The 4 Greatest Psychology Studies on Advertising

𝟭. 𝗘𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘃𝘀. 𝗟𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰

IPA studied 1,400 ad campaigns.
They found emotion-only ads =
2X more likely to deliver major profit gains than rational ones.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗱:

We buy with feelings.
Then back it up with logic.

Source:

bit.ly/4nKW2ud 𝟮. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝟱 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘀

Google tested 3 hook types to see which one converted best.

Product-first = high clicks
Story-first = brand lift
Branding-first = worst

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗱:
You only get one shot to earn attention.

Source: bit.ly/4nKh3VK

🚨PSA: Your customer avatar is probably wrong.

It’s not your fault. The entire industry has been running the same lazy playbook for years. 😵‍💫

Here’s a better way to truly understand your audience—step by step: Hard truth: Most marketers confuse *data* with *insight*. 😬

Most brands know their customer’s basic info:

• Male
• 25-45
• Likes fitness

But that’s not a profile. That’s just a demographic checkbox.

To actually connect, you need to go deeper…

Paying $5 for coffee sounds crazy…

But paying $5 for a 2-hour experience that fuels your morning?

That’s a bargain. 🤩

When in comes to CVR, price isn’t your problem—it’s the value story.

Here’s 9 ways to frame your product’s price in terms of what it unlocks: Cost Per Use

Show how often customers will use your product to make the price feel justified.

Example: A $150 jacket worn 3x a week for 3 winters = just 50¢ per wear.

Longevity turns “expensive” into a smart investment.

Most marketers start by asking:

1. Who is our target audience?
2. What is their problem?
3. How can we get them to buy?

But smart marketers know…it’s actually faster / cheaper / easier to start with the "when."

Truth is, timing matters more than anything else. Here’s why: Humans are more likely to buy when the timing feels right emotionally. (AKA: “Temporal Relevance.”)

For instance:

🔸 You don’t crave pumpkin spice in April, you want it in September.

🔸 You’re not buying swimsuits in December (unless you’re escape-planning), you buy in June.

90% of markers operate from outdated, archaic "best practices" that have been debunked for years. 😱

Here's 9 scientific marketing studies (ones I've tested with real brands) that had bottom line impact: 1 / Put your discount on the right.

Studies show that customers perceive discounts as *larger* if the discount is featured to the *right* of the original price, like so:

O̶r̶i̶g̶i̶n̶a̶l̶ P̶r̶i̶c̶e̶ | Discount

https://twitter.com/1408767063955439623/status/1820883209682407549

I’ve been in marketing for 15 years and NEVER knew this! 🤯

You can increase CVR by 50% just by asking a question (instead of using a statement) in your ads—but ONLY if the ad presents a calm environment:

✅ "Need a break today?"
❌ "You deserve a break today." According to Ariyh: "Using a question in ads can increase sales by up to 50% when shoppers feel calm but decrease sales by up to 87% when they are nervous or excited."

FACT: The post purchase survey is basically a modern-day focus group.

Here’s how to build a psych-based PPS so you can tap into what your customers are REALLY thinking: 🚨Warning: it’s important to know …

Traditional questions like “How did you like our product?” often fail to unearth the deeper emotional insights that drive customer behavior.

To uncover your customer’s hidden motivations, we have to go beyond surface-level feedback…

🚨 If your ads are seeing quick growth and an even quicker crash, here’s what I want you to do… 1 / Take your 10 best testimonials.
2 / Copy and paste into ChatGPT.
3 / Ask Chat to analyze for the top 3 emotional motivators.
4 / Ask Chat to give you 5 headlines (4-7 words long) based on the analysis.

Chat will usually make something lame. 😆 So here’s how to make it great:

DTC Twitter be like…

“Just test more hooks!”
“You need better creative.”
“Diversity is key!”

Of course you should be testing hooks, generating higher quality creative, and keeping your media mix diverse…

But that’s not the reason your ads aren’t working. Trying to solve your CVR, CPA, or Spend issues with “creative CRO” won’t drive sales.

Your audience may stop and watch for a minute. They may even like, share, or click on your ad…

But then they’ll scroll right on by.

I truly believe the sheer number of A/B variables you COULD test within an ad is the exact reason why it takes so long to find a winner.

Here’s the simplified formula I use to find winners within the first 9 ads: STEP 1: identify common emotions within your TAM.

I use a combo of natural language processing (NLP), @trigger_pointer’s Mindstate Model, & review mining to do this, but you can ask Chat to analyze customer data for core emotions as well.

Once you’ve ID’d your top 3 emotions….

How marketers think people buy:

1. Buyer sees ad.
2. Buyer clicks ad.
3. Buyer purchases.

Versus how people *actually* buy: 1. Buyer sees ad.
2. Buyer gets distracted by cat.
3. Buyer forgets about brand.
4. Buyer sees organic post 3 days later.
5. Buyer likes organic post.
6. Buyer scrolls on...

Almost all the 9-fig brands I’ve worked with use the same creative strategy.

Oddly enough, it’s such a simple strategy that I can explain it in just 6 tweets:

(Really, just bookmark this one). We talk so much about account structure, finding quality creators, and matching your message to your market — I think we forget how simple paid advertising really is.

Here’s a simple formula:

🚀 Not sure who needs this right now, but here's the 9 go-to ChatGPT prompts I use on the daily to write psychology-based ad copy: 1 / Acceptance Prompt.

Give me 10 ad headlines (4-7 words long) that persuades [product] customers that they'll feel accepted with [brand] product.

🧠 How to beat the system and sell an additional 100,000 units...using psychology: From 2001 to 2005 Nintendo sold an additional 100,000 units of their flagship product using a little known psychology hack. Before this, they were using a bundling method that was unfortunately all too common in the space...

In 2021, three first-time brand founders crossed the 8-figure mark, capturing over 150,000 customers worldwide & generating $25M in just 24 months.

Their brand is one of the greatest DTC success stories of all time.

Here’s why Obvi became a breakout brand…when others didn’t: According to Jared Schrieber’s bestselling book, Breakout Brands, there’s 6 core things all “breakout” brands have in common:

1. Ties to culture and lifestyle.
2. Wide usage occasions.
3. Wide purchase occasions.
4. Peak product experience.
5. Brand equity
6. Product attraction.

I spent 4 hours this weekend reading the Handbook on the Psychology of Pricing by Dr. Markus Husemann-Kopetzky.

Here’s * 8 * pricing psychology facts you need to know before you start discounting: 1 / The ending matters…a lot.

Studies have shown that low priced products sell better if they end with 99. Higher priced products sell better if they end in 95.

In 2010, Old Spice increased the sales of a failing flagship product by a whopping 60% using a super simple psychology hack.

Their agency worked for months to develop a strategy that would save the brand.

I'll teach you how they did it in just 3 minutes: Launched as "Early American Old Spice" by William Lightfoot Schultz's soap in 1937, Old Spice practically invented the men's body wash category.

But after 73 years in the business, competition was starting to creep on their profits.

Old spice needed a Hail Mary, and fast.

In 2014, KFC increased the sale of one of their flagship products by 56% using a super simple psychology hack.

They spent weeks working with the team at Ogilvy to crack the code.

I’ll teach you how they did it in just 3 minutes: KFC used to run a seasonal promotion to the Australian market for their iconic “$1.00 fries”.

Their customer base loved this promotion, but it had been fatiguing in the past few years.

KFC needed to kick things up a notch, so here’s what they did:

Thinking of doing a dopamine detox?

I just did a 14 day detox, limiting anything that would unnecessarily increase my dopamine. This meant:

❌ No Twitter
❌ No Facebook
❌ No Instagram
❌ No TikTok
❌ No Email
❌ No TV

Here's what I learned... ⭐️ Before you begin...

I highly recommend you do 1-2 days of prep work before you start. I spent the week before setting vacay responders, prepping my clients, & setting phone app limits. Note: the iPhone won't let you set your app limit to 0 🙄 so I just set it to 1 minute.

🌵Recently worked with a brand who was struggling to generate creative…period.

Their remote team was in a creative rut.

They struggled to meet deadlines, had poor idea generation, & had low creative output.

Their ad performance was heavily affected by their disorganization. I helped them implement a new framework which included in-depth consumer psychology training, creative strategy development, and internal creative management.

Within two weeks the entire team was less stressed, more organized, and started to produce BETTER creative.

🚨 If you're going to run ads, a creative strategy is a must...

…And if you're going to run a creative strategy, an AD strategy is a must. 💰

This is the exact ad strategy I use to help brands cut their advertising costs by 40%.

Here’s how it works… Step one: use customer research to pinpoint psychographic customer insights. We’re looking for the what, how, when, why, who, and where so we can apply it to the next step…