How using humans in your content affects eCommerce lead generation

The use of humans/models in advertising is a debated topic, with some brands always using humans in their ads and others never using them.

However, it is generally agreed that humans in ads can create better performance.

This is particularly true in certain industries, where the use of humans can help create an association of how the product would look and feel with the viewer.

Additionally, using humans in content can be useful for lead generation, as it can help create an audience that can be later retargeted and enrolled in email campaigns.

This is largely because when humans look at images, research has shown that they tend to notice faces first. This is due to our biology, which enables us to process faces quickly and efficiently as the first thing we see in an image.

Let’s take a deeper dive into how to use humans in your ecommerce ads to get more leads!

Having humans in your content when doing lead generation as an eCommerce, is a good idea.

We found that showing a real person in your content can increase lead generation rate by 58% compared to not showing a human!

In eCommerce, using real people in your content can make a big difference and can make your content less spammy and more personal.

This is why using real people in your content can be a great idea when it comes to lead generation campaigns.

Read about models in remarketing campaigns.

It's a safer bet than just using product photos, and even though the costs of a photo shoot may be higher, the returns on your investment can be much higher at a large scale.

Even if you're on a tight budget, you can still use your team or CEO in your ads!

Try and use humans in your content when running lead generation to improve performance.

While using humans in your content can be beneficial for lead generation, it's important to remember that the type of ad you're running matters.

In some cases, using real people in your content can actually decrease performance.

Having humans in the content when you’re doing competitions, actually decreases performance

While competitions are generally a great way to generate leads, people are more interested in the prize they can win than in the person behind the competition.

As a result, using human beings in your content could possibly decrease performance by 8%!

Even though the decrease in performance is not that large, it's important to test and see if it works for your particular audience.

Every industry is different, and you might find that using humans in your content for competitions may actually increase performance.

But in general, the focus should be on the prize, not the person behind the competition.

To avoid performance loss during lead generation, try to minimize using humans in your ad content when doing competitions.

When it comes to running a lead generation campaign using competitions, it may be an exception to not include humans in your content.

Learn to create the perfect lead-gen competition.

But overall, incorporating humans into your content can be a successful strategy, especially when promoting something like new products.

When launching news, have humans in your content!

When advertising new products, it is very beneficial to include human beings in the content.

This is even more apparent for lead generation ads talking about “news” - as showing a human increases performance by 175%!

This is because by including a human in the content, the brand launching the new products becomes more relatable and personal, increasing performance.

Humans can also help bridge the gap between the product and the consumer by showing the product in use, which develops trust and allows consumers to imagine using it themselves.

We found that by using human beings in content for new products and lead generation can result in 175% more leads for the same number of impressions!

Therefore, when promoting new products, it is important to include human beings in the content to increase performance.

Test out using humans in your lead generation campaigns

Incorporating humans in e-commerce content can be an effective way to improve performance and generate more leads.

By using real people in your content, you can see a slight increase in performance compared to not showing a human.

However, remember to keep in mind that when you’re running competitions, it might be a good idea to minimize using humans in your content as it can hurt your performance.

On the other hand when launching new products, try your best to include human beings in the content as it can possibly result in dramatically more leads.

Lasty, remember, it is important to test and see what works best for your particular audience as every industry is different!

Data section

The dataset from this article is based on 944M impressions and 3.4K pieces of individual content on Meta (Facebook) platforms. It takes into account data from all countries and industries, with the campaign objective of Lead Generation or Outcome Leads. The period is from 1. September 2021 - 16. September 2022.

Numbers are looking at correlation only, not causation. Remember to check your own data: numbers for different brands, industries, and contexts will vary.

If you were intrigued about a specific insight, you can go in-depth into the various dimensions and how data can be segmented in Confect, here.