Facebook Advertising – 15 Ad Format Types You Should Know About
Facebook, according to many ranking websites, is the most famous social media platform. I agree social media platforms are coming up every other day and are attracting many users from the newer generation. But there are still people using Facebook, so it is long before Facebook advertising becomes obsolete.
If your product or service is targeted toward people between the age group of 25 and 34 years, Facebook may be your best bet. According to Hootsuite, men in this age group make up 18.5% of the audience. On the other hand, women account for 12.6% of the audience in the same age bracket.
What’s more, Facebook has 1.93 billion active users per day (As per Statista). Obviously, all of these people wouldn’t want your product or service. But even if a fraction of these will, it is worth the effort to advertise on Facebook.
Types of Ads on Facebook
Now, if you are convinced Facebook advertising is worth your time and money, which type of Facebook ad works best for you.
Facebook offers 15 types of ads.
Image Ads
These ads are simply images that you can post to attract people to your website.
Usually, people selling products use this type of ad. However, this doesn’t mean a service provider can’t use this option. You just need to make sure your audience is clear about what services you provide.
Video Ads
Facebook gives you many options for the placement of your video ad. You can have it play in-stream, that is, before the videos people watch start playing, or you can have them running in the feed. You can also simply put them up in your stories.
For those of you who do not have the budget to hire a videographer or just don’t want to go through the lengthy process, short GIF-like or animated videos also work. Additionally, Facebook gives an option to use free stock photos to create your ads. The tool will allow you to add text and animation to your pictures, and voila, you have your engaging video ad for Facebook.
Poll Ads
We all know engagement for a brand is super important. So why not incorporate engagement in your ads. Facebook has an option to create poll ads which allows you to add a 2-option poll to your photo or video. When anyone votes, they can see the results. Do keep in mind that this is a mobile-only feature, so your target audience should be actively using the Facebook mobile app.
Carousel Ads
If one image or video is not enough to show all that your brand has to offer, use the carousel ads. Here you can add up to 10 images or videos.
This is most useful when you want to compare different products of your company or highlight the many benefits of one product or service. A creative way of using carousel ads is having one panorama ad.
If you are showing different products/ services your company has to offer, then you might need a different CTA for each. Thus, Facebook lets you add a separate link for each ad. You can also use a button instead of a link.
Slideshow Ads
Similar to carousel ads are slideshow ads. These ads are also a combination of image and video ads. But the difference is that you can create a video by adding multiple images in a row, text, and music.
These ads use less data and so load more quickly than video ads. In fact, Facebook claims that slideshow ads take 5 times less data than video ads. So, naturally, slideshow ads are a great choice if you are advertising in an area where people have a slow internet connection.
Another great use case for slideshow ads is guiding your potential customers through a complex process. You can use images and give step by step instructions to your customers.
Collection Ads
If you want to advertise products or services that work best together, consider using collection ads. This again is a mobile-only feature.
We suggest explaining why your products/services work together by adding a primary photo or video. This should give your target customers a reason to invest in all the products/services you mentioned in that ad.
Instant Experience Ads
If you want to offer your potential customers even more convenience in buying your product/service, you can use instant experience ads. Instant experience ads allow your target customers to buy products or services without exiting the app.
According to Facebook, these ads load 15 times faster than ads that take the users to an outside website. This is because people are not leaving the app and can thus buy from you almost instantly.
Lead Ads
Maybe you just want to use Facebook for leads instead of selling a product or service. Well, Facebook has a solution for you too – Lead Ads.
While this is another mobile-only ad, it gives your user a smoother experience. The form gets automatically filled in from the information in the Facebook account. There is no need for your leads to type and so they may be more willing to give out information.
Dynamic Ads
Retargeting is a necessity when it comes to selling products and services online. Facebook allows you to perform this function as well through its dynamic ads.
Suppose one of your customers added items to her cart but didn’t check out. Dynamic ads can be used to remind this customer about your product and her incomplete purchase.
What’s more, these ads are dynamic not only in the sense that they show specific products. These can be used to do other things like have ads be presented in the users’ preferred language.
Messenger Ads
Next up are messenger ads. Facebook Messenger has over 1.3 billion active users worldwide (As per Bloogingwizard). So, if your target customers are the ones who hang out here, messenger ads are for you.
Apart from advertising, messenger ads can also be used to connect your customers with the sales and customer support department to have a one-on-one conversion.
Stories Ads
We all love to watch stories when we open our social media apps. Stories ads can provide you with an opportunity to advertise your company here as well. Do keep in mind that the stories have to be vertical as this is a mobile-only feature.
Augmented Reality Ads
Lastly, we have augmented reality ads. If you want to improve your brand’s interaction with potential customers use this.
The filters or animations your customers can use on their stories and photos make it fun for them to engage with your brand. As a result, you can reach even more customers without putting in any additional effort. Your customers do the reaching out for you by sharing their experiences with their friends and family.
Post Engagement Ads
As you would be aware, some posts have more engagement than others. With post engagement ads, you can promote an individual post. This will help in generating more activity and gaining more followers.
The like page button is embedded in the post so, you can generate page likes directly.
Event Responses Ads
If you want to advertise an event you are hosting or let people know about your stores, event responses ads may be of help. This type of ad lets target people by their location better and so is better if you want to advertise anything happening offline.
Page Likes Ads
If you are looking to improve your page’s organic reach, use page likes ads. This type of ad is aimed at encouraging your target audience to like your page and subsequently see your organic content.
I would like to point out that there is an option to add a page like button to many of the ad types described in this post. So, if you have more than one goal, it is better to add a page like button rather than using a page like ads separately.
Character limit for Facebook Ads
While the type of ad you choose depends on multiple factors as mentioned above, the character limit also needs to be kept in mind.
Usually, for Facebook ads headlines are 40 characters long, link descriptions are 30 characters and body text is 125 characters. However, sometimes there are different character limits.
Hope you found this post useful. If you did, please consider sharing it, thanks.
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All ad images were taken from Meta Ad Library.
Graphic in Featured Image is from freepik.
