A number of things happen when you sign into your Facebook account. You check your notifications, reply to any messages lingering out there… and then you probably scope out your newsfeed. Whether you’re looking for a laugh from your friends’ latest ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos or the latest news about the iPhone 6—you get drawn to your newsfeed for a reason. That’s exactly why Facebook ads can be so effective and offer a wealth of potential for increasing sales.
As of 2014, there are more than 1.28 billion monthly active Facebook users worldwide. You could see huge returns if you run a successful ad campaign on Facebook. While there are many details to consider when setting up and optimizing your Facebook ads—such as choosing a photo, analyzing click-through rate (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC) and more—mastering a few basic details will help increase your overall return on investment.
When setting up your Facebook ads, keep these tips in mind for a better ad campaign response:
1) Set up your ads with the correct dimensions
You only have a split second to capture your audience’s attention, so it’s imperative that you take advantage of all allocated space possible to do so. If you’ve ever set up an ad campaign, you’ll notice that uploading smaller images results in a smaller, less noticeable newsfeed ad. Be sure that your ad photo is at least 1200 pixels wide and 600 pixels long to achieve maximum results and appear like this:
Using a photo with smaller dimensions will cause your ad to appear smaller (see below), with the image displayed only about a fourth of the size it should be:
2) Make your ad stand out with contrast and bright colors
Color psychology applies to Facebook advertising, too. While there isn’t one color that’s overall best for conversion, you will experience higher and lower success rates with different color schemes. Since Facebook’s primary layout colors are blue and white, you’ll want to make sure your colors contrast each other to draw attention to the eye when using that color scheme.
Photos with high impact and contrasting colors like yellow, orange or purple show some of the highest ad response rates. When using bright colors, be sure that your ad background contrasts with itself to best stand out (the purple ad pictured above shows a good example of contrasting colors). Test out different photo variations to get an idea of what works the best, and then keep the campaigns that prove to drive more of a response.
3) Direct your ad to the right-sized target audience
You might be inclined to set up your ad with no audience size limit because you want everyone to see your ad. This isn’t the way to go. Facebook offers tons of different targeting options such as age, location, interests, behaviors and much more—giving you the chance to really narrow your ad down to your most relevant audience. Targeting your ad to a more specific audience allows you to better personalize it to be more appealing to that audience. While choosing your ad demographics, Facebook gives you a brief overview of the density of your selected audience, and you’ll want to make sure your audience is defined. Here’s an example:
4) Use a link ad rather than a photo ad
While photo ads take up more visual space in the news feed, link ads are shown to drive a higher conversion rate and ROI when set up properly. With a link ad, your audience can click anywhere on the ad photo OR on the link to be directed to the website and take action. Link ads also give you the option to include a built-in call-to-action button (pictured below), and photo ads do not.
When using a photo ad, the user must click on the link in the text area above the photo to be directed to the website page, because clicking on the photo only enlarges it and does not convert to the website page. Using a link/photo ad increases your click-through rate naturally because ads are more clickable. Here’s an example of a link ad versus a photo ad:
5) Provide a call-to-action
Give your audience some direction for taking action after they see your ad. Since Facebook only allows 20% of your ad photo to contain text, it’s not always possible to add in an engaging CTA to your design. If designing your CTA into your photo isn’t an option, use Facebook’s call-to-action button option. Even if users were to view the photo and continue scrolling, there is another chance to capture their attention with the CTA button placed at the bottom of the ad (pictured in the bottom right corner of numerous ads above).
While ad success rate will vary depending on the industry, the above tips will help increase response across the board. Just be sure to keep an eye on your click-through and frequency rates to measure success. If your ad has a frequency of 5, that means the same person has seen the same ad 5 times without taking action. An increasing frequency rate paired with a decreasing click-through rate shows that the same people are viewing your ads frequently and are not buying into them, so action needs to be taken for improvement.
If you have any questions about Facebook ads, please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. I’d be happy to advise you about setting up your campaign or improving your numbers!