How to use psychology to make winning ads

Applying psychology to your ads will help you make winning ads.

But the question is – How?

Sure, you can get inspired on Atria and steal some ads from there. But how do you do it from the ground up?

Enter Sarah Levinger, a master of the craft, who graciously shared her insights with The Performers’ mastermind call. She believed this to be common knowledge, but as it turns out, very few of us had truly grasped the tricks. 

Today’s newsletter is a summary of that call, but it’s really just the tip of her knowledge :) 

But first, she says the #1 mistake we are making when we create ads is:

Our goal is to develop ads that prompt a specific response from the subconscious and then do it at scale.

The subconscious mind evokes the emotions that make people buy.

Creative strategy and ad strategy have to go hand in hand. 

Here are Sarah’s five steps to create an ad strategy inside the creative strategy.

This is basically the easiest way to get an emotional message that resonates with your audience.

Let’s focus on ad strategy.

Step # 1 - Emotional Sentiment Analysis

If the subconscious only remembers emotions. How do you do sentiment analysis?

Her methodology always starts with free resources, where people give the most information for the least incentive. If someone is incentivized to give you information, they’ll give even more information you’d like to hear. 

She prefers the following (based on the order of importance):

1. Reddit, TikTok, IG, FB and Pinterest

2. Website reviews

3. Email response

4. Post purchase surveys

5. In person interviews

6. Quant /Qual data research

Pro tip: Find the emotions and the language in these resources.

Then, understand that you will need a different emotional response based on the generation you are targeting. This is critical too because every generation’s emotional response to an ad would be different.

So, how do you decide which emotions to pick?

Well, there are 9 different emotional motivators people to use to buy things (I’ve shared some in this blog):

The Advertisers Guide to Mindstates

• Achievement

• Autonomy

• Belonging

• Competence

• Empowerment

• Engagement

• Esteem

• Nurturance

• Security

And when you go into research, you”ll need to pick 2 or 3 of these mindstates and double down on them because people buy different things based on the same emotion or mindstate. 

So, let’s pick nurturance as an emotion/mindstate to create ads based on that. And let’s apply it to a product such as a dog bed for pet owners. 

Step # 2 – Find a Message

Since we’ve picked the emotion nurture. Here are multiple ways to think about it based on your audience:

Use thesaurus to find the words that hit differently.

Pro tip: Remember, it is NOT WHAT you’re saying. It’s HOW you’re saying that matters.

Example below: 

One statement is about eating grandma and the other is about telling her.

Remember, humans are highly sensitive to language. It is vitally important HOW you say something. Many studies have shown that the language you grew up hearing directly affects how you see the world, process emotion, and act on it. People are taking what you're saying very seriously.

Let’s use ChatGPT to find the messaging:

The first round of results are not great.

So how do you know which one’s going to work? Well, the answer is empathy. How well do you know your customers?

Let’s cross out the majority of these. We choose based on the emotion we want to trigger with nurturance, i.e., comfort and connection.

Let’s add a modifier prompt in the same prompt and see what ChatGPT can come up with:

The winner is:

Now, we’ve found our message. Let’s get into the next step.

But wait..there’s an ad break now….

Step # 3 – Image Selection

Let’s focus on static images for now.

However, it is very important to know something about the brain when it comes to processing static images. The brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it processes text. This is because we're very visual creatures. We have learned and improved this skill over many generations.

The image gets them to STOP. The text gets them to STAY.

Most ads (9 out of 10) are completely ignored by the brain, not by the person but by the brain. And we haven't even gotten the ad in front of the person yet.

So after emotion and message, how do we make our brain pay attention? Get the brain to stop.

Let’s say we gather some images from the brain, and we get these three below: 

The image has to say nurturance. 

We have to choose an image that matches the words and emotion. It looks for congruency. Gotta match those emotions. Otherwise, the brain is gonna skip it.

The first dog on the left is tired and the second one looks bored. The third one feels like he is in heaven aka comfort. So, we’ll pick that image. 

Step # 4 - Layout and design

After picking the image, the layout makes it possible for the brain to process it.

When thinking of layout, remember:

• People usually process information based on their culture: Be sensitive to left-to-right vs right-to-left languages 

• Make it easy for the brain to process

Pro tip: Position key elements in the upper left and the least important in the lower right, like this:

So, here’s our ad based on this information:

Interestingly, adding a logo to the lower left has a higher conversion rate. 

After this, any other element that gets added to your image also needs to validate whatever emotion you chose in the beginning, such as adding a review with the ad: 

This is how we take emotion and build it into an ad. Then, the brain can process it easily. And the subconscious can attach an emotion to the experience of watching or looking at this ad.

Step # 5 – Iterations

Iteration is a tough business. Many people struggle with iterations because they’re not sure what works. 

If you're going to do iteration, it's very important to track which elements are currently working.

Track every visual element of the ad and put them into a spreadsheet to iterate on it.

For example, are green buttons working, or maybe something similar? Track what other visuals are working.

The key is to track.

And here’s how you iterate into UGCs: 

And that’s it. 

So, does what Sarah just shared really work?

She shared some case studies where she followed this methodology.

Using this methodology, she brought CPA down with a UGC: 

The following example was based on a customer review. They found out that a user felt emotional about getting back the taste that he thought he’d never have again (aka beer taste without alcohol).

Post call - my implementation of Sarah’s tips:

One of the brands I run ads for focuses on “nurturance” as an emotion, and after Sarah’s call, I implemented those emotions and mindstates into my ads. These are the winners I found just by applying these principles to videos (obviously, I used more marketing principles here than for static ads):

• One game that can change the world 

• If you want your life to stay exactly like how it is

That’s all from this week. If you want more insights based on emotions, check out Sarah’s website: https://www.sarahlevinger.co/

Happy Growing with Paid Social,

Aazar Shad

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