Ad Graphic Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Results

Have You Been Doing These Ad Graphic Mistakes All This Time?

The amount of time adults use social media across all platforms is now at an all-time high of 95 minutes per day.

And with over 3.9 billion total social media users across all platforms, social media ads are only getting more and more effective in getting sales. 

With that said, your ad graphics play the important role of visually convincing your customers to spend on what you’re selling or the service you’re offering.

But if your designs are ineffective, they may be hurting your results instead of helping seal the deal with your potential customers.

That’s why in this post, we’re going to talk about 5 ad graphic mistakes that may be hurting your results.

Let’s get started!

5 Ad Graphic Mistakes That You Should Avoid

1. Ads look too generic and plain
2. Adding too much text and using too many fonts
3. Relying too much on stock photos
4. Not using movement
5. Focusing on the wrong subject

Ad graphic mistake #1: Ads look too generic and plain

Don’t get us wrong, simplicity is crucial in the design, and everything unnecessary should be removed.

But adding things to keep your potential customers’ eyes plastered on your visual is in fact very necessary.

You don’t want to leave your ad looking flat and uninteresting, and you definitely want to avoid using designs that are overused. 

You need to be considering the visual impact of your design. It can be tempting to play it extremely safe.

But there is a difference between looking crisp and clean, and looking underwhelming and plain.

So be sure to add aesthetically pleasing visual elements to your design that support and highlight your product.

Make sure they’re not too visually aggressive and that they don’t take the eyes’ attention away from your actual subject.

The goal here is to achieve a balance of a clean design that has enough interesting key elements…

…to make a visually harmonious and impactful impression.

Also, it’s important to note that if you’re using sites like Canva or PicMonkey that offer pre-set design templates for you to use…

…then you’re going to want to spend time changing out key elements, images, colors, and fonts to make sure that the design looks tailored for your brand.

That’s because chances are someone else has already used the template you started with.

And you don’t want your audience to think they’ve seen your ad somewhere else before…

…making it blend in with everything else they see on social media, instead of standing out.

If you want to know how to create a visual branding guide, then here’s our post for that.

Ad graphic mistake #2: Adding too much text & using too many fonts.

The best-performing ads usually have minimal to no text.

This is why Facebook used to have a 20% rule that wouldn’t let you run any ads that have text that cover more than 20% of your image.

They’ve since removed this as a requirement but it’s still wise to follow this as your personal rule for your ad graphics. 

Additionally, you don’t want to introduce too many font faces in your design. Try keeping your fonts per ad at 2 fonts max.

If you’re using too many fonts your graphic is going to look overcrowded and unharmonious.

Here are some more typography design tips that you can read next.

Ad graphic mistake #3: Relying too much on stock photos

Stock photos are great and when used right, they help produce quality business graphics.

But certain stock images tend to look too staged, and if you’re only using stock images for your social media graphics, including your ads…

…then you risk making your visual branding look cheesy and impersonal.

Stock images will never have the ability to fully represent you and your business.

So be sure to use actual quality images of your product or service whenever you get the chance.

This is to keep an authentic look your potential customers will appreciate and feel comfortable trusting.

If you want to learn how to take quality product shots using your mobile phone, here’s our tutorial for that.

Ad graphic mistake #4: Not using movement

Our eyes are naturally attracted to movement, which makes motion and video-based ads a solid way to catch our potential customers’ attention.

A viewer’s positive experience with a video ad increases their probability to make a purchase by 97%.

And if you’re only using still graphics for all of your ads-then you’re definitely missing out. 

Aside from introducing movement to your ad, take advantage of the video format by adding audio to the mix.

And pairing your video with music helps set the tone of your brand and helps evoke the emotion you want out of your viewer.

Ad graphic mistake #5: Focusing on the wrong subject

When it comes to social media graphics, it’s important that your visual branding is constantly present…

…and every image you publish follows your branding guidelines.

This includes your social media ads.

But when it comes to ads and following your visual branding, be sure you’re not drawing too much attention to your brand…

…that it takes the spotlight away from what you’re actually selling in the ad aka your product.

So something like your business logo will not have to be as prominent as it usually is in your regular social media posts.

Earlier we discussed that you want to add aesthetically pleasing visual elements to your design that support and highlight your product.

Meaning they’re there to be subtle and in no way cause conflict in the actual hero of the graphic.

The key is to design your visual around your subject and apply branding elements that help it stand out, not blend in. 

And that is it for ad graphic mistakes that might be hurting your results. Do you also have any ad graphic mistakes you’d like to share?

Head over to our graphic design services page now if you need more help with your marketing graphics.

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