Is your Facebook ads performance suffering or even nil? Facebook feels your pain. When your ads don’t perform well, it’s a knock to the reputation of their platform. In order to help you succeed, they released a Facebook guide for better ads, video ads to be exact. This is something I’ve noticed about Facebook. They are pretty supportive of their users and if you look around, you will find a ton of free training and more to help you get the most out of Facebook.
All The World’s a Video
100 million hours of video are devoured by users each day on Facebook. That’s a lot of video, so your content better stand out. If it’s an ad, that’s a whole new can of worms. Your Facebook ads need to grab attention quickly as people scroll their News Feeds. You have about a quarter of a second to get the job done.
With the onslaught of services like Periscope, Facebook Live, and others, you better on your video-making game. The days of being camera-shy are over. If you don’t like to be in front of the camera, you better be a good cartoonist or something that will translate over to eye-catching video. If you are creative, then you know you don’t always have to be in front of the camera. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with screen capture.
Facebook Does The Research on Facebook Ads
Facebook began a study in the 4th quarter of 2014 and ran it for 1 year through the 4th quarter of 2015. They selected 850 English language video ads. Then they recruited their control group of people without a creative or advertising background to evaluate each of the Facebook ads.
The study was quite thorough. Each of the Facebook ads were evaluated twice using 19 questions grouped under the following 4 dimensions:
- First impressions
- Branding
- Messaging
- Video features
Facebook was then able to develop a Facebook guide for better ads to help advertisers improve Facebook ads performance.
Information I Learned From the Facebook Ad Guide
First and foremost, your Facebook ads need to bring your brand to the front. Your brand message should be clear at the very start of your video ad without the benefit of sound. From personal experience, I’ve noticed a lot of people caption their videos since even if the video autoplays, the sound is always muted. This is exactly Facebook’s first suggestion based on their study: include captions. 46% of the ads evaluated didn’t have a clear brand message.
Adapt your Facebook ads for News Feed viewing so that they get results:
- Showcase – Make your service or product visible for the majority of the 30-second Facebook ad
- Conversation – Don’t rely on conversation to convey your brand message
- Brand Link – Is the brand easy to identify? Is there a link?
- Sound – Again, the brand message should be apparent even without sound
- Message – Should be concise and memorable, but not too long or detailed
Overall, for marketers, the Facebook performance guide had some great stats, information, and suggestions. There is an industry-wide demand for video that compliments other aspects of online marketing. The days of throwing together some text and links and slapping them everywhere possible are over, my friends.
Facebook suggests that you design your Facebook ads with the screen in mind while understanding how people interact with content on different devices. Don’t be afraid to cater to the scrolling News Feed environment. It does have its advantages. Then, be ready to adjust for better Facebook ads performance.
Wrap Up
So, if your Facebook ads that contain video have disappointed you, you now have a guide direct from the source to help you optimize your Facebook ads performance. No one said online business was easy! I’d love to hear about your ads in the comments. Do you use video?