Facebook rose to the top of the social media food chain thanks to its user-friendly interface and ability to keep people connected.
Over time, it’s plowed millions – if not billions – of dollars into perfecting a sophisticated advertising ecosystem to help brands reach Facebook users.
The end result is a system that’s powerful, convenient, and, most importantly, converting.
But if you’re going to use Facebook advertising, you’re going to have to make yourself competitive.
That means optimizing every detail of your advertisements, from the recommended specs to choosing the right Facebook ad formats for every goal, as well as knowing Facebook Ads best practices!
With our handy Facebook ads guide, you can get there in no time.
Before we go diving into Facebook ad formats and the best technical specs, we need to cover a few quick terms. (We promise this will be short…ish.)
Your advertising objective determines the different ad formats you can use, as well as where your ad appears across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and the Audience Network. You can choose your advertising objectives through the Facebook Ads Manager.
Awareness objectives increase awareness of, and interest in, your brand and products. The greater your brand awareness, the further your reach. Some of the ad objectives that fit into the Brand Awareness niche include:
Store Traffic: This Facebook ad type is designed to target people by location and offer incentives to bring them into brick-and-mortar stores.
Traffic objectives attempt to increase traffic to your chosen online destination, such as your Facebook Page, business website, or app.
Currently, there’s only one objective that fits under this banner: Traffic.
Engagement objectives aim to target those consumers most likely to engage with your business through messaging, Facebook likes, or website purchases. Some examples of these ad objectives include:
Messages: Message-based campaigns allow you to use Facebook’s messaging features to promote your website or blog, ask about product experiences, or even extend your email campaigns.
Lead generation objectives are designed to collect leads via messages or signups.
While several ad objectives fit into the bucket, there’s one primary objective: Lead Generation:
Under this objective, Facebook ads aim to collect email addresses right in-house, potentially increasing your lead generation potential.
App promotion objectives aim to boost the number of app installs you see.
Currently, there’s only one objective under this banner: App Installs.
These Facebook ad types target mobile users to encourage app downloads, registrations, and logins.
Sales ad objectives find people to purchase from your brand. Currently, two objectives fall under this umbrella:
Every kind of Facebook ad format supports a range of file sizes and types. Optimizing the file size within Facebook’s limit ensures that your files upload properly and appear crisp and clear. If your file type isn’t supported, you can’t run your Facebook ads at all.
Aspect ratios determine how your image fits on the page based on pixel dimensions.
For instance, a 1,600×900 pixel image falls under the 16:9 aspect ratio. An image that’s 1,600×1,600 pixels fits into the 1:1 aspect ratio.
While you can measure your image sizes by both pixels and aspect ratios, understanding the difference can help you better optimize your ads (particularly for mobile devices).
Facebook Ads Manager is a Facebook tool that allows you to launch various Facebook ad campaigns and gain insightful, actionable information about their performance. You can measure various metrics and customize your reporting needs in-house.
Plus, you can use the Facebook Ads Manager to launch or alter specific campaigns, from your ad objectives to file sizes to Facebook ad placements.
Facebook advertising offers over a dozen ad types, many of which target specific niches or user types. Ultimately, they all boil down to rearranging or dissecting the following five:
Facebook photo ads help you showcase your product, service, or brand with a single image and optional footer. You can create an image ad with Facebook Ads Manager or by boosting an existing post.
The image ad format is ideal for:
Design Specs
Text Specs
Technical Requirements:
Facebook Ads:
Instagram Ads:
Messenger Ads:
Audience Network Ads:
Video ads catch scrollers’ eyes with bright colors and movement that inspire views, clicks, and conversions. Facebook even offers the ability to turn images into quick-paced ads for extra oomph with less effort.
You can use the video ad format to:
Design Specs
Text Specs
Technical Requirements:
Facebook Ads:
Instagram Ads:
Messenger Ads:
Audience Network Ads:
Carousel ads combine up to 10 images or videos that users can click or swipe through. Each “slide” in the carousel has its own headline, description, link, and call-to-action.
You can use the carousel ad format to:
Design Specs
Text Specs
Technical Requirements:
Facebook Ads:
Instagram Ads:
Messenger Ads:
Audience Network Ads:
Facebook collection ads feature multiple products, images, or videos at once. Each collection ad boasts a cover image or video, with multiple images or videos highlighted beneath.
The collection ads format automatically opens as an Instant Experience (highlighted below). With this Facebook ad type, customers can peruse and purchase products from their phones.
You can use the collection ad format to:
Design Specs
Text Specs
Technical Requirements:
Facebook:
Instagram:
Instant Experiences, formerly Canvas ads, offer a full-screen, mobile-only experience that’s perfect for highlighting your brand or products. These ads load instantly, cutting down on bounces, and work with a single image, video, carousel, and collection ads.
You can use the Instant Experiences ad format to:
Design Specs
Text Specs
Technical Requirements:
Single Image Ads or Video Ads
Facebook Ads:
Instagram Ads:
Carousel Ads
Facebook Ads:
Instagram Ads:
Collection Ads
Facebook Ads:
Instagram Ads:
By and large, images remain one of the top contenders for the best Facebook ad format by sheer usage.
However, video ads have proven to be an incredibly popular and competitive niche – when done right, that is.
Once you have these Facebook ad formats down, you can readily expand into a carousel, collection, and Instant Experience ads with ease. You can even use existing ads to combine old or build new content to spread your brand with a new Facebook ad campaign.
Overall, that means the best Facebook ads are the ones that bring in the big bucks for your business.
Many brands start with images for their ease and cost-effectiveness and spread into video ads as they grow.
As you grow more comfortable with your advertising skills, soon, you can spread your wings and fly into new types of Facebook ads in no time.
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