4 Free Digital Marketing Tools That Simplify Social Media Ad Creation
Creating eye-popping ads with thumb-stopping copy can take a long time, especially if you have no experience doing it. That is unless you are using the right tools that make the job easier.
I mean, you wouldn’t use a saw to hit a nail, right? Or a rake? Or a tire iron? It might work, but it’s inefficient (and dangerous. If you are doing any of these, please stop).
If you are a non-marketer or small business owner looking to get ads out there for your audience to see, it’s important that you use the right tools for the job. With the right tools, you can create quality ads for your side-hustle or small business faster without having to sacrifice dinnertime with the kids after work, going out for drinks with the guys or gals, or making it to that pilates class that you swore you wouldn’t skip this week. With these tools, you can create ads fast and with consistency leaving you with more free time.
Here are some FREE tools that will save you the headache associated with continuous ad creation:
Canva
If you want to create stunning graphics and designs Photoshop is your one-stop-shop. It’s seriously deep. Photoshop is so deep that many times it's too feature-rich for most uses. That’s where Canva and its user-friendly and intuitive interface come in.
Creating graphics is as simple as dragging and snapping your assets into place, and with a massive library of free fonts, stock free graphics, animations, and the ability to upload pictures, images, and assets yourself, Canva really is the jack of all trades for those who need relatively simple design work in a jiffy.
Many experienced designers opt to use Canva because of its ease of use and robust set of features. While Photoshop is not obsolete, for most, there are just too many options and too much of a time investment needed in mastering the program. Canva can be used more intuitively by the regular, everyday joe.
Grammarly & Hemingway
Writing expert copy for your ads can mean the difference between converting and not converting a user. Readability, simplicity, and grammatical correctness play a major factor in the decision-making process for social media users, and one odd sentence or misplaced comma could mean losing the attention of your prospect. In an instant, they have already scrolled past your ad onto what they believe are bigger, better, and brighter products and services on their feed.
With Grammarly, you can input your ad copy to ensure that you have smoked out any oddities and errors that can cause this to happen. Grammarly suggests changes to grammar, structure, and rates your copy to see just how well it flows and the impact it makes. It’s simple, easy to use, and a great way to double-check your work.
Hemingway is a little bit different. Hemingway makes suggestions like Grammarly to reinforce the use of active voice, make recommendations based on writing best practices and tells you more ways to improve your writing which is pay-gated to Grammarly’s premium version.
Hemingway’s main competitive advantage is its readability scale. Great copy is typically at a Grade 8 reading level, meaning that if your writing is any more complex than that, you can lose your audience's attention.
Using both of these in combination can help you self-edit more effectively, without the need for an “editor.” These tools are so useful, they were used to help edit this article!
Filmora Wondershare
Sometimes your social media advertising needs a bit more “oomph.” Videos are perfect to engage your audience, spread your message in more creative and innovative ways, and help you honour your brand’s story.
Adobe offers Premiere Pro, but again, you will be paying out of pocket for it. The best free solutions for video editing come in the form of Filmora Wondershare, a software that has become increasingly popular.
Filmora Wondershare is available on both PC & Mac and does a great job emulating many of Premiere Pro’s features. Again, Premiere Pro and After Effects are both complex tools like Photoshop, and many times you won’t need in-depth colour grading or audio editing to make your videos, you just need the ability to add some simple transitions, cuts, and overlays.
Filmora can also be used on your iPad or mobile device, which allows you to edit on the go.
Google Alerts
Google Alerts can help you get a leg up on your competition when it comes to jumping on industry trends. Simply tag some keywords that you want Google to track, and you will be alerted daily on all the latest search engine activity and content on that subject or keyword.
If your content is mainly about beating out other people to the trending memes to readapt for your brand or business, or if you want to display some thought leadership, Google Alerts will be your new best friend. Just make sure you are checking your Gmail inbox for your alerts, or you could miss out on that next viral ad.
Answer The Public
Keywords are the lifeblood of optimizing your content for search engines, and amongst some of the best keyword tools is Answer The Public. Simply type in a keyword you want to target, and ATP will churn out the when, where, what, why, how, and other keywords that people are searching for by volume. Darker green bubbles indicate more search volume, so you can prioritize keywords in any specific niche that may give you traction.
You might have an idea on content that you want to create for your brand, but not the exact phrases people are looking up. This should help you really understand your target audience, what they are searching for, and how to answer their search queries.
Give Them All A Shot
Although free tools are great, some may just not be for you. We recommend testing them out and experimenting with them to make sure they are actually making your life easier instead of complicating things. As always, if things are working for you, there’s no reason to change up your formula. But if you feel like you are sinking a lot of time into your ad creation process, these tools might help.
With AdPuzl, you can use an intuitive, straightforward, no-nonsense template that helps you build an ad and surrounding campaign in minutes.
You can use all the tools above to help you create an ad, but if you are using all of these and still relying on the complexity of Meta’s business suite or ads manager, then these tools become redundant in helping you save time and effort.
With AdPuzl you just feed in your ad copy, URL, description, headline, a call to action, and a graphic (whether that's your own Canva creation or using our library of thousands of stock images) into our easy to use template. Pick who you want to target with your ads and your budget (don’t worry we have a smart budget recommendation system) and you are ready to post it live for the world to see!
It’s a tool that will help you combine all the tools above and bring it all together.
Try AdPuzl, our social media marketing tool for “non-marketers” that will help you reduce the complexity of using native Facebook and Instagram ad creation tools, then click here.
We hope it is a mainstay in your ad creation toolbox!
