An effective Facebook ad campaign is one of the best ways to reach a broad target audience without breaking the bank. With a little cash and a few hours, you can put out a brilliant ad creative that drives massive conversions.
However, your Facebook advertising campaign won’t be successful just because you have the drive. You’ll also need a few Facebook ads best practices to guide your creative eye – and level up your game.
You can approach your Facebook ad strategy from two broad angles: general Facebook ads best practices, and ad format-specific best practices.
Here, we’ll look at some of the more general practices that will help your Facebook ad campaigns stand out.
The ad objective you choose determines how effective your Facebook ad targeting will be. Not only does your objective determine the kind of ad you can place, but it also limits where you can place it. (Your ad objective may also impact your Facebook ads cost for these reasons.)
Combining the right objective with the perfect ad means you’re more likely to find success. You can choose from six basic goals:
From here, you can choose from multiple specific objectives, like Brand Awareness or App Installs, to really hone your Facebook ad targeting.
Another consideration is an image or video’s aspect ratio. (The ratio between an image’s width and length.)
The social media site offers its own recommended aspect ratios for various Facebook ad placements and platforms.
Your call-to-action tells Facebook users how to proceed.
CTAs may include buying products, visiting your website, or signing up for your email list. Take time to experiment with different Facebook ad copy and Facebook ad formats to see what works for your brand.
The higher your Facebook ads’ resolution, the better it looks onscreen. Many images and video Facebook ad placements set minimum pixel requirements already. However, these are just minimums. For the best possible quality, consider going a few notches higher.
If you’re uploading image ads, using movement may not be feasible (or desired). But research shows that ads with movement stand out to Facebook users, especially in News Feed.
So, use movement! Upload video ads, ride the carousel, or go nuts with a collection ad or Instant Experience. You can even compile your Facebook ad images into one larger Facebook video ad down the line. Anything you do to catch users’ eyes and drive engagement bodes well for your ROI.
When people can visualize using your product or service, they’re more likely to engage or buy. That makes illustrative Facebook ads – such as videos or images of someone driving a car or using a computer for sale – more effective.
Putting Facebook ad copy over your images and videos can increase interest and conversions.
But first, consider the content, size, and font carefully – you want to keep everything clear and concise. For video ads, you might also add captions so people with disabilities or no sound can understand your content.
Using appealing color and image palettes makes your ads more cohesive. That’s true for image and video ads, and doubly so for a carousel or Instant Experience ad that blends multiple pieces of content. The more visually attractive your content, the higher your chance of running an effective Facebook ad.
You can also get clever with color palettes by changing them to suit your audience’s preferences, the seasons, or the nature of your business.
With visual ads, the key is keeping your audiences’ attention onscreen. Hooking viewers with a strong opening and showing off your brand or product early puts your business in viewers’ minds and keeps them engaged.
Each Facebook ad can be placed in multiple locations, including the Facebook News Feed, Facebook Stories, Messenger, and Instagram. The social media site recommends that advertisers activate all Facebook ad placements to allow the platform to optimize your campaign for you.
The more placements you use, the more data Facebook can collect for your Facebook advertising strategy. However, doing so could also stretch your ad budget or place your ad where it receives lower engagement rates. Before allowing the site to take over for you, consider your goals carefully.
Relevance is essential for an effective Facebook ad campaign, as many run on a pay-per-view or pay-per-click ad format. If you’re not showing relevant ads, you’re wasting time, money, and your potential for success.
Facebook ad targeting is a prime selling point for using the service in the first place. You can segment down to the smallest niches in society with its prime ad tools. However, casting your net too shallow risks fighting for attention among the same audience as other hyper-segmented advertisers.
Instead, consider throwing your Facebook ads to a slightly wider audience. Doing so means Facebook can gather more data, and you may catch a few extra conversions in the process.
Mobile devices like phones and tablets are increasingly used to access various Facebook platforms, including News Feed, Messenger, and Instagram. Given that you can serve your Facebook ad in multiple places, ensure that it’s optimized for mobile first.
Facebook Ads Manager allows you to preview your ads before you send them out. It’s a quick, easy way to check that your ads will look right on both desktop and mobile formats. Plus, you can preview your ads during the creative process so you can catch mistakes as they happen.
Already, we’ve covered several handy Facebook ad tips, and we’ll look at a few more below. But this list isn’t set in stone – after all, Facebook updates its platform constantly, and consumer tastes change.
If you want to stay up on Facebook ads best practices, it’s essential to test your Facebook advertising strategy with each campaign.
Image ads let you target Facebook users with a single photo and footer. With an image ad, you can spread brand awareness and illuminate your message cheaply and effectively.
While Facebook ads no longer limit your text, smaller, crisper fonts and fewer words tend to perform better. A general rule of thumb is to limit your text to 20% of your image ad or less by keeping your message short and sweet.
People are more likely to engage with brands they know and love, particularly on social media. Keeping your logo front and center ensures that Facebook users can clearly see your ad and become more familiar with you over time. Soon, you should start seeing higher ROAS on your Facebook advertising strategy.
Video ads let you use moving images to showcase your brand or product in a captivating ad format. Depending on the ad, you can quickly capture attention with a 15-second blitz or a 240-minute in-depth webinar. Still, you should keep these Facebook ads best practices in mind.
Conveying a single message in your Facebook ad captures attention and simplifies the browsing experience. After watching your video, the user should know exactly what you want them to do, be it visiting your website or buying a product.
The ad objective you choose for video ads determines its placement and length. For longer videos, you’ll have to embed them into the Facebook News Feed or Facebook Stories. But Instagram users prefer shorter ads, so most videos there are limited to a mere two minutes.
As mobile Facebook use grows, so does the need for vertical videos. With a vertical or square aspect ratio, you can ensure that the bulk of Facebook users will enjoy your ad – rather than be annoyed they have to rotate their phones.
A carousel ad lets you show several videos or images at once in a cost-effective manner. Each card boasts its own image or video, headline, description, CTA, and link. These ads are ideal for showcasing multiple products or telling a larger story.
There’s no point in paying for carousel ads if you don’t use their main feature! For this style of Facebook advertising, be sure to upload multiple images, videos, or GIFs to increase engagement and get your money’s worth.
If you’re using a carousel ad format to promote multiple items, link to each one individually to increase your potential ROI. Alternatively, you might consider linking to a larger landing page that displays multiple items to increase your showcasing abilities in each Facebook campaign.
If you’re using a carousel ad to show off your catalog, choose a wide range of products. The more items you represent, the more likely you’ll nab a sale from your Facebook ad campaign.
Instant Experiences are full-screen, fast-loading, visually pleasing ad campaigns that highlight your brand or products with an immersive experience.
Think of them like attention-catching grab bags: you can use them to show off basically aspects of your brand or product line with images, videos, carousels, your own catalog, and more.
Collection ads are similar. (So similar, in fact, they open as an Instant Experience when clicked.) You can use Facebook collection ads to combine multiple images and videos into a larger, more stimulating ad experience for your audience.
Oftentimes, the Facebook ads’ best practices for these formats are similar – so we’ve lumped them together for ease of reading.
Both these Facebook campaigns are designed to grab attention with a “grab bag” of experiences, so don’t disappoint!
Combining images, videos, and text makes your ads more entertaining. Plus, by reusing existing ads, you can double your ad creative without paying extra for the privilege.
Bringing in a wide variety of products ensures your audience is more likely to engage with your Facebook advertising strategy. (Preferably through conversions and sales.) Facebook recommends using a product set of at least 50 items or showcasing multiple instances of individuals using your brand for maximum impact.
Facebook’s dynamic selection option allows Facebook to choose the ads and images that may be most effective. Typically, these products are ranked by popularity or conversion potential.
Running successful Facebook ads requires a disciplined, multi-faceted approach. You have to consider your goals, target audience, and Facebook’s own research in creating and launching your campaigns.
However, that doesn’t mean your Facebook ads have to be time- or money-intensive.
With Facebook’s powerful ad tools and these best practices in your bank pocket, it’s possible to run a top-notch campaign.
A few essential Facebook ad campaign strategies include selecting your ad objectives and target audience carefully, keeping images and videos crisp and clear, and taking a mobile-first approach. Additionally, you should tailor your approach to the type of Facebook campaign you’re running every time.
Choosing your objective and audience wisely, keeping image resolution high, and overlying text or captions on your campaign remain solid Facebook “dos.” However, messy or uncoordinated Facebook ads, Facebook ads with too much text, or videos that are far too long for your target audience are solid “don’ts.”
Yes! Although Apple’s iOS privacy update took a big bite out of Facebook’s ad revenue, the platform remains an effective way to target your preferred audience.
Facebook image ads remain the most popular ad format even today. Meanwhile, the Lead Generation ad objective is one of the most effective Facebook advertising strategies when measured by ROI. However, what’s most effective for your brand varies by product and target audience.
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