Facebook is continually transforming and evolving to make advertisers’ lives easier. Features such as improved bidding algorithm, auto bidding, auto placement, dynamic content optimization, dynamic language optimization with value, and LTV bidding have leveled the playing field, making creative the key differentiator for user acquisition to improve their return on advertising spend (ROAS). However, with rapid creative fatigue, rising consumer expectations, and a crowded market, building the right creative is no easy task.

Choosing the Right Creative for Each Campaign

There are a number of options you have when creating a Facebook ad. To be successful in your campaign efforts, you’ll need to determine which creative is best for your business. That could be one of many different forms of advertising, such as video ads, multi-product ads or mobile app installs. We’ll take a look at some of the different types of creative, and how they can help improve user acquisition:

Video Ads

Facebook video ads are the perfect opportunity to increase performance from direct response advertising. The platform itself has 2 billion engaged monthly users, and if you can create a campaign that connects to these individuals on an emotional level, you will see the pay-off in the form of new users and installs.

The key to successful Facebook video ads is that they are attention-grabbing and short. Ideally, the video is around 10 to 15 seconds long, mentioning the brand or call to action in the first few seconds. Making sure your video is mobile-friendly and fully optimized for a vertical format is equally as crucial. We have seen mobile-friendly content become more popular in the past few years and it’s for a good reason: about 65% of Facebook video views are on mobile devices.

In terms of optimization, Facebook video best practices call for ads that do not rely on sound, as most people don’t play Facebook videos with the sound on. Similarly, having ad titles and descriptions that grab the attention of users, while also being clear, concise, and compelling, is helpful. We advise using a maximum of 6 words in your call to action.

Mobile App Install Ads

Mobile app install ads are fascinating because they are only shown in mobile device newsfeeds. Once a user clicks the call-to-action, they are automatically directed to the app store. Being able to acquire users in two clicks is as simple as it gets. Here are some additional tips for creating a high performing mobile app install ad:

  • Fine Tune Your Audience: One of the things that make people abandon a conversion is the time it takes for items to load. By targeting people that are connected to Wi-Fi, you can be sure they won’t have too much trouble when downloading your app. Similarly, you will want to identify which iOS/Android version of the app you want users to have.
  • Image Format: It’s important to format your imagery correctly to maximize appearance and overall performance. This would be 9:16 or 16:9 aspect ratio for full-screen mobile ads or if you’re designing for the Facebook newsfeed it would be a resolution of 1200x628px for a single image ad or 1080x1080px for a square ad.
  • Stand Out: Make sure that your creative differentiates you from competitors in a positive way. You don’t want your ad to be too busy, so stick with one or two fonts and take a slightly more simplistic approach.

Multi-Product Ads

Multi-product ads are less recognized by advertisers but have been known to do extremely well when it comes to ad spend, user acquisition, and driving website traffic. In a recent case study released by Facebook, one company reduced their cost-per-click by 3x and increased ROAS by 3x using multi-product ads.

With multi-product ads (also known as carousel ads), the focus should be on the strength of the visuals, but they should also maintain a shareable quality—avoid being generic and work on how to make the products more original. With multi-product ads, images should really pop and create a connection with the user (i.e. avoid stock photos). A lack of connection can be a killer for user acquisition efforts, whether in a multi-product ad, photo ad, or video ad.

Optimize Creative to Drive Success

Testing, retesting, and making changes is crucial to any Facebook advertising campaign. Let’s take a look at a few creative testing phases and how they can help contribute to the ultimate goal of user acquisition.

  • Competitive Analysis: Identify thetop 10 competitors and conduct a creative audit. In this phase, the goal is to find new creative ideas.
  • Simple Variation Testing: By a/b testing existing creative, you can better understand which elements drive performance.
  • Advanced Variation Testing: Here you will experiment with start and end cards, CTAs, text in image, and advanced creative to see which variations drive top performance.
  • Benefits & Demo In Motion: Facebook’s Creative Shop reviews top performing ads and identifies where they fall between two categories: Benefits in Motion and Demo in Motion.
  • New Concept Ideation: Creating new concepts from competitive ads, develop custom creative with storytelling, and generate variations of new ads.

From Facebook’s side of things, they will typically run your ads in a “learning phase”, which then graduates to the “optimized phase”, delivering more efficient results based on which ads are doing the best. Here are some of the things you should consider when creating optimized ad sets on your end of things:

  • Campaign Objectives: Ensure you don’t have multiple ad sets with the same audiences/objectives. You will essentially cannibalize your own ads, and your ads will be fighting for the higher bid, potentially costing more money than necessary.
  • Following Creative Best Practices: As mentioned above, it is crucial to make creative a main priority. With auto bidding and placement ad tools such as DCO (dynamic creative optimization), creative becomes the key differentiator for increasing user acquisition in social advertising efforts.
  • Volume in Ad Sets: While there are not a specific number of ads per ad set that do better over time, it is common to utilize a lower volume. This helps to maximize the average spend per ad set overall; lowering the cost per acquisition and your return on advertising spend (ROAS).

It’s Okay to Utilize Existing, Tried & True Ads

If you have a specific campaign that regularly drives revenue, consider how it can be used again. There are many different ways that this creative shift can be achieved, with image layout, text and more.

  • Image Layout: You can improve performance with an updated image layout. You will find that there are a lot of ways to tell the same story by changing and adding elements to the layout.
  • Text in Image: Text is a great way to communicate the benefits of downloading your app. Consider and test the following:
    • Strong Call-to-Actions
    • Short vs Long Ad Copy
    • Text Placement
    • Text Color, Font and Size
  • User-Generated Content: Most content on Facebook is user-generated, so stock photos may stick out in a negative way. Start with your own photos or try using customer photos in campaigns so the imagery looks more natural.
  • Repurposing for Video: Compile past images into quick videos by using picture stills.

Final Thoughts

Developing the right Facebook creative can be difficult, but it creates an opportunity for your brand to shine; increasing user acquisition and improving your return on investment and ad spend.

Source: B2C

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