Welcome back to our Facebook Ads Manager guide! In the first blog, you learned the basics about ad objectives, setting up your budget, as well as defining a target audience. Get ready to learn all about ad types and specifications!

In this blog, we will introduce you to the following topics:

• Ad placements
• Ad specifications
• Ad costs

Deciding on where to place your ads

On which platform do you want to show your ads? The answer to this question is what we call ad placements. Depending on your chosen objective when creating the ad campaign, your ads may appear on Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger or the Audience Network. Facebook recommends you choose the automatic placements setting, as this allows their system to get the most out of your budget. Automatic placements can particularly be useful if you are not entirely sure where to place your ads – and if you are new to advertising. Facebook will then help you place your ads and learns about your target audience’s behaviour.

Edit the placements

If you are sure however, editing the placements to your liking is the better option. You can exclude certain placements and even limit them to mobile or desktop. This gives you more creative control and allows you to customise placements according to your strategy. For example, if the majority of you target audience is on Instagram, you can select the Instagram placement without having to set up an Instagram account for your business. Great, right?

Specifications to run your ads successfully

A successful campaign and the design of your ads are inseparable. The design must be done properly in order to meet all Facebook’s requirements. Good to know: the requirements differ per ad type. For example, image ads will have different requirements than video ads, and so on. Let’s have a look at the four Facebook ad types: image ads, video ads, carousel ads, and collection ads.

Image ads

You can use an image ad to show off your product, service or brand. First tip: keep visual text limited! Facebook always has been very strict with this – an image shouldn’t contain more than 20% text, otherwise Facebook will reduce its delivery. Note that there are some exemptions to this rule, this counts for: book and album covers, games and event posters. Furthermore, Facebook has the following requirements for an image ad:

• Filetype must be JPG or PNG.
• Ratio needs to be 1.91:1 or 1:1.
• Resolution should at least be 1080 x 1080 pixels.
• Maximum file size should not exceed 30 MB.
• Minimum width should be 600 pixels, same goes for minimum height.

Video ads

Over the last few years, videos have grown in popularity, which unsurprisingly led to an increase of Facebook feed video ads. You can use the video format to show off your product, service or brand in an even more engaging way than an image ad. Including movement and sound will draw the attention of your target audience and allow you to show unique features of your product or (brand) story.

Facebook lets you decide on different video ad types:

• In-stream: advertising that plays in the videos your target audience watches on Facebook.
• Feed: video ad that your target audience encounters when scrolling through their feed.
• Stories: video ad that your target audience encounters when checking their stories.

The design recommendations Facebook has for video ads are:

• Filetype must be either MP4, MOV, or GIF.
• Ratio needs to be 1:1 for desktop or mobile and 4:5 for mobile only video ads.
• A resolution of at least 1080 x 1080 pixels.
• Video captions and sound are optional, but recommended.
• The maximum file size cannot be larger than 4 GB.

Carousel ads

On to the third one: carousel ads. With this format, you can showcase up to ten images or videos within one single ad. This provides more creative space, as you can highlight multiple products, specific details or tell a story. Did you know that you could also use all images to create one larger panorama photo? Get creative! Each image or video can be customised with a link – e.g., leading to product pages. Carousel ads are tremendously suitable for encouraging user engagement. With regular ads, users tend to quickly scroll past an ad, whereas the multiple cards within the carousel ad entice them to swipe and see what the next image or video displays. Design recommendations for carousel ads are the same as for the image and video ads.

Collection ads

The last format we discuss is the collection ad. This includes a cover image or video, which is then followed by at least three product images – only usable for mobile. If a user taps on the collection ad, they will see an instant experience, which is a full screen landing page sparking interest and resulting in high-engagement. Doesn’t that sound good? Collection ads allow you to capture the attention of your audience, tell a great story about your brand and highlight your products or services in a unique way! This way of advertising is especially captivating for people on-the-go, as people don’t have to leave the Facebook app to shop – just like with collection ads. Design recommendations are the same as for the image and video ads.

Ad costs: auction time!

Unfortunately, running ads isn’t for free. Doing it correctly will make you more money than it costs, though! That’s what we are striving for in the end, right? Luckily, Facebook lets you decide on the budget and even with a small budget, you can accomplish great results. The exact costs depend on a lot of factors, as the Facebook ad space practically works like an auction – you bid for ad space, in competition with others. The better your ad, targeting and overall design, the more chance you make of winning the ad space from your competitors.

Budgeting your campaign

You individually set your budget and bid. Next to that, you enter the maximum you want to spend, so Facebook can protect you for overspending. As soon as a person in your target audience performs the preferred action, let’s say making a conversion or liking your page, you make costs. The ad auction decides what ad should be shown to which people. With the information you provided in the ad creation process, Facebook shows your ad to the people that most likely be interested in your content, for the price that you bid.

As written in the first blog, Facebook allows you to create a bid strategy which can be automated. In this case, Facebook bids for you with the intent to spend your budget evenly throughout the run time of your ads. You can set a campaign spending limit, which is a maximum amount that you are willing to spend on a given advertising campaign. Or an account spending limit, which sets a maximum amount for all campaigns you are running. During and after your ad campaign, you should monitor results via the ad centre of your page – or just go directly to ads manager. This helps you understand the if your ads are effectively delivered and it allows you to make adjustments to efficiently reach your target. If Facebook notices that your ads are not getting any results, they stop delivering your ad. You only pay for results!

That’s it for our second Facebook Ads blog. In our third and last blog, we will talk about Facebook audiences, tips for running ads and we’ll hit you up with some great Facebook ad ideas. See you there!