Recently I was trying to scale up an ad that has been running for years. I needed to scale up a client’s ads NOW and didn’t have time to write a ton of new ads. In fact, this ad framework has generated over a million dollars in sales as of today.
So, I decided to “Image Scale” the ad. Basically, that means you run the same ad text, headlines, etc in a dynamic ad with 3-4 different new images.
I found some new images and launched them.
- One image was slightly controversial.
- One image was highly controversial.
I ran the new ads and the controversial images got 90% of the views, and the Cost per Result was 20% lower than the other “boring” images. Remember, this is the same ad, the same text, the same headline, everything was the same, except for the images.
The moral of the story is that you can use Kosher Controversy to get more sales, increase profits, and reduce your costs to acquire a customer. The controversy can be in your ad image, the overall big idea for the ad, or in the text/headline.
What is kosher controversy?
It’s controversy that gets people engaged, gets them reading and commenting. On one of our ads we had a hundred different comments and they were pretty epic.
Normally we’re lucky to get 1-2 comments per ad. So, by bar, these were the most commented ads that I’ve seen in a while. And as a result, it got way more traffic.
Why does this work?
Humans love new experiences, novelty, etcetera. For example, I recently tried out a new latte with a Buzz Button Flower on the side. It was a great experience because the flower gives your tongue this little electrical zapping feeling.
It was a much more exciting and novel experience of drinking a latte than getting your standard vanilla latte at Starbucks. So people like novelty.
Another example is when rappers start up feuds with other rappers. Then, everyone starts talking about the rappers and their feud. “He said this about him,” they say. And as a result, both rappers sell more records, become more popular, and get more exposure to their music.
For example, 50 Cent once had a big feud with The Game. He hated The Game, but then on his social media site he discovered that a lot of his fans liked The Game. He had incorrectly assumed that his fans would hate The Game because they were his fans. But, they didn’t care.
They liked 50 Cent and they also liked The Game even though 50 Cent and The Game hated each other. So you can create controversy and conflict with people you like, and people you dislike.
Avoid taking this too far.
You want to avoid controversy that is so powerful that it turns 50% of your customers off, and they say, “Screw you, I’ll never do business with you. I hate you. You are my enemy, et cetera.”
A good example of this is if you were to run ads saying, “I love Trump,” or “I love Biden,” or, “I support X, Y, or Z hot button issues.” You want to avoid hot button issues in your ads, and don’t go after super controversial topics where you’re going to get 50% of the public to hate you.
Avoid issues like that. So here’s an example of how to do it right, instead of doing it wrong. There’s a guy I know who sells products to people who want to start or grow their business. So he is all about capitalism, and he talks about how capitalism is good, and capitalism is amazing, and how he supports capitalism, etc.
Most of his marketplace strongly supports capitalism.
So he’s not turning off the majority of his customers. He is turning off the small part of America that thinks that capitalism is bad. I don’t know what the numbers are, but there is a small percentage of Americans who think capitalism is bad and we should go to another system.
That’s another story for another day, but that’s an example of how you can be controversial, but not doing it where you’re turning off a majority or 50% of your customers.
A safe way to start using Kosher Controversy in your ads.
Don’t start with controversy. I wouldn’t say dive into the deep end of the pool. Learn how to swim first in the shallow end before you go into the deep end. But what you can do is you can start with novelty.
You just simply present fun, new, interesting, different ideas. Stuff that is novel and different from all the other ads that are running out there. And the biggest way you can do that is with the images. Find new, interesting, novel images and use them on your best converting ads.
Look in Shutterstock and Pixabay for new images. Or, create your own images with your phone. (I’ve found that phone images work great.) Start with that.
Once you’ve run some “novel” ads, then you can try out some slightly controversial ads. Then, if you feel comfortable, you can run the more edgy ads. Just be sure to avoid creating an angry mob of people fighting you online, because that’s just not beneficial to your business.
By the way, if you need more help on finding different ideas for your existing ads and scaling them up with kosher controversy, I may be able to help you on a freelance basis. Contact me for more information. Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Ben Curry
The Million Dollar Ad Guy
About the Author
Ben Curry specializes in helping marketers get more sales from their Facebook™ and Instagram™ Ads WITHOUT increasing costs.
He has created many high-converting Facebook™ Ads that brought in six figures in revenue. A few have brought in over a million dollars in sales each. Many are still running today.
In addition, he has personally managed over $2 Million in ad spend on Facebook. His ad management strategies have generated more sales – while lowering Customer Acquisition Costs – at the same time.
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