Different Facebook Ad Types And How To Make The Most Of Them

Chances are you’re using Facebook for your business. How about the different Facebook Ad types? If you haven’t started, there’s no time like the present.

30% of internet users log into Facebook more than once per day. And within a month, the average user likes 10 posts, makes 4 comments, and clicks on 8 ads. That’s saying something, isn’t it? Especially when there is so much competing for the average consumer’s attention.

And now that many of us are working from home, and most of us are hopefully socially distancing, we’re looking to Facebook even more for information and entertainment. So it’s fair to assume that the number of people using Facebook more than once a day has probably spiked recently.

With that in mind let’s take a look at how you can use the different Facebook ad types to their full potential. Let’s start by taking a look at how you can benefit from Facebook ads in general:

Benefits Of Facebook Ads

You can target a specific audience segment: If you really know your customers, you can directly advertise to them. Facebook allows you to choose your audience based on age, interests, behavior, and location. This provides you with a great starting point for your ads.

It can be cost-effective: Facebook ads can be very cost-effective. Your costs will of course vary across industry, and based on other factors like audience, goals and optimization settings. That said,  the average cost-per-click for Facebook ad is $1.72 across all industries. And there are some tactics for keeping costs down (you’ll find a few recommendations at the end of this post).

You can measure everything: As with all digital marketing, the metrics and insights you gain are very valuable. And the speed at which you reach your audiences to receive these insights is too!

You can set very specific goals: The goals you can choose fall into the 3 categories of awareness, consideration, and conversion, which represent different parts of the sales funnel. And within these 3 categories are 15 subcategories, that you’ll choose from to run your ads.

Facebook is mobile optimized: Since you can set up your ads for all kinds of different placements and preview them too, you never have to worry about the messaging getting distorted, lost or just looking bad.

Well now that you know have a general overview of some of the benefits of Facebook Ads, let’s have a look at the different Facebook Ad types. They’ve got quite the spread!

via GIPHY

The Different Facebook Ad Types  

Image Ads

This is the simplest form of Facebook Ad. You just need an eye-catching image, some ad copy and a link you want your audience to visit. A good stock image site might be a good place to start. Using powerful imagery that tells a story, captures attention, and leaves a lasting impression can prove to be extremely effective when it comes to these ads. You can use these ads for these ad objectives: increasing brand or local awareness, reach, traffic, app installs, conversation/engagement, lead generation, and product catalog sales.

Kimp Tip: Try to use as little text as possible on the actual image so that Facebook algorithms favour your ad and serve it up more. 

Video Ads

Video ads are great for showing off your product, service, or brand, capturing attention quickly and delivering a message. The format is also pretty simple like image ads. It’s basically a video, ad copy and a link. You might also want to consider captions. Tests conducted by Facebook found that adding captions to a video ad boosted view time by an average of 12%.

Facebook recommends 15 seconds maximum to engage your audience. According to Facebook, over 70% of ad breaks that are 15 seconds or less are viewed to completion. And these ads can be displayed in the Facebook Feed, Instagram Stories and Messenger Inbox. Video ads are especially useful for brand awareness and consideration ad objectives.

Kimp Tip: Facebook has a preference for native videos, so be sure to upload your video directly, rather than using a link to get more views.

Collection Ads

Collections ads are an excellent way of displaying a catalog of multiple products. When appearing on the feed, Collection ads display 4 products under a hero image or the video. When someone clicks on a collection ad, they can discover, browse and purchase products (in addition to the 4 you’ve displayed in the ad) easily through a full-screen experience, within Facebook. 

These types of ads are ideal for the retail and travel industry as a hero image or video can be shown alongside the brand, product or service for a more immersive experience. Collection ads are great for consideration and conversion objectives. 

Carousel Ads

Have a story to tell? Or multiple products to show off? Enter carousel ads. These ads allow you to show 2 or more images and/or videos, as well as links and CTAs all in one ad. Carousel ads allow up to 10 carousel cards. Each image or video links to a different destination. Your audience can either scroll through the carousel cards on their phones or click through on their desktop devices. 

These ads are great for featuring multiple products at the same time, multiple features of a single product, telling a story, or explaining a process. Don’t sell a physical product? No worries. You can highlight the perks and results that come from using your service or attending your event(s). Unsurprisingly, these ads are great for consideration and conversion.

Instant Experience Ads

Formerly known as Canvas Ads, Instant Experience Ads provide a full-screen experience, available only on mobile devices when someone interacts with your ads. These ads are great for grabbing attention and telling a story in a highly visual way. Inside of an Instant Experience, your audience can click, scroll, or tap through different types of content, while still on the Facebook platform. 

Instant Experiences can include videos, photos in a carousel, forms and images with tagged products. It’s also possible to link 2 or more Instant Experiences to provide your audience with access to more content. If it sounds a bit intimidating, you can give it a go with Facebook’s templates. If you want to experiment with creating a custom Instant Experience, try creating a storyboard first so that you know how you want your experience to feel. Wonder Unit is a great, free storyboarding tool that you may want to check out. Instant Experience ads are effective for brand awareness and increasing traffic.   

Slideshow Ads

An alternative to video ads are slideshow ads that combine 3-10 images into one video. You can upload a slideshow you’ve created as a video or use Facebook to create one. In the latter case, each image should have the same aspect ratio – otherwise they’ll be cropped automatically to a 1:1 ratio. You can add text overlays for good measure. But the option to add music has been temporarily disabled as of April 2020.

This format is perfect for storytelling. And these ads use the same metrics as the single video ads and they can appear on Facebook feeds, Instagram and Messenger. Be sure to include your best image first, and choose your thumbnail carefully so that it catches your audience’s attention.

A Few Tips For Keeping Costs Down

Now that you are armed with some helpful info about the different Facebook ad types, let’s talk a bit about keeping costs down. Because that’s usually one of the most intimidating things about testing out a new ad type – wondering just how much money it’s going to cost you. 

  • Try targetting as specific of an audience as possible – the more specific your audience, the less competition to reach them. Bid caps can help here by setting them based on the LTV of a lead or sale.
  • Look for audience overlap – Be sure to choose only the most relevant audience. You can do this with the help of Facebook’s audience overlap insights. And then bid according to intention and likelihood to meet the goal you have in mind.
  • Use your Facebook Pixel to learn about your audience Since the Facebook Pixel allows you to track your visitors and learn a ton of info about them, it can help you target people based on actions they’ve taken and their preferences.
  • Test different creatives and ad copy variations – By testing you figure out which combinations appeal to your target audience. And you can then use this intel to make your current and future campaigns more effective.

And now over to you. Facebook offers you a lot of different options when it comes to different Facebook ad types, and how you can optimize them to achieve your goals. So start simple, and keep testing and you’ll find the combinations that work best for you.