If you’re struggling to move people to buy, analyze your ads to ensure you’re optimizing for the right mood. One study suggests that even browsing potential purchases (and not buying) alleviates feelings of sadness. To apply this to marketing, ensure your imagery mirrors the intended mood – as Calm does with peaceful, relaxing imagery in its meditation app ads. Make the ordinary feel extraordinary, which IKEA does with a clever crib ad. Work backward from the emotion you want people to feel to determine what mood your ads should invoke.

The endowment effect is when people irrationally overvalue things once they have a sense of ownership over them. Potential customers will value your product more if you can give them the feeling that they own it. Free trials and test drives make customers feel this way even though they haven’t bought anything. A money-back guarantee allows people to truly own something with minimal risk. Giveaways make the customer used to the paid experience. Using “you” or “your” in copywriting subtly makes the reader feel more ownership.

Mimetic Desire is when people want something because they believe others also want it. This is why marketers use models or examples to show the desirability of their product or service. To create Mimetic Desire, brands can embrace popular trends, as Apple did when releasing iPhones in Pantone’s Color of the Year — twice. They can also lean into selling an experience instead of a product, as luxury car brands often do. Social proof with tangible examples of results is a tried and true way to show customers why your product is desirable.

The Door-In-The-Face technique is based on Reciprocal Concession, a phenomenon where people agree to a smaller request after a large one is made. For example, someone is more likely to agree to a basic gym package after they've turned down a premium package with a high price tag. Brands looking to apply this psychological principle should present hot leads with the highest-priced package first before following up with lesser options. Other tactics include making an affordable alternative easily accessible and offering a free trial.

The Labor Illusion explains why people may value something more when they think it takes a lot of effort. For example, a study found that homebuyers rated apartments 36% better if they'd been told a real estate agent had spent 9 hours researching, compared to a group told that their agent spent 1 hour. Brands can use this psychological principle by telling prospects in ads how much work went into the product, showing the thought process behind outcomes in product descriptions, or copying the scarcity and exclusivity in Hermes' buying process.