Facebook’s advertising formats: our tips to create successful ads

Facebook’s single image and video ads are part of the essential formats offered by the social network.

The photo format allows you to promote a product or service in your catalogue quickly and easily. Although this format is easy to implement, you should not neglect the image quality. Make sure you choose an attractive photo and write a clear and catchy message to encourage users to click on your ad.

Fun and interactive, video ads are a particularly effective medium for presenting a product in more detail, displaying the product in all its forms, making usage demonstrations and highlighting its benefits for the end user.

NB: Facebook recommends a video length of up to 15 seconds.

These two advertising formats are appropriate if you want to increase the traffic of your e-commerce site or redirect your visitors. For example, you can set up a retargeting campaign for users who have watched 25 to 100% of your video.

Facebook also provides advertisers with a slideshow ad format which allows you to create a slideshow from photos or videos.

This hybrid format allows you to broadcast up to 10 images and/or videos in a single ad. The means you can highlight several products/services from your latest collection, present products from different angles, or share customer feedback via testimonials.

You’ll find the Dynamic Ads format within Carousel ads. This personalized ad format automatically offers users (customers or prospects) products from your catalogue based on their behavior and interests.

Collection ads improve the consumer’s shopping experience, from product discovery to purchase from a mobile device. This advertising format gives you the opportunity to promote your product catalogue with a video or main image accompanied by 4 product miniatures. It is ideal to promote your brand and/or several products from a single image/video. By clicking on the images, internet users can discover more information about your offer.

Instant Experience (formerly Facebook Canvas) are advertising extensions that provide users with an immersive full-screen experience as soon as a user interacts with an ad from a mobile device. These extensions can be added to most Facebook advertising formats when they are created: single image, single video, carousel, collection and slideshow. Once in the “experience” mobile users are displayed videos or carousel photos, fill out a form to generate a lead, or visualise further images of identified products.

NB: These extensions are useful for A/B testing and increasing your conversion rates.

Used by more than half a billion people daily, the Stories on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp are increasingly popular. You can promote your products/services in Stories from the carousel and unique image and video advertising formats. This format will increase your sales, since more than half of the internet users who use stories report making online purchases via stories.

Before you start building your ads, start by choosing a marketing objective. To do this, Facebook provides advertisers with three categories of objectives: awareness (brand awareness, etc.), consideration (traffic, lead generation, etc.) and conversion (conversions, catalogue sales, point-of-sale traffic, etc). The choice of your objective is essential when constructing your ads because it will impact the choice of your advertising format, your message and your visual content. Whatever the advertising formats you adopt, make sure you choose action call buttons and landing pages carefully to generate new leads and increase your customer portfolio.

In an advertisement, the most important aspect is the message you wish to convey to your audience. It must be clear, understandable and consistent with your advertising to encourage internet users to learn more about your brand or offer. If you run multiple sets of ads within a single campaign, make sure your message is consistent.

NB: Facebook advises you to promote your brand within 3 seconds after a video has been launched for video format ads.

Visual content is the first thing users notice when they are displayed your ad. To provide users with the best possible experience, be sure to follow Facebook’s recommendations regarding the size and quality of the files imported based on the selected ad format. For more information, consult the Facebook Advertising Guide.

Before you stop to think about a specific ad, don’t hesitate to test both the various static and dynamic formats offered by Facebook. The social network provides advertisers with a Creative Hub: a creative space which helps create advertising models before you launch your campaign and to inspire new ideas for advertisements. Do not hesitate to diversify the placement of your ads (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) to reach as many people as possible!

If you want to sell your products from the Facebook social network, get in touch with our team!

Images: Facebook.