Hello my nerdy friends,
Do fear-based ads actually get more conversions?
Let’s take a look.
The study:
Researchers combined results from 127 experiments with 27,000+ participants. In each study, people saw a fear-based message or a less negative version, and researchers measured attitudes, intentions, or behaviors like signing up or taking action (Tannenbaum et al., 2015).
🧪What they found:
Fear-based ads increased persuasion overall.
But results depended a lot on how the ad was built.
Ads with a clear action step were about 2x stronger.
Example from the studies: “Exercise leads to higher levels of high-density lipoprotein and thus prevents heart attacks”.
Ads that made the risk feel personal performed better.
Example from the studies: “One of fourteen women is destined to develop breast cancer during her life” became more persuasive when the message added, “You also run that risk!”.
Ads asking for a one-time action worked better than ads asking for ongoing habits.
Example from the studies: “signing up for a stress management training” worked better than behaviors that had to be repeated over time, like regular exercise.
And across all studies, fear appeals did not perform worse than control conditions.
Why?
When our brain sees something that could harm us, it shifts attention to that problem and starts trying to fix it.
If the ad gives a clear next step, it makes us feel good, because we see that there is a solution to resolve the fear.
When the risk feels personal, the problem feels more real. Our brain treats it as something that could actually happen, so it takes it more seriously.
And a one-time step feels easier than something you have to keep doing. Our brain is more likely to go along with a simple, finite action.
💡Takeaway
If you plan to use fear in ads, make sure that: the next step is obvious, the action feels easy to do once, and people feel the risk is personal.
See you next week,
Ksenia (the biggest nerd)
P.S. a word from today’s sponsor, Hubspot!
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