The quantity of businesses utilizing Facebook for advertising and Business Pages is truly remarkable. An impressive 93% of marketers that incorporate social media for advertising purposes run Facebook ads, solidifying its position as the leading platform for paid social engagement.

Given the fierce competition, it’s crucial for business owners and their marketing teams to optimize their Facebook presence. A key strategy to achieve this is mastering the art of crafting exceptional ad headlines. Did you know that headlines are often the only element people truly read? It’s a fact! Whether it’s an ad, a landing page, or a news article, many of us only read headlines. Although this might be disheartening for some marketers, it underscores the importance of making your Facebook ad headlines truly stand out. In such a crowded space, your brand needs to stand out quickly, and the headline is your prime opportunity to do so. This article presents five proven tips for creating effective Facebook ad headlines to boost conversions and engagement.

1. The Power of the 5-Word Ad Headline

Research consistently shows that concise headlines on Facebook lead to greater engagement, as evidenced by significant metrics such as:

• Comments
• Shares
• Likes Headline space is limited—depending on the ad type, you only have 25 to 45 characters at your disposal. Therefore, maximizing your message within this constraint is key. A study by AdEspresso suggests that five words have consistently been the ideal length for a Facebook ad headline for the past four years.

Five-word headlines are often memorable and get straight to the point. Consider this example from Facebook itself, which AdEspresso hails as “the perfect sponsored post”:

Implementing this strategy

Review your current ad headlines (particularly those underperforming) and experiment with five-word variations. For instance, “Get a Great Doctor to You” (a real Facebook ad headline from the startup Heal) could be condensed to “Find Your Perfect Doctor Now.”

2. Numbers First in Facebook Ad Headlines

Instead of prioritizing catchy headlines for their own sake, follow the data. Research strongly indicates that initiating headlines with numbers yields optimal results. Conductor, an SEO technology company, investigated which headline types resonated most with their study participants. They presented participants with various headline styles, including:

• Questions
• How-tos
• Standard (no specific angle)
• Addressing the reader with “you”
• Numbers-based The results revealed that headlines that started with numbers resonated most with people, garnering the approval of 36% of participants. In contrast, the runner-up (reader-addressing) only appealed to 21% of individuals. This raises the question: which number should you use to start your ad headlines? Are all numbers equal in effectiveness? Surprisingly, they are not.

Via Buzzsumo Another study, this one by infographic-maker Venngage, found that a perfect 10 is the best number to use in headlines. They analyzed 121,333 articles to determine the correlation between headline numbers and social shares. Articles featuring “10” in the headline garnered 1046 shares, while those with “five” secured second place with 972 shares. The study becomes even more intriguing when these findings are broken down by social networks, including Facebook. Even on this platform, the preference for “10” persists: headlines containing the number 10 received 622 shares, followed again by “five” with 396 shares.

Implementing this strategy

While this study focused on Facebook social sharing within blog titles, its insights can be extrapolated to ad headlines as well. Consider incorporating numbers into your Facebook lead ads, such as “10 Ways to Improve Client Retention,” or carousel ads, like “5 Dresses that Go from Summer to Fall.”

3. Integrating Emotional Words in Facebook Ad Headlines

Despite our best efforts, emotions often hold sway. This applies to readers encountering your headlines as well. While some strive for rationality, we are inherently emotional beings—a factor you can leverage in crafting compelling headlines. Writing for OkDork, CoSchedule’s Founder Garrett Moon conducted an experiment analyzing some of the most shared headlines on CoSchedule using the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer or EMVHA for short. His experiment compared the emotional values of headlines across three datasets:

• Articles with over 1000 shares
• Articles with 500 shares
• Articles with 100 shares The results were revealing, establishing a clear link between a headline’s emotional impact and the number of shares its corresponding article received.

Articles with over 1000 shares exhibited an average emotional-value score of almost 40. This significantly surpassed those with 500 shares (an emotional-value score of nearly 30) and those with 100 shares (a score nearing 20). This underscores how emotionally charged words in headlines elevate engagement. If increased conversions and sales are your goals, integrating such language into ad headlines is recommended. This begs the question: which emotional words should you prioritize?

Implementing this strategy

To infuse emotional words into your ad copy, explore these resources!

• The Best 120 Words & Phrases for Marketing With Emotion
• 273 Winning Words & Phrases for Emotional Copywriting Experiment by incorporating some of these emotionally potent words into your ad headlines, carefully monitoring which ones resonate most effectively.

4. Leveraging Negativity for Positive Outcomes

Here’s a counterintuitive approach: research suggests that negative words in headlines can outperform positive ones! This contradicts conventional wisdom but is likely attributed to audience fatigue from overly optimistic language and a desire for authenticity. Outbrain’s study revealed that negative words like “worst” and “never” in their headlines received a better response from their target audience. They posited that negative headlines resonate with the audience’s desire for directness and honesty more effectively than overly positive language.

Considering the overwhelming volume of online content—and our tendency to skim headlines to save time—this logic holds weight. Faced with an abundance of information, we gravitate towards what truly matters.

Implementing this strategy

When crafting Facebook ad headlines, consider deviating from perpetually cheerful language. Experiment with negative words to tap into people’s desire for unvarnished truths. As always, prioritize testing over assumptions about your audience’s preferences. For example, when nexus-security promotes their free Google Ads Grader, they sometimes employ ad headlines with negative phrasing like “Stop Wasting Money” and “Fix Your Mistakes in AdWords.” While not conventionally positive, these phrases are undeniably effective.

5. Exploring Super-Engaging 3-Word Phrases

On platforms characterized by short attention spans, incorporating concise phrases into headlines is a strategic move. Specific, recognizable three-word phrases can be incredibly potent on Facebook. According to the aforementioned Buzzsumo study, the three best-performing phrases, based on engagement, are:

• Will make you (almost 9000 engagements)
• This is why (4099 engagements)
• Can we guess (3199 engagements) Delving deeper into the data, “Will make you” emerges as the undisputed champion, boasting engagement levels more than double that of the runner-up, “This is why.”

Audiences strongly connect with “Will make you” for two primary reasons. Firstly, it suggests a direct impact on the reader, potentially even an emotional one. Secondly, its versatility allows seamless integration into various headline structures.

Implementing this strategy

Although this study centered on article headlines, this tactic can be effectively applied to ad headlines, potentially making your Facebook ads appear more native. For instance, a lead generation ad for a marketing guide could feature the headline “This Free Guide Will Make You a Better Marketer.”

Facebook Ad Headlines: A Fusion of Science and Art

Generating greater engagement from your Facebook ads—and consequently, more clicks, leads, and sales—requires approaching headline writing as a science, not just an art. Analyzing and implementing proven strategies on Facebook significantly elevates your likelihood of achieving higher conversions. While predicting audience behavior with absolute certainty is impossible, testing various elements presented to them on Facebook drastically improves your chances of resonating with them. The abundance of available data provides a goldmine of insights to empower you to craft more impactful ad headlines than ever before! However, if numbers aren’t your forte, you can always draw inspiration from these 88 headline examples.