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The different types of Facebook Advertising (explained)

13th October 2018 by Manfredk

Facebook Advertising comes in various flavors to suit your particular needs.

What are all the different Facebook ad types
What are the specifications for each ad type
What are some great examples of different Facebook ad types
Why it’s important to use the right ad type
What’s the best Facebook ad type to use

Traffic and Leads for Your Website

One of the most common purposes of Facebook Advertising is driving traffic to your website. This can be either to increase your site’s overall reach or to send users to a dedicated landing page and have them potentially buy your product, sign up for a newsletter, or participate in some other kind of lead generation. Here’s a breakdown of Facebook ads that help to drive traffic to your website.

Link Click Ads

Supported placements: Right Column, Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed, Audience Network, Instagram

If you think about Facebook ads, you’re probably thinking about the Link Click Ads.

This ad type helps to promote your external website and send people to your landing pages or blog posts. You can use Link Click Ads with several placements; this allows you to deliver the same ad across multiple News Feeds and reach a large audience.

These ads perform really well and have the side benefit of generating Likes for your page. Just remember to check the comments and reply to them for an engagement boost!

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
Ad copy text: 90 characters
Headline: 25 characters
Link Description: 30 characters

Video Ads

Supported placements: Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed, Audience Network, Instagram

Facebook Video Ads are actually another form of the Link Click Ads – just that instead of a still image, your ad’s featuring a video.

Specs:

Ad copy text: 90 characters
Aspect ratios supported: 16:9 to 9:16
File size: up to 4 GB max
Continuous looping available
Video can be as long as 120 min., but most top-performing videos are 15-30 seconds

Boosted Page Posts

Supported placements: Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed, Audience Network, Instagram

Every time you post something on your Facebook Page, Facebook offers you the chance to amplify the post’s reach with a Boosted Post.

As you click on “Boost Post,” you can set up the target audience and bidding methods and promote your Page post to more people across Facebook’s advertising network.

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
Ad copy text: unlimited
Headline: 25 characters
Link Description: 30 characters

The Boosted Page Post will look exactly like an ordinary Facebook post, with a “Sponsored” note on top of the ad.

Sales and Leads for Your Product or Service

If you’re running an e-commerce store or have multiple offers you’d like to promote, Facebook allows you to showcase a range of products and services in a single ad.Facebook has also developed ad types that allow users to submit their email or interact with your brand without leaving the Facebook platform. By not leaving the platform, load times are up to 10X faster! This makes for a great user experience and reduces the time (and often, money) required to acquire new leads.

Multi-Product (Carousel Ads)

Supported placements: Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed, Audience Network, Instagram

The carousel ad format lets you show up to 10 images and/or videos, headlines and links, or calls to action in a single ad unit.

It is extremely useful for eCommerce advertisers looking to promote multiple products from their store, or for marketers looking to promote different posts and offers to see what works and attracts leads with their audience.

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1080 x 1080 or 600 x 600 pixels
Ad copy text: 90 characters
Headline: 25 characters
Link Description: 30 characters

Dynamic Product Ads (DPA)

Supported placements: Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed, Right Column, Audience Networkm, Instagram

Facebook’s dynamic product ads are like re-marketing display ads on steroids. They target users based on past actions (or inactions) on your website or application with a perfectly timed ad.

All you have to do is upload your product catalogue to Facebook and double-check that your Facebook Pixel is installed correctly on your site’s pages. Facebook handles the automation and re-targeting!

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels or 600 x 600 pixels
Ad copy text: 90 characters
Headline: 25 characters
Link Description: 30 characters

Facebook Lead Ads

Supported placements: Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed, Audience Network, Instagram

Lead Ads are the perfect way for, you guessed it, getting new leads! This Facebook ad type allows people to download your content or sign up for your offer without leaving Facebook platform.

This makes the Lead Ads a perfect method for quickly getting a potential customers email address!

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
Ad copy text: 90 characters
Headline: 25 characters
Link Description: 30 characters
Context card can be in paragraph format, which has no character limit, or 5-bulletpoint format, which allows for 80 characters per bullet
Context card headline: 60 characters
Context card button: 30 characters
Privacy Policy and website URL links are required

Once a person has filled in the form, their email addresses will be stored on your Facebook ads account.

The easiest way to move the new leads from Facebook to your CRM system is to automate the entire process. That’s one more thing you can do when setting up your ad campaigns.

Canvas Ads

Supported placements: Mobile Newsfeed

Canvas is an interactive ad that lets users engage with your content on Facebook and is currently only available on mobile due to how we interact with mobile devices.

With Canvas, your target audience members can swipe through a carousel of images, tilt the image in different directions, and/or zoom in or zoom out by moving their fingertips. Canvas also loads 10 times faster than standard mobile web applications!

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
Ad copy text: 90 characters
Headline: 45 characters
Canvas has the following possible components:
Header with logo
Full-screen image
Text block
Button for offsite links
Image carousel
Auto-play video
Full-screen tilt-to-pan image
Product set

Collection Ads

Supported placements: Mobile Newsfeed

Facebook Collection Ads let you showcase multiple products that are being sold on your website.

This new format makes it easier for people to discover, browse and purchase products in a visual and immersive way!

Specs:

Image Size: 1,200 x 628 pixels recommended
Image Ratio: 1.9:1
Your image may not include more than 20% text. Check how much text is on your image.
Headline: 25 characters recommended

Likes & Engagement for Your Page

Your choice of Facebook ad type should depend on your campaign objective – what you want to get out of the ad campaign. Two campaign objectives in particular help to increase the number of Likes on your Facebook Page and/or to increase the reach of the content you post on Facebook.Due to recent Facebook updates, the usual post on your page will only organically reach an average of 2-3% of your fan base. Promoting your posts is a great way to be sure that all your fans see your message.

Page Like Ads

Supported placements: Right Column, Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed

Page Like Ads are the go-to ads for increasing your page Likes. They can be displayed on all placements and include a visible call to action for users to immediately Like your page.

When advertising for Likes, remember that it’s not about getting the cheapest Likes, it’s about picking the right audience that’s interested in your page!

Bonus Tip: It’s very important to pick the right image to achieve great performances.

Page Post Photo Ads

Supported placements: Right Column, Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed
Want to engage your page fans? This Facebook Ad Type has the most space to show your beautiful pictures!

Pick the right image and you’ll be flooded with comments and Likes.

You could also insert a link in the text description of the post, but don’t expect too much traffic from it.

Page Post Video Ads

Supported placements: Right Column, Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed
Video Advertising drives high audience engagement. It builds a strong connection, and even smaller companies can make simple videos to entertain and connect with their audience.

With the ability to re-target subsets of visitors based on how much of your video they watched, this ad type is perfect for creating stellar custom audiences to re-target with other ad types!

Specs:

Ad copy text: 90 characters
Aspect Ratios Supported: 16:9 (full landscape) to 9:16 (full portrait)
File size: up to 4 GB max
Video can be as long as 120 min, but most top-performing videos are 15-30 seconds
Audio: Stereo AAC audio compression, 128kbps + preferred

Page Post Text

Supported placements:Right Column, Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed

This ad format is focused on page engagement. However, there is very little reason to use it instead of the Page Post Photo ad – pictures simply perform better.

If you can, avoid this type of format as it’ll likely deliver lower engagement.

Mobile and Desktop Apps Install

Since the launch of its mobile application, Facebook has become one of the biggest players in the mobile advertising space. Mobile App Install ads present a unique opportunity to bring in new mobile app users on both Android and iOS.
If you’re trying to promote your mobile app, pay attention to these ad units, they are designed for that specific purpose.

Mobile App

Supported placements: Mobile Newsfeed

Mobile App Ads are the perfect choice to drive more installs to your mobile app. This ad is displayed only on the Mobile Newsfeed. When users click the “Install” call to action, the App Store will immediately pop up. This delivers a great conversion rate.

When using this Facebook ad format, you’ll have many additional targeting options to fine-tune your audience. For example, you’ll be able to choose which iOS/Android version you want the user to have, or if you only want to target mobile devices or also tablets, and if you want to target only users connected to a WiFi network.

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
Image ratio: 1.9:1
Ad copy text: Up to 90 characters
Your image may not include more than 20% text. See how much text is on your image

Desktop App

Supported placements: Right Column, Desktop Newsfeed

This ad unit allows you to drive users to your Facebook app and make people engage with it.

Since Facebook apps are not supported on mobile, you can only target either the Desktop Newsfeed or the right column.

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
Image ratio: 1.9:1
Ad copy text: Up to 90 characters

Instagram Mobile App Ads

Supported placements: Instagram

Last but not least (not at all!), you can also advertise your mobile app on Instagram. This makes perfect sense as Instagram users are using the app on mobile, meaning that they might be more interested in downloading additional mobile apps.

You can select both photo and video ads for your Instagram Mobile App Ads.

Specs:

Image ratio: 1:1
Image size: 1080 x 1080 pixels
Minimum resolution: 600 x 315 pixels (1.91:1 landscape) / 600 x 600 pixels (1:1 square) / 600 x 750 pixels (4:5 vertical)
Maximum resolution: 1936 x 1936 pixels
Caption: Text only, 125 characters recommended

Visitors for Your Store or Event

Let’s close our roundup of Facebook Ad Types with two units well suited to drive visitors to your physical event or store. It’s always more complex to measure results for offline promotions, but if used correctly and targeted well, these ads can perform really well.

Event Ads

Supported placements: Right Column, Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed

Facebook Events are a great way for event organizers to attract more visitors. If you want to boost the reach of your event, use this ad unit with the right targeting options.

According to the size and relevance of the event you’re promoting, you may want to limit the geographical reach of the ad to people living in the same city or region as the event.

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1920×1080 pixels
Image ratio: 1.9:1
Ad copy text: Up to 90 characters
Headline: 25 characters
Link Description: 30 characters

Offer Claims

Supported placements: Right Column, Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed

This ad type is perfect for brick-&-mortar store owners who want to attract more people to their stores.

Once your offer ad is live, any user who clicks on your ad and redeems the offer will receive an email containing the details and terms of use.

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
Image ratio: 1.9:1
Offer title: Up to 25 characters
Ad copy text: Up to 90 characters

In order for you to be able to create an offer, your Facebook Page needs to have at least 50 Likes.

Local Awareness Ads

Supported placements: Right Column, Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed

Another way to draw people’s attention to your store is by using the Local Awareness Ads. This ad type works best with Facebook’s location-based targeting, helping you to reach people who are currently near your store.

You can include different call to actions like “Call Now” and “Send Message” to allow people to contact you more easily.

Specs:

Recommended image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
Image ratio: 1.9:1
Text: 90 characters
Headline: 25 characters
News Feed description: 30 characters

And Now Let’s Get To Work

As you’ve seen, Facebook has a very broad offering of ad types that meet every need of your business. Whenever possible, we suggest you test different ad formats and see which ones perform better for you. This will deliver the best results at the lowest cost.For a complete overview of all Facebook ad types and specs, see this guide by Facebook.

All information correct at time of going public but facebook might change promotions, dis continue some or add new ones.You can verify the latest info on Facebook.

How to setup your Facebook Shop.

13th April 2018 by Manfredk

You’ve probably heard it time and time again: You need to get on Facebook.
So, what’s one of the spots online that people spend the most time?
Correct: FACEBOOK
In fact, Facebook users spend an average of 20+ minutes per day on the popular social network.

That’s quite a bit of time considering this happens on a daily basis. Not to mention, many of us can think of our personal experiences of spending way too much time clicking on links and liking posts on Facebook throughout the workday.

Therefore, it’s time to take advantage of Facebook as a selling platform – well not a fully fledged one like Shopify or your OWN E-Commerce Website but certainly with a lot of Traffic.

If you aren’t already aware, you have the ability to create a Facebook shop page and directly sell items to your followers.
You can see my own Shop (as example) here
Before I start it goes without saying
You need a to have a Facebook BUSINESS PAGE (not just a Profile)!
You need to be logged in.

Step 1: Go to Your Facebook Page and Add a New Section

The first step is to navigate to your Facebook Business page. Obviously, you need to be logged into the business page and have admin privileges, but once you go to your timeline you can see a button called Add a Shop Section. It’s located just below the cover photo, to the right.

A popup reveals itself, so you should click Add Shop Section once again.If you do not see SHOP then look for ADD NEW TAB and choose SHOP

Agree to the merchant terms and policies and click Continue.

Step 2: Setup Your Shop Details

Another popup comes up asking about some business details. Start by punching in your business email address. I would recommend checking the box that uses the email for custom service inquiries. This way, any questions that people have are sent to that account.

Towards the bottom of the popup, you should punch in your business address, including the street name, city, state and zip code.

Step 3: Configure Your Payments

You have two options for accepting payment through your Facebook store. The first is processing the payments through the Facebook page. The other involves redirecting customers to another website, like your online shop or website.

Since the most convenient for your customers is to have them check out on Facebook, that’s what we recommend.

Once you select that you’d like to have a checkout on Facebook, proceed by filling in your business information. US users can set up an account through Stripe or PayPal. If you’re located outside of the US, you can arrange an alternative payment method with your customers, such as a bank transfer or cash upon delivery.

Anyway, right above the area that asks for your business address, it talks about setting up your payment system. Click on the link that says to connect to an existing Stripe account. If you don’t currently have a Stripe account, Stripe will send you an email to set one up. That’s after you configure your entire store.

Logging into a current Stripe account is pretty simple. Facebook walks you through the steps to connect the two platforms together.

Note: The PayPal option is still being rolled out, so some business page users won’t see it yet.

Step 4: Finish Your Shop Setup

Once your Stripe account is completely connected, it should redirect you back to the primary Facebook business page. Click on the Finish Setup button to complete filling in the rest of your business information.

This is a fairly simple process, and it all depends on the type of business you run. Once you walk through the final steps the Facebook page becomes live for you to start selling. This doesn’t mean you have anything to sell just yet, but your shop page is configured and your payment platform is ready to start accepting purchases.

Step 5: Add a Product to Your Facebook Shop

Now that you’re ready to start selling, let’s talk about how to add a few products that people can look at and consider buying.

You should see a Shop tab on your Facebook business page. Click on this tab to reveal a box that asks you to add a product. Select the Add Product link to move forward.

Click on the Add Photos button to insert product images that reveal what your product looks like. This works just like any other uploading interface where you can grab an image from your computer and upload it to the Facebook page. After you upload the photos you’ll need to select the Use Photos button to make them live.

A Product Details area shows up after you’ve included the photos. Once again, this all depends on the type of products you’re selling, so feel free to get creative and talk about what makes the product special. You can also simply copy the product description you use on your ecommerce shop.

If your item has different color or size options, or just about any other variant you could think of, click on the Edit Variants link to configure the variants offered through the product. In addition, you can also include shipping methods, pricing and other content like product categories.

Step 6: Managing Your Products

When you’ve uploaded a certain amount of products, you’ll see each of them placed in a list for you to click on and modify. From the list view, you can see an image of the product, pricing and whether or not the product is visible to the public.

If you have any questions about building your Facebook Shop, contact me.
I can build a Facebook Shop for you. Facebook Shops are free to set up my fee is for Online Time only.
I would also need your login details and of course your Product and Business Details to be able to add them. Once your Shop is set up you can either change your Passwords and/or carry on adding Products yourself.

If you have a Page outside the US, you can add one of the following two shop types: Message to Buy or Check Out on Another Website. The Check Out on Facebook shop type is only available for US pages at the moment.

Why you need a Facebook PAGE (not PROFILE)

12th September 2016 by Manfredk

With over a billion active users each month on Facebook, you may have heard that every company, whether you’re large or small, should consider getting on the social network bus.

“I don’t get it!” you might be saying. “How does posting silly pictures and telling people what I ate for lunch help grow my business? Besides, my time is already maxed out.”

True, Facebook is rife with silly status updates that can drive us crazy. But let’s look past all that and focus on the people behind the updates.

Who are these people? They’re existing and potential customers, and on Facebook, you can get up close and personal with them. They’re an important source for growing your business and probably the best advocates – as long as you stay in touch and keep them happy. After all, happy customers lead to referrals to new happy customers, right? Happiness all around – we like that!

Not convinced? Chew on this: Of all the major social network platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Foursquare, Facebook is by far the most popular based on sheer number of users. It gets 526 million+ who visit the site daily.

Still not sure if Facebook is right for your biz? How about five more reasons?

1. Strengthen customer relationships

With a business Facebook page, you can interact with prospects and customers in a way that they’re already familiar with. People share their likes, interests and activities on Facebook, and with your business page, you also can share news, photos and videos.

When someone checks you out on Facebook and “likes” your page or comments on a post, they’re showing that they want a relationship with your company. And they could potentially create great word-of mouth referrals to their friends. With all this “liking” and posting going around, you’ve got a ton of personal info to create targeted marketing campaigns (like promotions, deals and events) to groups of people based on specific interests that are relevant to your business.

For example: A person eating at a restaurant loves her meal. She posts to Facebook about how great it is and that message is exposed to her 200 friends via the news feed. That’s potentially 200 people that the restaurant just got in front of, without spending a single marketing dollar.

2. Expose your brand and increase awareness

While you’re making new connections and deepening existing relationships on Facebook, you’re also automatically generating awareness for your business free of charge. How’s that possible, you ask? Well, every user’s action on Facebook could be published to the news feed for the world to see. So anytime people “like” your page and/or any of your posts, this action could get published to hundreds, if not thousands, of their friends. So go out there and promote your great content, new product/service launches, special offers and events. Every post is an opportunity to get in front of tons of new peeps!

For example: That same restaurant customer posted to her 200 friends, and of the people who saw it, a few commented on the post with things like, “Great place!,” “I loved it too!” and “Their chicken wings are amazing!” It just happens that collectively all of those people had 5,000 friends who could be exposed to their comments. These actions could generate a ton of buzz, and still not a penny spent.

Setup:
http://www.manfredk.com/social-media-marketing/

Facebook versus Website?

13th April 201513th April 2015 by Manfredk

“I’m thinking about abandoning my website and just doing my Facebook page. It’s so easy plus I can add pictures, videos, and do just about everything else my website does. Why do I need a website? Do you think I could just go with Facebook?”

Has that thought ever crossed your Mind?

No, you can’t just do Facebook. Facebook is supplemental to your website. Here are 3 reasons why:

You have no control over Facebook. It’s a *free* service that they are providing for you to use *for free* at their pleasure and which could be changed, taken away, or any number of other nasty things at any given point. Without notice. You do not own your Facebook page.You should not put your complete online business presence in the hands of any entity you have NO control over. Really, there’s no need to add any other reasons to this list – this reason alone should be enough to convince you.
Your website brands you, your Facebook page brands Facebook. Your colors, your style, your logo – you can totally customize for your brand on your website. Facebook does allow some customized pages and images, but overall the site still looks like Facebook. Not you.Your website should be a mini representation of your in-store experience online. And you can’t really do that with Facebook.
People searching the web for your store or your products won’t easily find what they’re looking for on Facebook. What most visitors are looking for from your website is your telephone number, your store hours, your address, or your product mix.Yes, you can put all that on the info tab of your Facebook page. But it’s not in an easy to find, easy to see format on every page. If visitors have to search, they’ll just go somewhere easier.

Facebook and your website are two different, albeit related, marketing tools.

What about Facebook’s limitations? Limitations!? Yes, even the 4th most powerful website in the world has limitations. And the limitations for Facebook don’t exist on your website where you can break apart you content into multiple, easy-to-use pieces in the way that promotes *your* brand. Facebook isn’t just a checkbox feature, nor is it a magic bullet. You don’t want to be a faceless brand – regular Facebook users are too savvy to spend time on a static, boring Facebook page. Your website will always compete with other websites for viewers, but on Facebook you’re competing within the same space.
To stand out you have to have an active presence that offers interesting, sharable information & an on-going conversation. Also, design-wise, you don’t have lots of room to play. Facebook limits the width of your Page content to just 520 pixels wide. That’s not very much.

So not only is the space in which you have to promote your content severely limited, Facebook controls it and can change it at any time. With your website, sure you need to optimize above-the-fold, but you can create a great user experience throughout that you completely control.
What about a Website’s limitations? Unless you’re using an existing template-based approach, custom well-designed websites take a specific set of skills & usually more than an afternoon of work. Creating a page on Facebook, by comparison, is super fast, easy, and anyone can do it. Using a Content Management System (CMS), like WordPress, will give anyone the ability to create and update their own website or blog, but it’s still not as easy as posting something to a Facebook page and participate in the ensuing conversation. And without promotion, even the best-designed website, optimized for search engines will float on the internet like an island unless you market it through ads or social media, etc.. Facebook, meanwhile, is built for sharing, and includes a built-in search feature.

So to summarize: In my Opinion a Facebook Page can be a useful Addition to your marketing strategy but could NEVER EVER replace a well thought about Website.

Connect your Twitter to your Facebook Page

15th August 20158th April 2015 by Manfredk

To connect your Twitter account and your Facebook profile:

Log in to the Twitter account you want to associate with your Facebook profile.
Go to your Settings menu’s Apps tab.
Click Connect to Facebook.
If you are not already logged in to Facebook, then you will be prompted to enter your Facebook login credentials.
Enter your credentials and click Log in to sign in to Facebook.
You will then receive a prompt explaining that Twitter will receive certain information from your Facebook account.
In order to continue, you must select “Okay.”
You will then be prompted to select the privacy settings for who will see your Tweets and Retweets posted to your Facebook wall.
It is set to friends by default.
Click “Okay” to complete the process.
Your Tweets and Retweets will now post to your profile Facebook wall and your username will be displayed there as well. @Replies will not be posted.

Note: To link your Facebook updates to Twitter, use this application on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/twitter.

To connect your Twitter account to a Facebook page:

If you have a Facebook Fan Page, or are the admin of one, you can post Tweets Retweets from your Twitter account to your Facebook Page.

Follow the steps above to connect to your Facebook profile.
If you have not already done so, visit your Apps settings and grant Twitter the “manage pages” permission for your Facebook profile.
In your Apps settings, Select the page you’d like to connect to.
When prompted, click to allow permission to post to the selected Facebook page

Privacy notes:
To control who sees your Tweets, Retweets and username, go to yourFacebook Application settings and click Edit for the Twitter app to restrict who can see your Tweets and Retweets on your Facebook wall.
Unless you have explicitly chosen to authorize Twitter for Facebook to connect your Twitter account to your Facebook account, we will not cross-post to Facebook on your behalf, or display on Facebook your Twitter username, profile picture, or other profile information.
When you choose to connect your Twitter account to your Facebook account, the Facebook authentication dialog screen specifies the Facebook account information that you authorize sharing with Twitter.
This information allows us to cross-post between Twitter and Facebook and may help us improve your Twitter experience, for example, with better suggestions and content on Twitter.
If you disconnect your Facebook account from Twitter, we will delete the Facebook account information that you previously authorized. Please note that it may take up to a few weeks for this information to be fully removed from our systems.
If your Tweets do not post: Make sure the box to Post your Tweets to Facebook is checked in your Twitter Apps settings.
Try disconnecting and reconnecting again. Still having trouble? Tweets not posting? Contact me to get it done!