Steal my 6 proven Facebook ad hacks

Read time: 3 minutes 14 seconds. It’s like learning from the past 2-3 years of experimenting and stealing the best ideas that you can simply copy.

I am sharing 6 experiments that actually worked and sharing how you can win too.

It’s like learning from the past 2-3 years of experimenting and stealing the best ideas that you can simply copy.

Here are my 6 takeaways that you can steal for your Facebook ads:

1. Thumbnails: organic vs headline

I always wondered if organic-looking thumbnails would work better than those with a headline. Turns out there is no right or wrong answer and you should try both. However, I’ve seen the thumbnails with headlines outperforming.

Tyler from Mindvalley came to The Performers guest speaker session and he said that it gets complicated to run several ads with multiple thumbnails and hooks. I do agree with that, but if you’re not running 20-40 different ads and variations then it’s worth a try.

Here’s the result from this experiment:

2. City-based offering

I’ve tried this multiple times and I’m always fascinated with the results. If you speak to your audience based on their city, it does resonate. It gets your CAC down slightly. You should definitely run city-based offerings if you have a good delivery system or if your warehouse is nearby.

Here’s an example of a city-based offering: It has a higher cost per lead because it is San Francisco but purchases are higher too (which you can’t see). However, look at the click-through rate. I sell entrepreneurship boot camps for teens and SF is the city where more parents and teens are likely to give this program a try.

3. Home page vs dedicated landing (resonating with a specific persona)

One of the products I sell on Facebook is targeted to parents (as you can see in the above screenshot as well). So, I wanted to know if I created a dedicated page for parents and spoke to them directly, would it convert better? Well, it did.

Our standard cost per lead decreased from $13 to $9. I’d definitely say that you should give it a try but put a little more thought into it.

You can see both pages here:

4. Calling out your persona in the ad

This one is similar but does a different job. This one speaks to your audience directly to get their attention. I felt it was cheesy until I saw how well it worked.

This ad had the highest hook rate, lowest cost per lead, and good retention because we called out teens in the ad.

5. Instagram placement only

More folks hang out on Instagram than Facebook. While I am not a huge fan of automatic placement, I’ve seen my cost go down, I’ve also tried just Instagram stories and feed-only ads and it has worked out for me really well, especially with instant forms.

I often do this when my budget is low and I still want to reach the right audience.

With this angle, I was able to reduce the cost per subscriber from $1.12 to $0.60.

6. Specific audience storytelling

This is an example of resonating with a specific audience on a deeper level. It comes out of customer storytelling and apparently there was even a TED talk on it. In this case, I was talking about coding classes that can be marketed to any child even though not every child loves it. So, I resonated my ad with a specific persona i.e. parents of ADHD kids.


This insight came from multiple user interviews and I was able to find a positioning that resonated deeply with my audience.

Hooks are great but deeply relatable stories create an emotional connection with your audience.

If you have to pick one experiment out of these, I’d suggest going with this one.

Just look at the results:

Before – Cost per free trial: $600

After – Cost per free trial: $48

But I do have to say, it took a while to find this gem.

Here’s the ad.

So why it worked:

  • TEDx effect (credibility)

  • Deep resonance

  • Stage effect

  • No hook

Caveat: I don’t claim that these experiments will work out for everyone but you should definitely give these a try.

Happy growing with paid social and happy Easter (if you celebrate),

Aazar Shad

Tell me below if you are going to try it:

Which experiment are you going to steal first?

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