for it is probably zero.

Here are a few more free key resources on using Facebook Ads:

Wishpond’s Facebook Contest Apps make it easy to create sweepstakes, photo contests, Instagram hashtag contests & more.

Have you tried some of these techniques? What have been your results using them? Let me know in comments below.

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