Advertising on Facebook is one of the most effective ways to get your business in front of qualified leads. There are over two billion monthly, active users on Facebook. In fact, Facebook advertising is so effective, that you can spend a mere 10 dollars on a Facebook ad and reach over 1000 potential customers. With a Facebook ad campaign, you can craft highly-targeted, appealing advertisements in numerous formats. Best of all, Facebook enables you to target your ads based on specific, granular data about your audience and their engagement levels, so you get the maximum ROI for your business.
When you want to start creating and launching a Facebook ad campaign for your company, there are a lot of options available. Facebook ads come in many different formats, and it can be hard to determine which one will be most effective for achieving your marketing goals. Primarily, the type of Facebook ad format you use should directly correlate to the purpose or the goal of your marketing campaign. Whether you’re looking to get more page likes, increase your website or in-store traffic, or build your email list, Facebook ads can help you reach those goals.
Today, we’ll explore the different types of Facebook ads and how to create and use a custom audience for maximum engagement and ROI. We’ll also explain which ads will work the best for your specific marketing objectives.
What is a Custom Audience and Why is it Important?
It’s not enough to create a Facebook ad, launch it, and hope for the best. You’ll need to understand where the ad will display, and who will see it. Facebook allows you to create what’s called a custom audience in your Facebook ads manager account. If you already have a list of customers, such as a subscriber email list, or a list of purchaser email addresses, you can upload the list into your ads manager, creating a custom audience.
The ads you create on Facebook will be targeted to your custom audience, that is comprised of people who already know you. These leads will be qualified. Facebook will take the data on your custom audience and use it to reach more people who share similar interests and qualities to your custom audience. Using custom audiences is an excellent way to reach leads that are going to be highly interested in your brand.
What are the Different Types of Facebook ads?
One of the main purposes of a Facebook ad is to increase traffic to your website. The ad could take viewers to a dedicated landing page, where they can buy your product, or sign up for your newsletter. For marketing campaigns where your goal is to drive traffic to a dedicated landing page, the following Facebook ad formats can be the most effective.
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Link Click Ads
A link click ad is used to promote an external website. The goal is to get viewers to click on the link, and head on over to your landing page or your blog post. Link click ads allow you to place your ad in several different places, meaning you can display the same ad across multiple newsfeeds and therefore, reach a broader audience.
Link click ads tend to perform well and are a versatile advertising format. Not only can they increase traffic to your dedicated landing page, but they can also generate ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ for your Facebook page. People who view the ads will often comment, and if you reply promptly, you can get a further boost in engagement.
The format for a link click ad is pretty simple. You’ll need a relevant, appealing image, a short, compelling headline, enticing ad copy of about 90 characters, and a brief link description.
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Video Ads
Video ads are almost identical in format and scope as a link click ad. Instead of a static image in your ad, you place a video there instead. The top-performing videos are usually pretty short, at 15 to 30 seconds long. Facebook enables you to create ads for longer, up 120 minutes. The ads are set to a continuous loop, and you’ll want to include ad copy of about 90 characters.
When it comes to choosing either a link click ad or a video ad and deciding which will be the most effective, it really comes down to what you’re promoting. It’s always best to test and further optimise your ads to get the best ROI.
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Boosted Page Posts
Any time you publish a post on your Facebook page, Facebook will ask if you want to increase your post’s reach with a boosted post option. With a boosted post, you can formulate the target audience, your bidding methods, and price, and promote your page to more people across Facebook.
If you have a post that has gotten a lot of engagement from viewers, you may want to consider boosting it for further exposure. When you boost a post, it will look exactly as you originally posted it, except the top will display the word ‘sponsored.’ Ad copy is unlimited with a boosted post.
Are you running an eCommerce store and want to increase your sales leads for your products? Facebook has an ad format that allows you to display several of your products or services within one single ad. These types of shopping ads create a better experience for the viewer, too. Viewers can enter their email address, or otherwise engage with your brand without leaving Facebook. Since they don’t have to leave Facebook, load times are much faster. This is easy on your viewers, and also can save you some money in the process of acquiring new leads.
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Carousel Ads
Carousel ads give you the chance to display up to ten of the following in one single ad format:
- Images
- Videos
- Headlines
- Links
- Calls-to-action
For advertisers who want to promote and generate buzz for several different products or posts, carousel ads can be the most effective format, enabling you to reach your marketing goals.
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Dynamic Product Ads
It’s less expensive and time-consuming to retain a former customer than it is to reach a new one. With dynamic product ads, you can re-market to users based on their past actions on your website or other marketing application. How do you get these ads to display? First, you’ll need to upload your product catalog to Facebook. Then, make sure that your Facebook Pixel is installed on your website’s pages. From there, Facebook will automatically retarget your site’s visitors with product ads.
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Facebook Lead Ads
If the goal of your marketing campaign is to get new leads and get subscribers for your email list, you’ll want to check lead ads. This type of Facebook ad enables your viewers to download content and sign up for your unique offering without leaving Facebook. Once a viewer fills out the form, their email address will be stored in your Facebook ads account. The fewer steps between your lead and the desired action you want them to take, the more effective your marketing efforts will be.
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Canvas Ads
Canvas ads are only available on mobile devices. These types of ads are interactive and enable the viewer to engage with your content directly on the Facebook platform. With a canvas ad, your leads can browse through a carousel of images and can zoom in and out, and explore the ad in different directions. Canvas ads also increase the user experience because on average, the ads will load ten times faster than a standard web application.
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Collection Ads
Facebook’s collection ad format enables you to showcase several different products sold directly from your website. The format makes it super easy for viewers to discover your brand, and browse and purchase your product offerings in a visual, interactive way.
If your campaign objectives are to get likes, engagement, and increase your page’s reach, the following ad formats will be the most effective for achieving those goals.
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Page Like Ads
The image you use is going to be the most essential component of a page like ad. You can display these types of ads across numerous placement channels, and include a visible call-to-action for viewers to like your page. For a page like ad, the way to get the best ROI is to make sure your audience is highly targeted. For page likes, you don’t want to go the cheapest route. You want qualified leads to like your page and interact with you for future business growth.
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Page Post Photo Ads
If you want to boost engagement with your current Facebook followers and fans, a page post photo ad is the way to go. With this kind of ad, you can display a large, striking image to wow your followers and get them to engage with your page.
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Page Post Video Ads
On average, video ads will get higher audience engagement and interaction. Videos are more entertaining and give you more options for showcasing your products or services. With a page post video ad, you can re-target certain types of visitors based on how much of the video they watched. Page post video ads give you unique insight into your audience. These types of ads are an excellent way to find and create highly targeted, custom audiences that you can re-target in the future with other types of ads.
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Page Post Text Ads
Page post text ads are explicitly focused on page engagement. However, with this type of ad, you can only use short, punchy text or ad copy. Page post photo ads tend to perform the best when you’re looking to increase audience engagement.
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Mobile App Install
Since 2016, mobile-viewing has eclipsed desktop viewing. If you’re looking to get targeted leads to download your mobile app, you can use Facebook’s new mobile app install ad. Mobile app ads display only on a lead’s mobile newsfeed. When the viewer clicks on the install call-to-action button on the ad, the app store will display. This ad also enables you to find and create a highly targeted audience. You can choose which iOS device your viewers use. You can isolate and target only tablet users, mobile devices, or users connected to a WiFi network.
If you are looking to drive in-store foot traffic, utilising the following Facebook ad formats is a good idea for achieving this goal.
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Event Ads
You can boost the reach of your event with a Facebook event ad. These ads give you the ability to fine tune your audience based on the area or locality you wish to reach.
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Offer Claim Ads
Brick and mortar stores can seriously benefit from running an offer claims ad. Users who click on the ad can redeem a coupon, discount, or other in-store specific offers by receiving an email with the details and terms of use.
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Local Awareness Ads
Local awareness ads work best with Facebook’s location-based targeting metrics and data. With these ads, you can reach people who are currently near your brick-and-mortar store. You can use different calls-to-action for these ads, such as a ‘call now’ or ‘send message’ button.
Over To You
Creating a custom audience, determining which ads will work best for your objectives, and crafting an appealing ad takes time and marketing expertise. At Australian Internet Advertising, we have years of experience creating and launching effective and lucrative Facebook ad campaigns for our customers. We have a passion for helping businesses like yours increase their brand awareness and acquire targeted, loyal customers. If you’re ready to harness the power of an effective Facebook ads campaign, contact us today. We’ll get you started with a highly targeted and customised Facebook advertising campaign that will reach your goals and skyrocket your business growth.
