These 3 Facebook Headline Hacks Are a Winning Recipe for Clicks and Traffic

When one of your paid Facebook ads shows up on someone's newsfeed…

It's got some pretty heavy competition for that person's interest and attention.

Between updates from family and friends, and the many other ads they run into on a daily basis, it's hard to stand out.

Along with images, an ad's headline is the first thing someone's going to see.

You could even argue that when it comes to Facebook ads, the headline is the most important element there is. It's what drives that little split-second decision someone makes about whether to click on the ad, or keep scrolling.

So you need to grab their attention, pique their curiosity, and make them feel compelled to click.

There's more than one way to craft a great headline, but in a recent post, AdEspresso offers some fresh ideas you might not have thought of yet.

Implement these three headline strategies, and watch your click through rate go up.

1. The Testimonial

Sometimes you don’t have to be clever or clear. I mean, why stress about either when you can just be lazy?

Think about it: Where do people get their information today?

Almost 75% of people look to friends and family for purchasing information. And nearly all of them at 92% trust recommendations from people over brands — even if they don’t personally know them!

For example, back in the day, Basecamp (then still 37Signals) ran a split test between their old, tried-and-true page and a long-form sales one.

The new ~~spammy~~ long sales page initially increased conversions by 37.5%. Not bad, right?!

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But then they ran another split test.

Only this time, they went with a testimonial-driven page. Almost the entire page, from headline to image to copy was a straight testimonial from one individual person.

Results shot up 102.5% this time.

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Laura Roeder made one simple tweak to her landing page headline, inserting a quote from a testimonial (“Yours is the only newsletter I actually read”) and she instantly saw a 24.31% conversion rate increase.

Years later Betty Rocker, the “fit-foodie”, personal trainer and social media star who created the #makefatcry challenge, is using the same technique.

2. Ask Questions?

Betteridge’s law of headlines says, “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”

It’s intended as a half-truth. A joke, really.

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Basically, saying that most question-based headlines are unnecessary. You’re intentionally asking a loaded question or leading the reader on.

But for advertising purposes, that’s kinda the point. You want to throw out a pattern interruption. You want to get people to hesitate a little bit when they see your ad. Like this Swiped.co examplefrom 30+ years ago:

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Question headlines also work best when combined with something else…

Lisa Sargent gives two rules to using question-based headlines:

You can ask a yes or no question … but you must either answer it immediately or phrase the question so your prospect has to read the promotion to answer it.

Ask a question that implies an answer or benefits are contained in the promotion.

And the way you do both of those is by using a cliffhanger.

3. The Cliffhanger

Back when Moz still had an “SEO” in front of it, they worked with Conversion Rate Experts to help better position their software landing page. The final result was $1 million+ in new revenue.

And the path to the outcome was also instructive.

One of the very first things they wanted to do was inject more credibility into their offer. Specifically, by ‘elevating’ the successful brands Moz had helped in previous years in order to boost the perceived value of their service.

Their initial headline was a lackluster, “Improve your traffic and rankings with an SEOmoz PRO Membership!”.

Meh. Right?

Instead, Conversion Rate Experts flipped it around to: “When eBay, Disney, and Marriott need SEO help, here’s what they do…”

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This, my friends, is classic BuzzFeed.

It’s a cliffhanger; pulling back the curtain just enough to get you interested. But stopping just short in order to get you to keep reading.

It piques your interest by creating an open loop. A little gap in your expectations that now have to be filled.