You never get to a second chance to make a first impression. This may sound like a cliche to you, but it’s true. Especially when you are using Facebook ads to drive new people to your business. Marketing yourself to a handful of people who don’t know you can be challenging considering the competition… which is why writing impactful Facebook ad headlines matters.

In today’s article, I’m going to teach you how to make your ad headlines worth clicking. Remember, in a world filled with noise, the right headlines help communicate your value. Keep reading.

What Are Facebook Ad Headlines?

If you’ve never run a Facebook ad before, the headline is found right below the image or video of your ad in bold. Here’s an example from one of Tony Robbins’ ads:

As you can see, the headline is noticeable and immediately conveys the main message of the ad in a few words. It tells you why you need to click through.

Bonus Material: Free Facebook Ads Generator

3 Golden Rules for Writing a Headline

No matter what your business is about or what your offer will be, keep in mind these 3 principles for your headline to succeed:

1. Make it clear.

So you want to sound like an expert and decide to use jargon in your headline. What all that jargon does is that it makes readers feel alienated. Whenever you write a headline, think about a family member or a close friend. Will someone outside your industry be able to understand it right away? The answer should be yes.

2. Build an emotional connection.

Making your readers feel something motivates them to act on your message. How does your headline do that? By using emotionally-charged words that spark happiness, excitement, curiosity, fear, anger, or sadness. Bustle does a great job at triggering curiosity with their headlines. Take this ad for example (below). They use the words “brilliant” and “genius”:

3. Don’t mislead readers.

One of the reasons why a Facebook ad headline could fail is that it doesn’t match the content on the target landing page. An example would be a headline that promotes toys at 50% off but when the person clicks on the ad, the discounted items are nowhere to be found.

10 Tips to Create Clickable Facebook Ad Headlines

Without further ado, here are ten tried-and-tested tips that will help you write your Facebook ad headlines well. Grab one or two and experiment with them right away:

1. Create urgency

Amazon’s deal of the day that ends in 1 hour. Time-related words such as hurry, quick, fast, only one left, and now. They all put the brain in an urgent mode. When something is urgent, the response is to act right away or else the person will miss out.

Here’s how you can use spark urgency in your headline to boost conversions: Imagine that your FB ad is about a webinar you’re promoting. Your headline could say, “Register For The Webinar Today. Seats Are Limited!”

2. Start the headline with a number

Numbers capture the eye because they make a piece of content digestible. They know what to expect. If there’s one thing that humans value, that is predictability. This explains why we have weather forecasts, follow schedules, and create routines.

CafeMom begins their Facebook ad headline with a number which helps their audience know what they’re getting into. This is extremely useful considering that they’re promoting a pretty comprehensive piece of content.

3. Use an active voice

If you want your audience to imagine themselves performing the action you want them to take, use an active voice when constructing your headlines.

An active voice introduces the subject as the doer of the action. The subject comes first in the sentence. For example, “He bought the car.” Conversely, a passive voice is less impactful as it moves the subject to the latter part of the sentence. For example, “The car was bought by him.”

The next time you create your Facebook ad headline, make sure that your audience can identify themselves as the one performing the action. Mindvalley consistently uses an active voice with their ads. The ad headline below (“Book Your Free Spot At Jim Kwik’s Masterclass”) is a good example:

4. Share the “best” ways to do something

Research shows that people prefer headlines that teach them how to do something. Now, here’s the thing: If you can show them how to do something the BEST way possible, that would elicit a better response.

Say you’re promoting a piece of content about tips to tame stress. Your ad headline could say, “10 Best Ways to Reduce Stress.”

5. Try negatives

Instead of being positive and encouraging with your headlines, go the opposite direction. Words like stop, avoid, worst, nothing, and never emit a negative vibe. Take Forbes’ ad headline below as an example.

Here are a few reasons why using negatives work:

• Positives are often overused. Trying the opposite route brings something new to the table.
• We are hardwired to protect ourselves from risk and that is why we anticipate risky situations and find ways to “avoid” it.
• They invoke curiosity. The headline above makes a car enthusiast wonder why he needs to avoid these seemingly great cars.

6. Draw inspiration from tools

For anyone who needs a little inspiration to write better Facebook ad headlines, tools come in handy. At Connectio, we have a Facebook Ads Generator Tool that creates the text for your ads based on your niche, audience, product, and more.

The tool is free and it’s simple. All you need to do is provide answers to a few questions which the tool will use to come up with tons of ideas. You can tweak the suggestions as needed for your headlines.

7. Ask a question

Facebook ad headlines that are crafted as questions make an audience respond subconsciously. However, we need to approach question headlines carefully so that readers don’t just answer them and leave. Question headlines, open-ended or close-ended, should draw them in.

In the example below, HubSpot uses a question headline “Want to Use Hubspot Free?” The question is framed effectively because it solves a business owner’s problem at no cost.

8. Use this formula: [Action] + [Time Period] + [End Result]

Sometimes you read a headline and think that it’s kickass. But what you may not know is that it came out of a formula. I borrowed this superb formula from Neville Medhora’s Kopywriting Kourse:

[action] + [time period] + [end result]

Want some ideas? Here are three Facebook ad headlines I generated using Neville’s formula:

• Do This Workout for 10 Minutes Each Day to Get Sculpted Abs
• Recite These 5 Mantras Each Morning to Change Your Life
• Schedule 30-Minute Call with Me and I’ll Teach You a Powerful Business Strategy

9. Share a statistic

Your audience comes across various ads on Facebook. Each time they do, they assume that the business is an expert on the topic. How do you assert that expertise? By writing Facebook ad headlines that include statistics.

OkDork’s blog post, Blogging Tips: How to 10x Your Blog With Data-Driven Insights, mentions that using statistics in the headline makes your engagement 10 times better.

Here’s an example of Business Insider’s Facebook ad headline that includes a stat. Imagine that we remove “70%” from the headline. Would it still have the same impact on the reader? Obviously, not. With that 70% in place, you become really curious about the 3 things that people spend their money on.

10. Use a customer testimonial

Social proof tells us that people behave based on how the majority behaves. This explains why a curious buyer turns to customer testimonials to find out if something is worth purchasing.

One of the Facebook ads I ran that performed extremely well used the principle of social proof. As you could tell, I showcased some of my customer testimonials in the carousel ads.

Right away, I was able to show my audience how my business provides value by letting my customers vouch for me through testimonial headlines.

Related: Small Tricks to Gather Customer Testimonials to Achieve the Best Facebook Ad Results

It’s Time to Write the Best Facebook Ad Headlines

Now it’s your turn to create effective Facebook ad headlines. Writing a headline sounds like a lot of work. But with all the tips we discussed, you should be able to start today. Gather inspiration from performing brands (like the ones I shared above). Use a tool or formula if you must to get those creative juices flowing!