Facebook has the largest audience out of any social media network in the world with over 2.7 billion monthly users. Running ads on this platform has the potential for an enormous amount of exposure for your business’s products or services. Facebook ads have evolved quite a bit since the initial launch of business pages in 2007. Fast forward to 2020 and we now have a range of ad formats to choose from. The purpose of this blog is to give a brief overview of the most popular Facebook ad formats and discuss how they work and how to utilize them to get the most out of your ad spend.

Image Ads

Image ads are the most basic form of Facebook ads, but that doesn’t mean they are ineffective! Single image ads are great if you don’t have a ton of resources or time to spend on creating an ad or ad sets. They are often used to raise awareness of tangible products or services throughout the feeds of potential buyers or users. You will often see products such as cars, clothing, gadgets, etc, being promoted using single image ads. Or, similar to the example on the left, single image ads work well to drive sign-ups for webinars, courses, or similar special events as displayed by Hubspot!

 

Video Ads

If you have the resources and technical skills to create a professional video, I would highly recommend utilizing Facebook video ads for your next campaign! Video ads allow you to demonstrate the functionality of your products, give a personality to your brand, and most importantly grab and retain the attention of your viewers. It’s probably no surprise that viewers will spend, on average, 5x longer watching a video than looking at a still image. This format has proven to be one of the most effective in driving engagement and increasing conversion rates.

For example, Hulu uses video ads to promote their advertising capabilities fit for small businesses. Using a vertical video ad format, they put together a captivating video to convey the message. Vertical videos are great for mobile users and will optimize their ad experience. When launching your next video campaign, consider your mobile traffic if that is where your audience is! 

 

Carousel Ads

This format allows you to display up to 10 different images or video clips within one ad. Each picture/video you incorporate into the ad can be accompanied by its own unique link. Carousel ads can be used in a number of ways. They are perfect for highlighting multiple products or even multiple aspects of a single product. People also use Carousel ads to give step-by-step instructions on how their product works or to tell the story behind their brand. It’s safe to say there is a lot of room for creativity. There is also an option to let Facebook optimize the order of the images based on their engagement rate and expected performance. Facebook has reported that enabling this feature has helped increase click-through rates by an average of 12%.

Slideshow Ads

This format is a great option if you want to create a short video that incorporates text, photos, and short video clips with seamless transitions. Slideshows have the ability to grab attention with the use of motion much like a video but do not require any production costs. They also use 5x less data than videos so you can use them to promote in markets that may have slower internet connections. Facebook provides a handful of templates for you to choose from and gives you the option to pull stock images straight from Ads manager if you don’t have images of your own.

Hopefully this blog post has expanded your knowledge on a few of the ad formats available on Facebook and has given you some ideas on how you can adjust your marketing strategy to get the results you are looking for. If you have any questions about social media advertising or would like assistance with your digital marketing efforts, talk to Nowspeed!