WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT FACEBOOK ADS
As someone who works with Facebook Ads on a daily basis, I’ve had quite the love-hate relationship with it. While frustrations abound as bugs and quirks arise with the platform, it usually pays off in the end as they have worked diligently to refine their advertiser tools and offer some really exciting ways of reaching customers. Last November I wrote about the introduction of the Local Awareness ad objective, which gave brick and mortar businesses the opportunity to reach people in proximity of their location. We’ve used this for a number of clients in various ways – both on an ongoing basis and in targeted event awareness applications. Tweaking local awareness ads through Power Editor to define audiences by interest and behavior – something not available in the regular Ads Manager interface – has allowed us to really drill down and reach the right people.
FACEBOOK MULTI-PRODUCT ADS
Now Facebook has given us yet another exciting tool in the past couple weeks – Multi-Product Ads. It’s not a new objective like local awareness ads were, but rather a creative new way to utilize website clicks and conversions ads. Previously, these ads consisted of a blurb of text, a single 1200×628 pixel image, link and an optional call-to-action button. With Facebook Multi-Product Ads, advertisers can now define three or more images, headlines and links within a single ad that can appear on desktop and mobile news feeds. Users will see the first couple images and give them the option to scroll for more links or see more at the advertiser’s website. As of now, advertisers must create their ads in Power Editor to get access to Multi-Product Ads, though Facebook says it will work this ad building functionality into other interfaces later this year.
SO WHY GET EXCITED ABOUT THIS?
Multi-Product Ads gives advertisers a bunch of opportunities to showcase different kinds of content and achieve specific objectives. First and foremost, Multi-Product Ads is a visually dynamic showcase for products and services. You can give ad viewers choices and entice them to click on what’s most relevant to them. This is exciting because it multiplies the potential impact of your ad. Overall, we’re seeing greater click-through rates on Multi-Product Ads versus the older single style.
Another thing we’ve excited about is using it for other specific purposes. For example, you can showcase your best blogs in an ad and give users a magazine-style table of contents to choose from. You can also give people a variety of actions you would like them to take and see which ones get the best response. You can choose a static order to your links, or let Facebook dynamically order them by popularity. In one instance, we used Multi-Product Ads to give us some additional insight on a particularly tricky audience to convert. We set up multiple landing pages – one directing people to take direct action, and others inviting people to learn more about specific aspects of this business. When we looked at the breakdown of how many people clicked on each different link within the ad, it let us know we needed to change up our approach, which will ultimately result in more conversions.
The opportunities don’t stop there. Think of all the different ways you can leverage multiple image links in a single ad. You could use the Multi-Product Ad to give multiple views of the same product and give people an Amazon-style image gallery, with the ability to put the best performing image front and center automatically. You could highlight multiple specials or coupons, or even multiple locations of your business. It’s a great way to have people meet your team with headshots leading to each team member’s profile page on your website. The possibilities are really quite exciting!