Hey 👋 The Crew here.
Did you know that both “campaign” and “conversion” start with the letter “c” and end with the letter “n?”
Coincidence? We think not.
Reading time: 4 minutes, 29 seconds
New to Psychology of Marketing? Join us for free 🤝
You can now get AI guidance on crafting the perfect ad creative
Thanks to a powerful mix of neuroscience and AI, you can now get instant feedback on your visuals.
That’s what Neurons does. It helps you fine-tune your ad ideas quickly, helping you save time and reduce costs.
How effective is it?
Well, Neurons users have seen a 29%–32% increase in click-through rates and a 20% boost in brand awareness—all while slashing ad spend.
As one user said, “Our advertisers have really fallen in love with Neurons. Each iteration saves them time and money on their campaigns.”
And that’s not all. With Neurons, you’ll also:
- Position your ads for the highest conversions long before you launch your campaign.
- Create visuals that linger in your audience’s minds.
- Get tailored recommendations that meet the unique demands of your industry.
Why wait to find out what works after you’ve spent your budget?
Salience bias
In 1975, S. E. Taylor and S.T. Fiske sat two actors on a stage. The observers, who were positioned to see the face of only one actor, agreed that the “visible” actor played a bigger role.
… Only that wasn’t the case.
The reason the observers thought the visible actor played the bigger role was simply because… well, the actor was visible.
Taylor and Fiske attributed their understandable mistake to “perceptual salience,” which laid the groundwork for Salience bias.
Put simply, Salience bias means we pay attention to the most prominent, unexpected, or contrasting elements.
And, as you probably guessed, Salience bias affects our decision-making.
Imagine passing by a jewelry store every day. After a few days, you get desensitized and stop noticing what’s in the shop window. Until one day, a new, huge, bright ruby ring appears that catches your eye.
You stop to admire it. You even contemplate getting it for you or your loved one.
This happens more often than you think, too:
- A car shopper ignores a vehicle’s high fuel consumption because of its awesome design.
- Your resume stands out among the rest, giving you a bigger chance of being hired.
- You easily spot a pink-haired person in a crowd, or a red tree in a sea of green.
You can probably think of a few examples on your own.
And because standing out is such a big part of advertising, it’s only logical that Salience bias can amplify your efforts. Let’s see how.
Three ways you can leverage Salience bias
1) Stand out with your unique value proposition (UVP)
Contrast how you do things with how your competitors do them.
And lead with your unique value proposition—the thing that makes your brand stand out—as the salient item.
For example, DuckDuckGo’s UVP is an online browser that doesn’t track your data, letting you browse the web in peace. Here’s how they turned their UVP into an ad:
Basically, your competitors are like blades of grass—and your UVP is the colorful flower rising above them.
That’s the last allegory for today, we promise.
2) Make yourself prominent through color
Despite fluctuations in percentages, all the research confirms one thing: We are visual creatures.
We rely on visual cues a lot, whether we’re looking for food or comparing software.
So using attention-grabbing hues and strategic placements can help your entire ad—or certain elements of your ad—stand out in the crowd.
There’s no single approach to this. But you can note two things:
- Your ad creative should contrast the interface of the platform you’re showing it on.
- Your ad can use complementary colors to stand out.
Here’s how Stabilo used the second option to maximum advantage. It created salience with the yellow highlighter, while also telling a story about its product:
Genius.
3) Use killer hooks
This is where you may wish you were a master copywriter, or knew one.
Attention-grabbing copy is the most salient item you can have in your ad, because it’s probably the number one thing that would “stop the scroll” and arrest the eyeballs.
Here’s what we’re talking about:
Hinge makes it eye-catching, short, and effective.
Doesn’t take much, does it?
LEAD GENERATION: Are your signup forms being ignored? Maybe it’s time for a more irresistible offer, or just a bit more visibility. HubSpot’s free guide on lead generation is packed with insights to help you get more leads, ASAP. Download it now.*
MUST-KNOW B2B BENCHMARKS: So it’s been weeks and you still haven’t closed that B2B deal. No worries—the average journey typically takes six months. Dreamdata’s report shares insights like this and more based on 414 B2B companies they analyzed. Download the free report now.*
SEO: Imagine someone hands you all Google’s ranking secrets on a plate? Well, it happened. An anonymous source leaked over 14,000 attributes that Google takes into account when ranking pages and—lo and behold—a lot of those contradict the company’s public statements.
REDDIT: …went public recently. And since advertising amounts to 98% of the platform’s revenue, it has to work quite hard to keep that money going. Which is good news for us marketers, right? If you were considering running ads on Reddit, check this report out.
CRO: Want to discount a product? Apparently, you’ll sell more if you reduce prices for “guilty pleasure” items such as chocolate or board games. The reason? In those cases, people need to validate their purchase—and getting a pleasurable item at a cut price is justifiable. Nice.
*This is a sponsored post.
ICYMI, last time we looked at the Zero-Price Effect.
The “Prominent” Crew
Interested in advertising in one of our newsletters?
Connect with over 100,000 of the world’s best marketers who read a newsletter by Stacked Marketer.
