Case Study: Why You Should Be Making Silent Video Ads

Do you remember when Facebook didn't have ads?

I do. When status updates were just text and the only thing you could share was one photo on your Timeline at a time. I remember when Facebook rolled out cover photos; what a day that was! 

It seems like a lifetime ago. But in reality, Facebook rolled out ads just seven years ago. 

But now, ads make up a large chunk of your News Feed. Nearly 1 in 10 items in your News Feeds are ads, and most ads? They only get an engagement from a Facebook user 1 percent of the time they're viewed. They're mostly photo links, or they're videos with no text overlay (99 percent of video views on Facebook are silent -- users don't unmute videos).

So what's a brand to do?

Animate a silent video ad.

Simply Health Wellness and Weight Loss in Chesterfield, Missouri became a Checkmate client on July 1. Prior to managing its Facebook page, Simply Health had an active but ineffective Facebook presence. The content it was sharing had an emphasis on quantity, not quality, with low impact and even lower conversions to clicks or appointments booked.

So Simply Health needed something simple: a bold, splashy ad to light up the News Feeds of its fans, since engagement on the page was almost nonexistant.

Checkmate created a targeted, highly visual, animated video ad, featuring flat emoticon-style illustrations and highly readable text. The video was short but clear: click here, get this. Plus, with a thumbnail of FREE, users clicked to watch the video at a much higher than industry rate.

The results of this ad are promising, with high rates of engagement and click throughs nearly triple initial expectations. Website traffic is up, and six weeks in, Checkmate and Simply Health together are building momentum to a high return on investment for Simply Health on Facebook.