When Google first introduced its Performance Max campaigns, it set off with a goal to make advertising across all of its properties (search, display, video, Discover, Gmail, and Maps) simple to manage within one campaign type.

Getting started with Performance Max campaigns is easy. Optimizing Performance Max campaigns? Well, that can be much more difficult.

Luckily, Google recently released a new beta feature for Performance Max campaigns called “search themes” designed to help advertisers better target their ads with a similar keyword-inspired approach that most advertisers are used to. In this article, we’re covering what search themes are, how to create them, and how to use them the right way.

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What are search themes for Performance Max campaigns?

Google’s fully automated campaign type allows you to control very little. You can improve your different ad assets, website, product feed, and even provide audience signals to better target your Performance Max campaigns–but that’s still very lacking to the rest of Google Ad’s targeting options. Especially for most of us who are used to running search campaigns with robust keyword targeting options–running search ads through Performance Max campaigns can be a frustrating experience.

Search themes are a new feature that allows advertisers to provide some additional context and signals to Google to help target their Performance Max campaigns. Advertisers can provide search themes to Google to share how they expect their customers to search for their products or services.

With this additional context, Google can consider these search themes as new signals to target audiences based on their search behavior. Google may use these search themes to better refine their Performance Max campaign targets, or to reach new relevant placements on the SERP and beyond.

Search themes is an optional feature in Performance Max campaigns. However, we’ve seen time and time again that Performance Max campaigns perform the best when they’re given better signals, so I’d encourage you to provide Google with at least a few search themes to give Google enough signals to optimize your campaigns with. Advertisers can provide up to 25 search themes per asset group.

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Search themes are set to replace custom segments based on search intent

Within Google’s most recent announcement introducing Search themes, Google also shares that they’ll be ending support for custom segments based on past search activity within Performance Max campaigns in early 2024. These audience segments will automatically be upgraded to Search Themes.

Previously known as “Custom Intent” audiences, these audiences used very similar signals to the new Search themes, effectively targeting people based on their past searches on Google. Since this audience signal is so similar to Google’s new “search themes” beta, the automatic upgrade in 2024 is unlikely to negatively impact campaign performance. Hopefully, it streamlines workflows and makes signal management easier for advertisers.

Custom segments based on previous search activities will continue to function uninterrupted in other campaign types, including search campaigns. Additionally, all other custom segments based on other attributes (affinities, interests, apps, URLs, and demographics) will continue to exist in Performance Max campaigns and serve as valuable audience signals for Google’s ongoing optimization.

How do I create search themes in my Performance Max campaigns?

Search themes is a new feature in beta and may not currently be available to all advertisers, however, Google is expected to release it to more advertisers throughout the rest of the year.

1. To add search themes to your Performance Max campaigns, simply:
   Select a Performance Max campaign.
2. Select an Asset group. Each asset group can have different audience signals and search themes.
3. Next to your ad assets in your Asset group, you’ll notice a card for “Signals.” Select the pencil icon to edit your signals.
4. Here, you’ll see the new Search Themes beta. Advertisers can add up to 25 unique search themes per asset group to help improve the signals of their Performance Max campaign. Each search theme must be shorter than 80 characters in length.
5. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and save your changes to your Asset group signals!

Search themes can also be edited or removed at any time from this menu. Once changed or removed, Google will no longer use that signal when targeting its ads to an audience.

But removing a search theme isn’t like removing a keyword or adding a negative keyword in a search campaign–Google may continue to serve ads on similar search queries if it believes it’s relevant to users. However, Search themes will still respect any brand exclusions or account-level negative keywords that you’ve implemented. If you want to prevent your Performance Max campaigns from serving for irrelevant and unwanted traffic–you’ll still want to use those tools!

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How will search themes in Performance Max campaigns affect my search ads?

Performance Max campaigns and traditional search campaigns are both eligible to serve ads on the Google SERP and search partner engines. Advertisers who are running both Performance Max campaigns and search campaigns will often run into issues where both campaign types are targeting the same searches and risk serving different ad experiences to the same searches or struggle to manage the two campaigns synchronously. Using search themes in Performance Max may ease some of those issues for advertisers.

In these issues where multiple campaigns or ad groups are eligible to serve an ad to a searcher, Google prioritizes exact match keywords that are identical to the search above all others. Google’s new Search themes are treated as a lower priority, equal to that of phrase and broad match keywords.

Your exact match keywords in your search campaigns will also take priority over your Performance Max campaigns–so they’re still a must-have for advertisers now.

Best practices for using search themes in Performance Max campaigns

While nearly all additional data and context will help these Performance Max campaigns continue to improve, advertisers can make the most of search themes in their accounts by following a few tips.

1. Use search themes to provide information missing from your landing pages

If you’ve just launched a new product or website, your landing page may not include every single feature, benefit, use, value, and detail that a searcher might consider–and that’s okay! In fact, a clean and simplified landing page may help more people convert on your site.

If Google can’t find that context from your landing page–fret not. Liberally use search themes in your Performance Max campaigns to provide those extra signals to Google so it best understands what your audience may be looking for and can optimize its placements accordingly.

2. Be direct—especially when using ulterior brand messaging

What does direct mean? Well, consider the well-known fast-casual restaurant Hooters. If you were to just read their website or its descriptions, you might mistakenly describe their business as a chicken wings restaurant. But we all know that there are a few missing keywords in that description that serve their core value prop and distinguish them from similar competitors.

There’s nothing shameful about having hidden benefits that you don’t expressly convey within your ads or on your website. Maybe your hotel welcomes all but is known best for catering to families, tourists, a religious community, foreign-speaking nationals, or people recovering from a nearby medical procedure, or maybe it has a history of being haunted. You might not want to explicitly write some of that on your website or within your ads—but if someone is specifically looking for a paranormal vacation a Sabbath-friendly accommodation, or a sanctuary nearby their treatment, advertisers can use search themes to better signal their ads within a Performance Max campaign.

3. Maximize your varied and unique search themes

Advertisers are allowed up to 25 search themes within each asset group. Generally, the more signals you can provide to Google, the better your Performance Max campaigns will perform. However, quantity isn’t the only factor in quality.

Treat your search themes similar to how you’d treat broad match keywords in your search campaigns–make sure that they aren’t effectively the same signal. For example, the search themes “car” and “automobile” will reach the exact same audience and won’t improve performance incrementally.

4. Consider competitor terms as search themes

Especially if you’re a new brand on the market–this will help Google more quickly understand who your prospects are currently searching for. Google allows bidding on your competitors’ keywords (in many cases) within your search campaigns and includes your competitor’s brands and product names as search themes. Before implementing this strategy, however, make sure that you understand any local laws or regulations about how you can advertise on competitor brands and trademarks.

5. Use traditional search campaigns alongside your Performance Max campaigns

Search themes are a powerful signal to add to your Performance Max campaigns. Even though your Performance Max campaigns will automatically target the search network, don’t neglect the importance of your search campaigns on their own.

Use search themes within your Performance Max campaigns to find new placements and scale incremental traffic and continue to apply that found insight to your search campaigns. As you build your search campaigns, be sure to incorporate exact match keywords so that they take priority over your Performance Max search theme signals, and you can continue to target, optimize, and refine your newfound traffic.

Use search themes the right way in Performance Max campaigns

Google’s new search themes beta will help advertisers share their human expertise and provide better signals to their machine learning powered Performance Max campaigns. Search themes gives you a little more control over your Performance Max campaigns, making them more effective and tailored for your audience.

Social media platforms are focusing more and more on video content. Facebook used to be a place for folks to upload their photos into albums to keep them organized and share what they’d been up to, but with the increase in popularity of TikTok and Instagram Reels, users are now so much more accustomed to scrolling through endless videos designed to make them laugh, cry, or stay informed. With this change in user behavior, it’s now more important than ever to be sure you’re creating engaging content that cuts through the noise and stands out.

An example of a Facebook video ad. 

Video ads on the Meta Business platform (which reaches Facebook and Instagram) is a great way to do this. Although the ability to churn out video ads regularly was reserved for brands with big budgets in years past, new tools and AI have helped democratize this and now any brand can advertise using high-quality videos without spending much at all.

In this post, I want to talk through some best practices for Facebook video ads and show you some tools you can use to execute those strategies.

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Facebook video ads best practices

Follow these Facebook video ad tips to squeeze the most out of your Facebook ad costs.

1. Create videos in all aspect ratios

If you’ve used Meta Ads recently, you probably know there are tons of different placements your ads can show up on the network. The good news is that to cover this vast list of placements, you only need to come up with three distinct aspect ratios for your video ads:

Having videos in each of these aspect ratios ensures you’re eligible to show in all the placements you’d like to.

We’ll talk later about how you can make these aspect ratios if you don’t have a dedicated creative team, but in the ad creation process, you’re able to select different video files to fit into each aspect ratio. Facebook will then automatically serve the creative with the right sizing for each spot to ensure you have the best-looking ads.

Now, while it might not seem like a huge deal to have all three ratios, I think it’s actually one of the easiest things you can do to help make sure your ads look good and stand out. In the image above, you can easily see how different an ad will look in the vertical and horizontal placements if you only have a square image. They’re not bad, necessarily, but they certainly don’t have the high-quality, professional look that most users have become accustomed to in recent years.

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2. Be prepared for all sound options 

If you’re a Facebook or Instagram user, you’ve likely visited the platforms in all sorts of scenarios. With full sound while sitting on your couch or in your bed. Maybe you have your headphones in while out in public, or maybe you’re even one of those crazy people with their sound up on the subway. But odds are, there have been at least a few instances where you were on those platforms and didn’t have the sound on at all. 

For each of these instances, you were bound to see ads and the level of volume you were using likely had an impact on how sticky those ads were for you. Designing your ads to be digestible regardless of a user’s sound level is highly important.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself while crafting Facebook video ads sounds:

• Do you have an engaging/entertaining voiceover?
• Is there music you can choose to fit the mood of the ad?
• Do you have subtitles for the voiceover in case someone’s sound is off?
• Is the voiceover clear and easily understandable even in a loud environment?

3. Get your main message across in the first 3 seconds

No matter what the original purpose was for someone to visit social media, the main point is that they’re not there to view your ads. I feel very confident in saying that for the majority of people visiting Facebook or Instagram, they’re not there to see what product or service you’re selling.

Similar to ads on YouTube, users are pretty easily able to skip and scroll past the ads on Facebook and Instagram. That is, unless you run non-skippable ads, but those are pretty rare. So, you need to make sure you’re making a big impact in the first few seconds of your ads…before the remainder of it is skipped. If you do a good job of creating a compelling hook in that short time, you can certainly draw their attention for longer, maybe up to 15-30 seconds, some even longer. But odds are, your views will be short so you need to be front-heavy.

In this time, it’s important to get your business name and core brand messaging across so that even if a user does scroll past you, you’ve at least made that much of an impact. They’ll have a higher chance at brand recall later if they’ve heard your name in that brief intro. This can include text, voiceover, business logos, and more, so be creative, engaging, and entertaining.

4. Blend into the platform aesthetic

In my experience, the best ads on Facebook or Instagram (I’m typically an Instagram user) are ones that blend into the platform aesthetic. The ads that typically entice me the most are the ones I don’t really know are ads until I look down to see the Sponsored messaging down at the bottom.

The best way to discover this is to become a user of the platform itself. For Instagram, go to the Explore tab and type in some of your key terms, maybe the same ones you use for search or maybe some terms that mirror the interest or behavior targeting you’re using for your campaigns.

See what the grid looks like. What shows up? What brands are there? How are they marketing to people? While you may not want to become just part of the noise, blending in allows you to make a greater impact and feel more natural to the audience. 

For example, I have a renewed interest in landscape photography and am in the market for a new camera. If I were a camera brand (or someone selling camera-adjacent things), either of the two grids above could help give an idea of what my ads can/should look like to blend into the platform. Then, make sure you follow the other best practices above to get your message across.

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5. Retarget users who engage with your videos

I might be biased, but one of the biggest mistakes I think advertisers make is not retargeting people who watch their Facebook videos. Sure, they might find their way to seeing you again through prospecting or they may remember you enough to come back to your site, but why would you target people (who you seemingly thought were valuable) once, then not work to target them again? Especially after they are already aware of you?

On the Facebook ads platform, you can make audiences of users who have engaged with your videos in many different ways. Just head to the Facebook ads audience manager and choose Video as your source for an audience.

From there, you can choose how they have interacted with those videos. Did they watch the whole thing? A certain percentage of it? Think about where your value propositions and messaging hits in those videos and be sure to include that in your audience filters.

Next, you can choose the videos you want to retarget people from. Yes, you can select only certain videos if you think they’re more impactful, part of a separate campaign, etc.

Lastly, you can choose how long you want to reengage with someone who watched those videos for that amount of time. One error I see is always setting the time frame to the longest possible setting. Now be honest…if you saw a video ad once 180 days ago, do you think you’re still a hot prospect for that brand? Probably not. Make sure you keep that in mind when making these audiences. Higher engagers can likely stick around longer, but lower engagers probably should be let free from your retargeting grasp a bit sooner. 

Helpful Facebook video ad tools

Now that we have some best practices out of the way, I want to talk about how to make the Facebook video ad creatives. Not every Facebook video ad has to be done by a hugely expensive creative shop. Some can be done just as well with your own means, and sometimes for free! Here are some of the top Facebook video ad creative resources your business can take advantage of:

Yes, phone cameras are acceptable

A big expensive camera only makes world-changing videos when there’s an amazing photographer or videographer behind the lens. For most people, a camera phone will do just fine. In many cases, they’ll do better than if you tried to use an expensive camera due to all the ways the tech companies are making them easier to use.

Next time you need to put together a video, take a shot with your phone first. Many times, those videos will turn out great, and will help fit you into the platform aesthetic naturally as much of the content on Facebook and Instagram is also shot on a phone. 

Facebook’s cropping tool

Once you have a video, there are options in Facebook ads to adjust your creatives for different sizes.

In the image above, you can see we have a square video that needs cropped to vertical. Granted, this would be a terrible user experience, but if your video does lend itself to this easy cropping, there is an option directly within Facebook to do that for you.

Facebook video builder

If you don’t already have any creatives and you need to build something almost from scratch, Facebook also has a video creation tool you can use to put together videos.

You can use existing images combined with Facebook’s video ad templates to make a video for your account. There are tons of templates that allow you to control for colors, text, timing, and more. Just lead on the user-friendly builder and you’ll end up with a platform-ready Facebook video ad in no time!

Canva

While there are some paid in-platform upgrades, Canva is a great tool to get just about any type of creative made (video or otherwise).

There are countless free templates you can customize to help promote your brand. Canva also includes easy options to convert one theme into a new aspect ratio, helping you to cover all the video sizes as I mentioned above. In short, if you’re a novice to video marketing but need to get something done, you should check Canva out.

Create great Facebook video ads today

Facebook and Instagram video ads are a great way to interact with your customer base and are only getting more necessary as other platforms lean into video. It doesn’t take any particular expertise or deep pockets to get your Facebook video ads up and running. Just a bit of patience and some guidelines and you’re on your way!

When you want to improve your results, follow these Facebook video ad best practices:

1. Create videos in all aspect ratios
2. Be prepared for all sound options
3. Get your main message across in the first 3 seconds
4. Blend into the platform aesthetic
5. Retarget users who engage with your videos

With millions of videos vying for attention, your YouTube thumbnails serve as the first point of engagement for potential viewers. These seemingly small images carry significant weight in attracting clicks and views.

YouTube thumbnails provide a snapshot of your video content, setting expectations for what viewers can expect. A well-crafted thumbnail not only piques interest but also conveys the essence of the video.

In this article, I’ll share everything you need to know about YouTube thumbnails, including tools to create them, tips to keep in mind, and other lessons I’ve learned from running my own YouTube channel.

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What is a YouTube thumbnail?

A YouTube thumbnail serves as a visual snapshot of what a video contains. It appears as a small image next to the title of the video on YouTube’s search results page, related videos section, or the recommended videos section.

This image plays a crucial role in attracting potential viewers and encouraging them to click on the video. The design and content of this thumbnail often influence the decision of a viewer to watch the video or not. Therefore, it holds significant importance in the world of YouTube content creation.

YouTube thumbnail size

The best YouTube thumbnail size is 1280×720 pixels. This is an aspect ratio of 16:9. The minimum width you should shoot for is 640 pixels.

You should also shoot for a relatively small file size—under 2MB. YouTube thumbnails can be saved as JPGs, GIFs, or PNGs.

YouTube thumbnail tips

Your YouTube journey begins with a single image—the thumbnail. This seemingly small, but critically important element is the initial gateway for your viewers.

“If people don’t click, they don’t watch. So, you want to give them something to click,” said YouTube star MrBeast.

Here are some tips to create effective YouTube thumbnails.

Make them engaging

Think of your thumbnails as digital hooks to capture your audience’s attention. Make them visually striking, vibrant, and engaging.

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Be consistent

Building a recognizable brand on YouTube starts with consistency in your thumbnail design. A uniform style helps viewers easily identify your content. In addition to consistency in your thumbnail design, keeping a close eye on others in your field who share your audience is a smart strategy.

Checking out what your competitors are up to can give you helpful clues about how many people click on their stuff. This helps you see how your channel’s look, content, titles, and colors stack up, so you can ensure you’re putting your best foot forward.

As you can see below, MrBeast’s thumbnails are visually striking and attention-grabbing, featuring bold colors, expressive facial expressions, and compelling imagery. He maintains a consistent style in his thumbnails, making them instantly recognizable to his viewers and helping build a strong brand presence on YouTube.

Represent your video accurately

Your thumbnail should provide an honest representation of your video. Misleading thumbnails can lead to viewer frustration and backlash.

Create an emotional impact

It’s well known that emotions are contagious. This means that watching someone else have an emotional reaction to something can cause you to have the same reaction.

Humans react to other human faces, and it’s an easy trick to get more people to click on your YouTube videos. Humans will naturally assess the emotional state of the face. When their mouth is open, it’s usually to show that they are surprised. When someone sees this surprised reaction, they are enticed to see what is so surprising.

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Learn and adapt

Continuously analyze your analytics to adapt your content and strategy based on audience feedback and changing trends.

The thumbnail below was my first to go well (in relation to my other videos). The simple title in the thumbnail, the upward arrow, society’s current fascination with ChatGPT, the length of the video, me in it—smiling and wearing something that matched the color scheme of the thumbnail. These are things I took note of as potential drivers of success for future videos and thumbnails.

Source

Free YouTube thumbnail makers

Here are a few YouTube thumbnail creation tools to try, including the one I use for all my thumbnails.

1. Fotor

I use an app called Fotor to create my thumbnails. Fotor is a fantastic all-in-one platform that makes thumbnail creation a breeze. It’s an easy-to-use photo editing and graphic design tool, available in web, desktop, and mobile versions. It provides a full suite of tools that cover most image editing needs, including face retouching and image-generative AI.

Fotor also includes advanced AI-powered tools such as background remover, image enlarger, and object remover, which make complex edits simple.

I created a super simple video walkthrough where I use it to create a YouTube thumbnail. Check it out here.

2. Canva

Canva is a design tool (with a free option) that can help you create impactful YouTube thumbnails. Simply navigate to the site, choose YouTube thumbnail as your design option, and find an already-created template to customize or create your own design.

Within Canva, you can adjust colors, add your own images, and brand your YouTube thumbnail with your business logo.

3. Visme

Visme is another online design tool that makes it easy to create YouTube thumbnails. Like Canva, Visme has already created templates that you can choose and customize according to your branding.

Simply choose your template, customize it, download it, and you’re all set!

Start making effective YouTube thumbnails with ease

Creating a great YouTube thumbnail is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to effective video marketing on the site. But the right YouTube thumbnail strategy can help you build consistency, attract people to click on your videos, and increase engagement with your content.