Ad Secrets Exposed: Masterworks

Hi there!

Welcome to the second installment of Your Brain on Ads! We dissect winning ads to help you become a smarter social advertiser.

This week, we’re focusing on an ad from Masterworks.

What Is Masterworks?

Masterworks allows average investors to purchase shares of blue-chip art pieces. They claim art price appreciation has outpaced the S&P 500 by 131% over the last 26 years.

Here’s what I noticed when giving their ad a closer look.

What Makes This Ad Effective?

• Curiosity 🧐

  • “Your financial advisor can’t get you access” and “A new way to invest” stir up curiosity and make you want to learn more. You think “I wonder what this new way to invest is!” And so you click!

• Exclusivity 😎 

  • “Your financial advisor can’t give you access” is brilliant. We all want what we can’t have. Having a waitlist adds to the illusion that not everyone can use the product. For the type of person who wants to invest in art, this is likely highly seductive.

• Creative Targeting 🎯

  • This ad is highly likely to catch the eye of middle-aged men who are nearing retirement. There’s an image of a middle-aged man. The copy mentions “retiring comfortably.”

• FOMO 😥

  • “People are retiring comfortably with this asset class,” creates a sense of fear that other people have figured out how to retire comfortably and you might not.

• Objection Handling 🙋‍♂️

  • People may think “How much would I need to invest? I might not have enough money” Masterclass handles this objection in the headline.

Some Test-Worthy Ideas

• Stronger Primary Text

  • “A new way to invest” isn’t horrible, but it could be much stronger. Something like “Discover an investing secret of the ultra-rich – an asset class that has beaten the S&P 500 by 131% over the last 26 years. Masterworks has made it available to the average investor (and the ultra-rich aren’t too happy their secret is out).”

• Alternate Headlines

  • “Investments start at $1k” works because it handles an objection. I would also test headlines like: “Beat the S&P 500.” “Want to Beat the S&P 500"?” “Crypto Can’t Match This Asset,“ and “Retire With A Stable Investment.”

• Persona Variations

  • I would create several variations of this ad aimed at different customer personas – retirement-aged women, young professional men who want to retire early, young professional women who want to retire early, and people who like alternative investments like cryptocurrency.

Applying These Learnings To Your Ads 💰

That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!

Sean

If you’d like help with your advertising, email me at [email protected] or message me on LinkedIn. I run a marketing agency called PureFunnel that helps tech companies grow with Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads.