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What are the 4 main types of Facebook ads?

Types of Facebook ads Image. Video. Carousel. Instant Experience. Collection. Lead. Slideshow. Stories. More items... •

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Advertising on Facebook isn’t dead. Despite new players on the social media scene — TikTok, we’re looking at you — knowing how to advertise on Facebook is still an essential skill for most marketers. Right now, if you advertise on Facebook, your ads can reach 2.17 billion people — in other words, close to 30% of the world’s population. Plus, the platform’s active user base continues to grow. Sure, these are impressive numbers. But Facebook is all about getting your message in front of the right segment of those people. The users who are most likely to be interested in buying your products or services. Bonus: Get the Facebook advertising cheat sheet for 2022. The free resource includes key audience insights, recommended ad types, and tips for success.

Demographics

Location

Interests

Other profile information

Businesses set an ad budget and bid for each click or thousand impressions the ad receives. Like Instagram, Facebook ads appear throughout the app, including in users’ feeds, Stories, Messenger, Marketplace, and more. They look similar to normal posts but always include a “sponsored” label to show they’re an ad. Facebook ads include more features than regular posts, like CTA buttons, links, and product catalogs. Audience targeting. It usually costs more to put your ads in front of a narrower audience as opposed to a broader one. It usually costs more to put your ads in front of a narrower audience as opposed to a broader one. Ad placement. Costs can change between ads shown on Facebook and Instagram. Costs can change between ads shown on Facebook and Instagram. Campaign duration. The number of days and hours a campaign lasts impacts the final cost. The number of days and hours a campaign lasts impacts the final cost. Competitiveness of your industry. Some industries are more competitive than others for ad space. Ad costs usually increase the higher the product price is or how valuable the lead you’re trying to capture is. Some industries are more competitive than others for ad space. Ad costs usually increase the higher the product price is or how valuable the lead you’re trying to capture is. Time of year. Ad costs can fluctuate during different seasons, holidays, or other industry-specific events. Ad costs can fluctuate during different seasons, holidays, or other industry-specific events. Time of day. On average, CPC is lowest between midnight and 6 am in any timezone. On average, CPC is lowest between midnight and 6 am in any timezone. Location. Average ad costs per country vary widely.

Setting campaign costs according to objectives

Setting the right campaign objective is the most important thing you can do to control Facebook ad costs. Getting this right also increases your chance of success. Cost-per-click benchmarks vary according to each campaign objective. There are five core campaign objectives to choose from:

Conversions

Impressions

Reach

Link clicks

Lead generation

Average cost-per-click varies between different Facebook ad campaign objectives. For example, on average, an impressions campaign objective costs $1.85 per click, while a campaign with a conversions objective costs $0.87 per click. Choosing the right objective for your campaign is key to reaching goals while lowering costs.

Video

Carousel

Instant Experience

Collection

Lead

Slideshow

Stories

Messenger

The wide range of Facebook ad formats means you can choose the best ad type that matches your business goal. Each ad has a different set of CTAs to guide users to the next steps. Image ads are Facebook’s most basic ad format. They let businesses use single images to promote their products, services, or brand. Image ads can be used across different ad types, placements, and aspect ratios. Image ads are a good fit for campaigns with strong visual content that can be shown in just one image. These images could be made from illustrations, design, or photography. Image ads are simple to make and can successfully display your offering if you use high-quality imagery. They’re suitable for any stage of the sales funnel — whether you want to boost brand awareness or promote a new product launch to increase sales. Image ads can be limiting — you only have a single image to get your message across. If you need to display multiple products or show how your product works, the single image ad format isn’t the best choice. Pro tip: Pay attention to image ad specs and ratios so your product doesn’t get cut off or stretched.

Video ads

They’re especially helpful for product demos, tutorials, and showcasing moving elements.

Video can be up to 240 minutes long, but that doesn’t mean you should use that time! Shorter videos are usually more engaging. Facebook recommends sticking to videos under 15 seconds. Video ads can add some movement to any user’s feed, like this short and sweet video ad from Taco Bell: The downside of video ads is that they’re time-consuming to make and can become expensive. A carousel or image ad may be a better fit for simple messages or products not requiring demos.

Carousel ads

Carousel ads showcase up to ten images or videos that users can click through. Each has its own headline, description, or link. Carousels are a great choice for displaying a series of different products. Each image in the carousel can even have its own landing page that’s specifically built for that product or service.

Instant Experience ads

Using Instant Experience ads, users can tap through a carousel display of images, shift the screen in different directions, as well as zoom in or out of content. Facebook suggests using five to seven images and videos in each Instant Experience ad for the best chances of engagement. Premade templates also help you save time and repeat your key theme throughout the ad.

Collection ads

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Collection ads are kind of like immersive carousels — taking the user experience a step up. Collection ads are mobile window-shopping experiences where users can flick through your product lineup. More customizable than Carousels, they’re also full screen. Users can purchase products directly from the Collection ad. Collection ads are a great choice for large businesses that sell a variety of products and services. Smaller businesses with a more limited product line may be better suited to other ad types like Carousels.

Lead ads

Lead ads are only available for mobile devices. That’s because they’re specifically designed to make it easy for people to give you their contact information without a lot of typing. They’re great for collecting newsletter subscriptions, signing someone up for a trial of your product, or allowing people to ask for more information from you. Several automakers have successfully used them to encourage test drives.

Slideshow ads

Slideshow ads are composed of 3-10 images or a single video that plays in a slideshow. These ads are a great alternative to video ads because they use up to five times less data than videos. That makes slideshow ads a top choice for markets where people have slower internet connections. Slideshow ads are also a great way to get started for people without video-making experience.

Stories ads

Mobile phones are meant to be held vertically. Stories ads are a mobile-only full-screen vertical video format that allows you to maximize screen real estate without expecting viewers to turn their screens. Right now, 62% of people in the US say they plan to use Stories even more in the future than they do today.

Here’s an example of a video made into a Story ad:

Stories provide more creative freedom than regular image or video ads. Businesses can play around with emojis, stickers, filters, video effects, and even augmented reality.

Messenger ads

Messenger ads show up in Facebook’s messenger tab. Since it’s where people spend time chatting with friends and family, Messenger ads feel more personal than scrolling through Image or video ads. People see your Messenger ads among their conversations and can tap to start a conversation with your brand. These ads are a great way of getting people to interact with your brand. For smaller businesses promoting local products or services, Messenger ads can help start the conversation. If you already have a Facebook business page (and you should), you can head straight to the Ads Manager or Business Manager to create your Facebook ad campaign. If you don’t yet have a business page, you’ll need to create one first. We’ll follow the steps for Ads Manager in this post. If you’d prefer to use Business Manager, you can get the details in our post on how to use Facebook Business Manager. Ads Manager is the starting place for running ads on Facebook and Messenger. It’s an all-in-one tool suite for creating ads, managing where and when they’ll run, and tracking campaign performance.

Step 1: Choose your objective

Here’s how they align with business goals:

Brand awareness: Introduce your brand to a new audience.

Introduce your brand to a new audience. Reach: Expose your ad to as many people in your audience as possible. Expose your ad to as many people in your audience as possible. Traffic: Drive traffic to a specific web page, app, or Facebook Messenger conversation. Drive traffic to a specific web page, app, or Facebook Messenger conversation. Engagement: Reach a wide audience to increase the number of post engagements or Page follows, increase attendance at your event, or encourage people to claim a special offer. Reach a wide audience to increase the number of post engagements or Page follows, increase attendance at your event, or encourage people to claim a special offer. App installs: Get people to install your app. Get people to install your app. Video views: Get more people to watch your videos. Get more people to watch your videos. Lead generation: Get new prospects into your sales funnel. Get new prospects into your sales funnel. Messages: Encourage people to contact your business using Facebook Messenger. Encourage people to contact your business using Facebook Messenger. Conversions: Get people to take a specific action on your website (like subscribe to your list or buy your product), with your app, or on Facebook Messenger. Get people to take a specific action on your website (like subscribe to your list or buy your product), with your app, or on Facebook Messenger. Catalog sales: Connect your Facebook ads to your product catalog to show people ads for the products they are most likely to want to buy. Connect your Facebook ads to your product catalog to show people ads for the products they are most likely to want to buy. Store traffic: Drive nearby customers to brick-and-mortar stores. Choose a campaign objective based on your goals for this particular ad. Keep in mind that for conversion-oriented objectives (like sales), you can pay per action, but for exposure objectives (like traffic and views), you will pay for impressions. For this example, we’ll choose the Engagement objective. From there, we need to specify which kind of engagement we want.

We’ll choose Page likes for now.

Some of the options you see in the next steps will vary based on which objective you choose.

Step 2. Name your campaign

If you want to set up an A/B split test, click Get Started in the A/B Test section to set this ad as your control. You can choose different versions to run against this ad after it’s published. This option can be useful if you’re using multiple ad sets, but for now, you can leave it turned off.

Step 3. Set your budget and schedule

At the top of this screen, you will name your ad set and choose which Page to promote.

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Next, you decide how much money you want to spend on your Facebook ad campaign. You can choose a daily or lifetime budget. Then, set the start and end dates if you want to schedule your ad in the future or choose to make it live right away. Running your Facebook paid ads on a schedule may be the most efficient way to spend your budget since you can choose only to serve your ad when your target audience is most likely to be on Facebook. You can only set a schedule if you create a lifetime budget for your ad.

Step 4. Target your audience

Start by selecting your target location, age, gender and language. Under location, you can even choose to include or exclude cities over a certain size. You can also prioritize people who’ve recently shown an interest in the product or service you sell. As you make your selections, keep an eye on the audience size indicator on the right of the screen, which gives you a sense of your potential ad reach. You’ll also see an estimated number of daily reach and Page likes. These estimates will be more accurate if you have run campaigns before since Facebook will have more data to work with. Always keep in mind that these are estimates, not guarantees.

Now it’s time for the detailed targeting.

Use the Detailed Targeting field to specifically include or exclude people based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. You can get really specific here. For instance, you could choose to target people who are interested in both traveling and hiking but exclude people who are interested in backpacking. Scroll down to choose where your ads will appear. If you’re new to Facebook advertising, the simplest choice is to use Advantage+ Placements. Once you have more experience, you may wish to select Manual Placements. By choosing this option, you get complete control over where your Facebook ads appear. The more placements you select, the more opportunities you’ll have to reach your target audience. Your options will vary based on your chosen campaign objective, but may include the following:

Device type: Mobile, desktop, or both.

Feeds, Stories, Reels, in-stream (for videos), search, messages, overlay and post-loop ads on Reels, search, in-article, and apps and sites (external to Facebook). Specific mobile devices and operating systems: iOS, Android, feature phones, or all devices. iOS, Android, feature phones, or all devices. Only when connected to WiFi: The ad only shows when the user’s device is connected to WiFi.

Step 6. Set brand safety and cost controls

For example, you can choose to avoid sensitive content and add specific block lists. Block lists can exclude specific websites, videos, and publishers.

Step 7. Create your ad

First, choose your ad format, then enter the text and media components for your ad. The formats available will vary based on the campaign objective you selected back at the beginning of this process. Use the preview tool at the right of the page to make sure your ad looks good for all potential placements. When you’re happy with your choices, click the green Publish button to launch your ad. Facebook ad sizes change more frequently than the weather (seriously). So that your Facebook ads aren’t stretched, cropped, or distorted in any other way, you’ll need to make sure your selected images and videos fit the right dimensions.

Here’s a quick breakdown:

Minimum width: 120 px

Minimum height: 120 px

Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 px

Video ratio: 4:5

Video file size: 4GB max

Minimum video length: 1 second

Maximum video length: 241 minutes

Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 px

Video ratio: 9:16 to 16:9

Video file size: 4GB max

Minimum video length: 1 second

Maximum video length: 240 minutes

Recommended: Highest resolution available (at least 1080 x 1080 px)

Video ratio: 9:16 (1.91 to 9:16 supported)

Video file size: 4GB max

Maximum video length: 2 minutes

Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 pixels

Minimum width: 600 pixels

Minimum height: 600 pixels

Aspect ratio: 1:91 to 1:1

Maximum file size: 30 MB

Aspect ratio: 1.91:1 to 1:1

Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 px

Maximum file size: 30 MB

Aspect ratio: 1:1

Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 px

2. Test everything

Every time you try something new, you should test it against your previous ads so you can see whether you’re making improvements to the metrics that matter most to you. The best practices for Facebook ads are constantly changing. Only you know what works for your specific audience. And the only way you can keep that knowledge up to date is by testing.

3. Simplify your workflow

Social media marketers are busy people with seemingly never-ending to-do lists. But there are a couple of ways you can simplify your workflow. Hootsuite Boost lets you promote social media posts directly from your Hootsuite dashboard. Manage audience targeting, campaign spend, and duration. By setting up Automation Triggers, you can let Hootsuite manage which posts to boost when according to your criteria. Hootsuite Social Advertising helps you streamline your social marketing workflows and maximize your ad spend. You can boost your most popular organic posts to reach more people. Create ad campaigns, track performance, and make adjustments to improve results. Later, generate rich analytics reports to see which campaigns met your goals. Get the most out of your Facebook advertising budget with Hootsuite. Easily create, manage, and optimize all your Facebook ad campaigns in one place. Try it free today.

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With files from Christina Newberry.

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