Speaking of social media marketing, the pioneer in the industry, Facebook, is no way to be neglected. Still dominating the market, the social giant is the most-used social platform in January 2020, capturing almost 2.5 billion daily active users worldwide. Facebook also reports a 70% of users reached with adverts on the platform.

Ads placed on Facebook might also appear on another social giant, Instagram, as well as Messenger and Audience Network. Hence, good Facebook advertising management has an exponential effect as Facebook ads exist on multiple platforms. In this article, we are here to introduce types of Facebook advertising campaigns available, and share a handful of Facebook ads know-how for your success in Facebook advertising!

Facebook is the most-used social media platform.    
Source: https://wearesocial.com/digital-2020    

6 Types of Facebook Advertising Campaigns

There are varieties of Facebook ad formats that businesses can choose from, depending on the marketing objectives. Let's take a look at the differences across different formats before touching on tips about maximizing your ad performance!

1. Facebook Image ads

This is the most classic form of campaign on social media marketing. You can simply use a single photo to deliver your products and services. This allows your targeted audiences to focus on the most vital message you want them to receive, without other distractions.

Be aware that the Facebook algorithm would reduce the frequency for your ads to show if you include too many texts on your photo. Stay with the 20% rule -- text should not take up more than 20% of the image. One of the most usual practices for this type of ads is to showcase a product shot, create an attempting call-to-action, and include a link leading to the product's landing page.

2. Facebook Video ads

Research shows that brands get 66% more qualified leads by using video ads, making video an effective means for advertising.

Facebook recommends to upload a video less than 15 seconds for better attention captivation, but you can still place a video ad up to 240 minutes depending on the placement. Facebook also allows multiple aspect ratios of video ads for a better fit across various placements of your ad. In addition, you can utilize Facebook video ads to promote Facebook posts that contain a video, which is favorable in drawing exposure and engagement on your posts.

Clueless on how to produce an outstanding video ad? Our strategic video marketing service can help!

3. Facebook Slideshow ads

Slideshows allow marketers to combine 3 to 10 photos or a video, together with text and audios to deliver your message. Facebook provides a slideshow creation tool on Facebook Ads Manager in order to put together all media into one video. The difference between a slideshow ad and a video ad lies on the data usage -- slideshow uses less data, and therefore able to reach out to users with slower internet connections.

You may consider slideshows if you want to showcase different offerings, different angles of products, display before-and-after comparison for using the products, or even to show product usage steps.

4. Facebook Carousel ads

Carousel ad is a composition of 2-10 images or videos ad, all created under a single ad. Users can scroll through the ad base on their interests, giving them the flexibility to go back and forth during the information acquisition process. You can link each image/ video with different call-to-actions and links, generating awareness for varieties of products and encouraging consideration. This also improves the click-through rate.

You can arrange the order of the Carousel cards when you first set up the ad. Facebook will also automatically rearrange the best performance cards base on the past performance of your ads.

Facebook Carousel ad

5. Facebook Instant experience

Instant experience is a mobile-only interactive landing page built inside Facebook to create a more eye-catching ad for the platform users. Once users click on the ad, a full-screen experience pops up. Instant experience is compatible with almost all ad formats, including image, video, carousel, slideshow, and collection.

Instant experience is fast-loading, in which it loads up to 15 times faster than standard mobile web. This reduces the bounce rate. Facebook also states that 53% of the ad viewers watch at least half of the ad. It is a great means of advertising if you wish to include multimedia in one single ad.

Instant Experience ad on Facebook    
Source: https://www.facebook.com/business/ads/instant-experiences-ad-destination    

6. Facebook Collection ads    

Collection is also a form of mobile-only Instant Experience where major offerings can be displayed within the same ad. When a Facebook user clicks on a photo or a video, a full-page list of products will be displayed.    

When a user clicks on the product, they will be redirected to another landing page. Customers can finish the whole shopping experience within the same platform, improving the conversion rate. Users can also be redirected to your official website or app, increasing the web traffic or the number of app downloads.    

Before clicking on the product list, your audiences are able to preview four of your offerings. You are suggested to include bestselling items as the preview for attracting users to click onto your add for more information.    

Facebook collection ads    
Source: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1128914607238107?id=370281743380548    

Tips to excel to optimize Facebook advertising

1. Install Facebook pixel    

The first step of setting up a Facebook ad is not to create the ad itself, but to install Facebook pixel on your webpage. Facebook pixel is an analytic tool to track and record all the activities done by Facebook users on your webpage.    

By installing the Facebook pixel, you can track, target, and re-target potential users for your Facebook ads, which ultimately improves your conversion rate. It is also performance measurement as you can understand how many audiences make the purchase after seeing your Facebook ad, which is beneficial for your high-performance ads’ set-up in the future.    

For example, if you want a higher ROI, you may consider setting up a Facebook pixel on the shopping cart page and track users who put items in the cart and did not convert. You can then create a re-targeting Facebook ad to aim at this group of audiences, and attract their attention by offering a 10% discount for a better conversion rate.    

You can set up a Facebook pixel even before you start a Facebook ad. This can give Facebook some time to collect a boarder database for a more accurate record on user behavior on your website.   

2. Mobile-friendly Facebook ad designs    

Facebook access by device    
Source: https://wearesocial.com/digital-2020   

Research shows that 98% of Facebook users access the platform using a mobile phone, implying that your ad is most likely delivered through mobile. To capture this massive group of mobile users, the first thing you have to consider when designing a Facebook ad is mobile-friendliness.    

One detail you might miss about Facebook mobile ad optimization is the headline. Headline is the short text that appears right under the ad's visual. It is influential to reinforce your key message and a great place to include a call-to-action message. Although your headline might seem okay on desktop, it might be truncated on a mobile ad with a shorter display width. In order for audiences to get the complete message, trim down your message, or at least put the most vital call-to-action phrase upfront.    

Another tip, and that specifically refers to video ads, is to create Facebook video ad that is understandable even with sound off. Although appealing audios increase your ad's attractiveness, Facebook video ad is automatically played without sound given the users’ behavior on the platform. Adding subtitles on the video can clearly deliver your ad message.    

3. Utilize Facebook’s "Use Existing Post" option for more social engagement    

Facebook lesson 101: social proof is worth its weight in gold. Social proof means post engagements such as no. of likes, comments, or shares. People will trust a brand better if they see higher social engagements, and it’s also a source of a product review.    

If you want to create different ads with different target audiences on Facebook, instead of creating 10 different ads with social engagements starting from scratch, you can use existing published or unpublished posts as your ad. This way, your existing social proof can be accumulated across advertisements, making your ads more attractive from users’ perspective.    

4. Fight with ad fatigue with Facebook’s customized settings    

Audiences’ attention and ad exposure aren’t always positively related. After they saw your ad for a couple of times, they will be tired of the same ad message and product seen, resulting in a drop in ad performance. This is what we call ad fatigue. Not only does the click-through rate decreases with ad fatigue, but it also hurts your advertising budget as the cost per conversion will also increase!    

You can spot ad fatigue if you realize a drop in ad result despite an increased frequency audiences see your ads on Facebook Ads Manager. There are many simple ways to refresh your ad to avoid ad fatigue.    

On Facebook Ads Manager, customize automated rules for your ads avoids the trouble to monitor and adjust ads manually. You can pause the ad if the frequency has hit a certain level, this can avoid audiences becoming weary of your ad. You can also set up a few ads with different creatives, and put them on rotating schedule, so that varieties of ads could be delivered throughout the day to keep Facebook users refreshed.    

You are also in control of which audience group to target your content on. Depending on your audiences’ characteristics and your product features, you may exclude users that already converted within a certain period of time. For example, if you are a seller for high-tiered automobile, the chances of repurchase is little, and therefore you may exclude users that already made purchases in the past 365 days can save you some marketing expenses. In contrast, for consumer goods seller, you may consider to retarget converted consumers, as they are more likely to repurchase your goods.    

5. Utilize Facebook’s spilt testing    

Facebook has a built-in A/B testing function for marketers to find out the best marketing.    

There are various aspects that you can choose to try out:    

1. Creatives: this includes ad photos/ videos, ad text, and creative types. For example, marketers can try out whether a video or an image works best given the same ad text.    

2. Placements: marketers can compare ad performance across different placements, such as your ads' performance on Instagram Feed vs. on Instagram Stories.    

3. Audience: find out the group of audiences or the demographics that your ad catches the most attention on.    

4. Delivery optimization: you can compare the performance of your ad with or without enabling Campaign Budget Optimization.    

5. Product set: testing out different combinations of products in your ad catalog to look for the best ad performance.    

You can also A/B test multiple variables at once for a complex strategy comparison. But if you are fresh to Facebook ads, we suggest you stay on single variable testing for a better understanding on Facebook algorithm.    

There is another function on Facebook called Multiple Text Optimization, which you might be confused with A/B testing. Multiple Text Optimization is also called responsive ads, while A/B testing is to compare the effectiveness of ads based on the same ad with different visuals, placements, headlines, CTAs and more. Responsive ads is to match different text versions to different audiences to deliver the best result. Responsive ads make use of machine learning to optimize the effectiveness, and therefore could be more expensive compared to other optimization tools.    

Summary of Facebook Advertising Optimization

Facebook is still dominating the social media marketing industry. Its powerful algorithm and wide choice of platforms for advertising makes its presence indispensable. If you feel overwhelmed by its extensive marketing service and are unsure where to start Facebook marketing, at AsiaPac, we have a team of experienced Facebook and Instagram digital marketing expert. Click here to understand how we can help!    

About AsiaPac Net Media       

With an extensive digital marketing experience of serving more than 2,500 clients across Asia in sectors such as education, travel and hospitality, finance, Government and others, AsiaPac’s expert team is highly recognized for the excellence in providing performance-driven services to businesses across Asia, and global corporates targeting Asia markets. 

If you’d like to learn more about AsiaPac and the work we’ve done, visit our Work page. For more information on AsiaPac/ AdTech and our services, please contact us at info@asiapac.com.hk/ info@adtechinno.com.