What to Include in a Facebook Ad?

Creating a Facebook ad is deceptively simple, but creating one that consistently turns clicks into customers is another challenge entirely. You don't need a massive budget or a Hollywood production video, but you do need to get a few key elements right. This guide will walk you through the essential components of a high-performing Facebook ad, from the visuals that stop the scroll to the copy that drives action.

The Anatomy of a Winning Facebook Ad

Think of your ad not as a single object but as a combination of three core building blocks working together: the creative (visual), the copy (text), and the call-to-action (direction). If one part is weak, the entire ad suffers. Let's break down how to nail each part.

1. Your Visual: The Scroll-Stopper

The visual - be it an image, video, carousel, or collection - is what earns you the right to have your ad read. In a sea of vacation photos and memes, your visual must be interesting enough to make someone pause their scroll. You have a few options, each with its own strengths:

• Single Image: Clean, simple, and effective. Use a high-quality, vibrant image that clearly shows your product or the outcome of your service. User-generated content (UGC), like a happy customer using your product, often outperforms polished studio shots because it feels more authentic and relatable.
• Video: The king of engagement. Video gives you the most space to tell a story and demonstrate value. Best practices are to grab attention within the first 3 seconds and design for sound-off viewing with clear captions. Even a simple 15-second video showing the product in action can be incredibly effective.
• Carousel: Perfect for showcasing a range of products, telling a sequential story, or highlighting different features of a single product. For example, an e-commerce store could show multiple top-sellers, while a SaaS company could use each card to explain a different benefit of their software.

Pro Tip: Whatever format you use, aim for a "native" feel. Make your ad look less like a slick advertisement and more like something a friend might share. Authentic, "behind-the-scenes" B-roll or simple smartphone footage often works surprisingly well.

2. Your Ad Copy: The Persuasion Engine

Once your visual has earned a moment of attention, your copy has to capitalize on it. Good ad copy is clear, concise, and focused on the customer. It doesn't just describe your product, it shows the customer how their life will be better with it. Let's break it down into its three key parts.

The Hook (Primary Text - First 2-3 Lines)

This is the most critical part of your written ad. It appears above your visual and is often the only text people read before deciding to keep scrolling. Your hook must grab them immediately.

• Ask a relatable question: "Tired of spending your weekends wrestling with spreadsheets?"
• State a surprising fact: "Did you know that 80% of marketing reports are outdated by the time they're read?"
• Call out your specific audience: "Attention Shopify store owners..."
• Highlight an immediate benefit: "Finally, get an answer to 'Which Facebook campaigns are most profitable?' in seconds."

The Body Copy

Right after your hook, the body of your text delivers the details. Keep it easy to read by using short paragraphs, bullet points, and emojis. This is where you explain the value and overcome potential objections.

• Focus on Benefits, Not Just Features: A feature of a running shoe is its "memory foam sole." The benefit is "running for miles without painful blisters." Always translate features into tangible benefits for the customer.
• Use Social Proof: Mention the number of customers, awards, or a short, powerful testimonial. "Join 10,000+ marketers who create their reports in minutes, not hours." is more compelling than "We sell reporting software."
• Keep It Simple: Avoid jargon and clever-sounding marketing speak. Write like you talk. Your goal is to be understood, not to sound like a corporate thesaurus.

The Headline

The headline appears in bold text just below your visual. It should be short, punchy, and reinforce your main message or call to action. Keep it to 5-7 powerful words.

• Reinforce the benefit: "Automate Your Marketing Reports"
• State the offer clearly: "Get 50% Off Your First Order"
• Repeat the Call-to-Action: "Start Your Free Trial Today"

3. Your Call-to-Action (CTA): The Final Push

The CTA button is the final instruction. You're telling the user exactly what to do next. Facebook provides a variety of pre-set buttons like "Shop Now," "Learn More," "Sign Up," "Download," and "Book Now."

Your choice of CTA button should match your campaign objective and the user's level of intent. A user seeing your brand for the first time might be more likely to "Learn More", while a user who abandoned their cart is primed for "Shop Now" with a discount code. Don't create a mismatch - asking people to "Buy Now" on an ad intended to generate awareness will lead to poor results.

Beyond the Ad Itself: The Two Most Crucial Elements

Even a perfectly designed ad with brilliant copy will fail if these two foundational pieces are wrong. Your offer and your targeting are just as important as the ad creative itself.

The Offer: Why Should They Care?

Your offer is the core reason someone should stop what they're doing and click. It's the "what's in it for me?" that motivates action. An offer isn't just a discount, it's the central value proposition of your ad.

Powerful offers can include:

• A monetary discount (e.g., "Save 25% Today")
• A free trial of your service
• A valuable piece of content (e.g., "Download Our Free A/B Testing Guide")
• Free shipping or a bonus gift with purchase
• A limited-time bundle deal

A weak offer makes even the best ad feel unappealing. "Buy our expensive product!" is not an offer. "Try our award-winning product risk-free for 30 days" is.

Targeting: The Right Message for the Right People

Targeting is the engine that drives your ad. You could create the world’s greatest ad for vegan dog food, but if you show it to steak-loving cat owners, it will get zero results. Facebook Ads Manager gives you incredibly powerful tools to target your ideal customer.

• Core Audiences: This lets you target users based on demographics (age, location, gender), interests (pages they've liked, hobbies like "hiking" or "digital marketing"), and behaviors (device usage, purchase behaviors).
• Custom Audiences: This allows you to reach people who have already interacted with your business. You can create audiences of past website visitors, people on your email list, or users who have engaged with your Facebook or Instagram page. These are "warm" audiences and often deliver the best ROI.
• Lookalike Audiences: This is one of Facebook's most powerful features. You can give Facebook a source audience (like your best customers' custom audience) and it will find millions of new people who share similar characteristics. It's a fantastic way to find new customers at scale.

Great advertising is about delivering a relevant message to a receptive audience. Don't skip the work of defining who you want to reach.

Don't Guess, Test!

You now know all the key pieces. The final, and most important, thing to include in your Facebook ad strategy is testing. You will never know for sure which visual, headline, or audience will perform best until you let users vote with their clicks.

Set up simple A/B tests to discover what works for your brand:

• Test two different visuals with the same copy.
• Test two different headlines with the same visual.
• Test two different offers, such as "Free Shipping" vs "15% Off."
• Test two different audiences, like an interest-based audience vs a lookalike audience.

When you're testing, keep a close eye on key performance metrics like Click-Through Rate (CTR), Cost Per Click (CPC), and most importantly, conversions and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). These numbers will tell you the real story of what’s resonating with your audience and driving business results.

Final Thoughts

Putting together a successful Facebook ad isn't about finding a single secret hack. It's about systematically combining a scroll-stopping visual, clear benefit-driven copy, a compelling offer, and precise targeting, then using data from your tests to improve over time.

Manually tracking ad performance in Ads Manager while trying to connect it to your sales data from Shopify or your CRM is the kind of reporting work that drains time and stalls momentum. We built Graphed because we needed an easier way to get clear, real-time answers. You can connect your marketing and sales accounts, and then simply ask in plain English: "Show me a dashboard comparing Facebook Ads spend vs. revenue by campaign for the last 30 days." Graphed instantly builds the report for you, so you can spend less time wrangling data and more time acting on it.