Facebook offers a wide variety of ad types that you can use in your online advertising campaigns. Knowing what options this social network offers is important to choose the right format, creativity and the audience we want to target. Now that we know how to choose the objective of our campaigns and how to choose our target audience, it is time to choose the type of ad we are going to use in Facebook Ads.
Placement of Facebook ads: where will they appear?
Facebook’s ad tool encompasses both Facebook itself and Instagram, as well as an external placement, the Audience Network. Within Facebook we can choose between Desktop only (users who use the computer), Mobile only (those who access via mobile) or both. In general, we should never discard Mobile since around 80% of users will see our ad through this channel. There is another option called RHS(Right Hand Side) which is to place the ad in the column that appears on the right of our wall, like a normal Internet banner. Generally the results of this type of ads are worse, so in most cases they are not recommended.
In addition to Facebook as a social network, the tool allows us to launch our ad to Instagram users (Mobile only obviously) and recently the option to use Instagram Stories as a placement for our campaigns has also been implemented. The most common is to choose a combination of several using the same creatives.
New ad placements in Facebook Ads
Recently, Facebook enabled a new placement for its ads: in-stream video. This new format allows us to insert small video ads before, during or after Facebook Live videos.
Finally, there are two other placements in Facebook Ads: Instant Articles and Facebook Messenger conversations. These are used in a slightly different way to the rest of Facebook Ads, so we will look at them in more detail in future posts. As a first introduction, here’s what they are all about:
- Instant articles allow for quick distribution of interactive articles to readers for both Facebook and Messenger app users. Their main advantage is that readers do not need to leave the application to enjoy the content, which allows for better dissemination of the articles.
- Messenger promotions allow opening conversations in this medium with users, which facilitates contact with them quickly and efficiently, allowing to create personal connections with users, solve doubts, etc.
The choice of placement is important because it will condition the creativity and the type of ad we are going to use. In general, all of them should be adapted for mobile and, in the case of Instagram, meet the requirements of this social network (for example, videos of less than 60 seconds in length). In the case of Instagram Stories, it is a new format that has very specific particularities and does not allow certain campaign objectives such as Reach and Frequency.
Facebook ad formats: what type of ad do I want to show?
There are several types of posts that we can create using one or several images.
1. Photo post
It is the most used and the simplest. It is an image with a text in which we can include a url. To improve the number of clicks we can include our link to the landing page at the beginning and/or at the end of the text; in this way we will improve the %CTR with respect to putting it in the middle of the text. It usually works well in engagement or fan campaigns. The ratio of clicks on the link in the copy is not usually very high, for that better a Page Post Link.
2. Video post
This is a normal video post with a text. Sometimes only the video is launched. It is used for campaigns whose sole purpose is to get views and in cases where it is interesting to create a cluster to be able to launch retargeting campaigns later.
3. Page Post Link
It is the most common when the objective of the campaign is to get traffic to the website. In addition to the photo and the text, we have fields such as the title, the description or the caption of the website (which shows where we are redirecting the user) and a personalized call to action button (See more, More information or Register are usually the most used). It supports video but the results in terms of clicks will not be as good.
4. Carousel
It consists of a single post but with several slides. In each of them we place a different image with its own button, text and link. It usually works well when we want to show several types of the same product or a sequence of creativities with different information. Videos, images or both can be used simultaneously. This format is suitable for web traffic campaigns.
5. Slideshow
This format is similar to a presentation. The advantage is that it is very easy to create and the animation usually works well in areas where the mobile connection is not very fast and the videos do not load easily.
6. Lead Ad
It is a normal image post but with the particularity that when clicking on the button, it opens a form that can be filled almost automatically with our Facebook data. It serves to capture registrations or leads and works much better than taking the user to an external page to complete a registration. In order to avoid skyrocketing costs, it is important to segment your target audience well and offer content that you know will really appeal to them. Otherwise, you could be getting poor quality leads for your email marketing campaign that do not convert, which would be very expensive!
7. Canvas
A very interesting and creative format that allows us to launch content in a different and very attractive way for the user. It is a combination of photos, videos, carousels, links and other formats in a single full-screen piece exclusive to Mobile. The possibility of mixing all these ingredients is very attractive when telling stories or showing content in a different way. The Canvas is accessed from a normal post that must be attractive enough to convince the user to click.
8. Instagram Stories
Just landed and very similar to Snapchat, since it is about sharing with your Instagram contacts short videos that disappear after 24h. Stories have become very popular in recent months and it is now possible to launch our ads in this format. It is a video or image with the format of stories that will appear among those of users. It will soon have a call-to-action button.
9. Collection
Perfect for online stores. It shows a series of images or videos of products, similar to the carousel but more focused on online sales as it is displayed as a slideshow instead of individual slides. The goal of this format is usually conversions.
10. Dynamic ads
This is a format that displays a specific product at once depending on the user’s characteristics. In this way, ad impressions are optimized since the system chooses the one it considers most appropriate in each case from a predetermined list. It works well in campaigns of conversions to sales.
