Introduction
Facebook has radically changed the way we socialize. And in addition to the actual human interactions, Facebook also revolutionized online advertising, becoming a decisive marketing element in promoting a business, be it bigger or smaller. Thus, this social network can be a fantastic opportunity for you to reach potential clients and make your business known to the whole world. How? Well, through advertisements.
Facebook is basically a huge community of people who share the information they consider important or interesting, be it videos, images or texts. Consequently, advertising on Facebook can be an extremely effective way of online promotion, which you would be wise to introduce into the marketing mix of your business, if you haven’t done it so far.
If you are familiar with Facebook Ads, you probably already know that there are several types of advertising on Facebook, but what you may not know is that the technical requirements and recommendations for their design are always changing. This means that the ad formats currently accepted are different from those of last year, for example.
If you want to find out what are the currently allowed sizes for images and videos, or how much text you are allowed to use in an advertisement, you have come to the right place. We will explain in detail how to use Facebook Ads correctly to increase the success of your page.
Taking into account these suggestions, you will be able to create ads that sell, regardless of where they appear on Facebook, whether they are displayed in the news feed (Newsfeed), on desktop or mobile, or in the right column of the screen.
HOW DOES FACEBOOK ADS WORK?
Perhaps you have also realized that in recent years the organic reach and the number of people who see your posts has decreased dramatically, while paid promotion has started to gain ground. Thus, currently, Facebook allows you to choose who you want your ads to reach. More and more marketing specialists and even entrepreneurs have begun to realize how much information about customers Facebook can provide them, the social network being an excellent way to understand their behavior and interests.
An effective promotion campaign starts precisely from here – from understanding the client. Understanding how the platform works and, obviously, the effective creation of advertisements are also important. Perhaps one of the most interesting features of advertising on Facebook is the fact that you can test several versions of the same ad, and finally choose the one that works best.
WHY FACEBOOK ADS?
Facebook ads are those posts that companies create and then pay to be displayed. They contribute to attracting the relevant audience for the promoted service or product. An advertisement is part of a Facebook Ads campaign and has certain specific objectives, and the achievement of these objectives is achieved precisely through the advertisements in the campaign. As a rule, this type of online advertisement includes social information about Facebook friends and appears in places called placements – in the news feed or on the right side of the screen.
Therefore, every campaign you will create in Facebook Ads needs an objective. Are you interested in increasing the number of likes on the page? Or do you want more views on a certain post? Do you want as many people as possible to know about your business? Or are you already a well-known brand and want to increase your sales? Depending on the answer, you will know what type of objective to select for the campaign created in Facebook Ads.
At the same time, the objective of your campaign will also dictate the message your ads will convey and how you will weigh the results in the end.
OBJECTIVES
Facebook proposes 11 objectives for advertisements, divided into three categories:
- Visibility: objectives that generate interest in the product or service you offer (brand visibility, impact)
- Consideration: goals that make people start thinking about your business and looking for more information about it (traffic, interactions, app installs, video views, lead generation, messages)
- Conversion: objectives that encourage people interested in your business to make a purchase – (conversions, catalog sales, store visits)
Once you have selected the objective for the ad, you will be guided through the process of creating the ad and you will choose one of the five types of ads to serve the target audience.
TYPES OF ADVERTISING
Facebook offers its users 5 different types of ads to choose from:
- Photography: design up to 6 ad variants using a single image
- Video: create an ad with a single video
- Carousel: create an advertisement with 2-10 scrolling images or videos
- Montage: creation of a looping video advertisement, consisting of a maximum of 10 images
- Plansa: combines images and video clips in an interactive, full-screen experience
The types of ads available vary depending on the objective you select. After you have chosen the type of advertisement, you will have to choose where you want it to appear.
PLACEMENT OF ADVERTISEMENTS
Placement determines where your ad will appear. You can run ads on Facebook in the news feed or in the right column on desktop, or in the news feed on mobile. You can even choose to display ads on Instagram.
After you have decided what kind of advertisement you want and the place where it should be displayed, the next step is to create the advertisement itself, with images, videos and text for the message you want to convey.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS AND DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS
How do you create the perfect ad?
If you want to set up a carousel advertisement, for example, how big should the images be? And what is the best size for the thumbnail when you want to run a video ad? Regarding the text, what is the maximum number of characters you can use? The technical specifications required for setting ads are constantly changing, that’s why it’s important to keep up with the latest rules imposed by Facebook for paid promotion. Respecting the sizes required for photos and videos, your ads will not only look good, but will also attract new customers. Below are the technical design requirements for the 5 types of advertising!
1. Technical requirements for photo advertising
Photo advertising is one of the most versatile types of ads because you can use it with every objective, with the exception of video clip views, obviously.
Image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
Aspect ratio: 1.91:1
Text: 125 characters
Title: 25 characters
Link description: 30 characters
If you want your ad to reach as many people as possible, Facebook recommends using images that contain as little or no superimposed text as possible.
Exceptions to the rule are made by two objectives: improve the page and interactions with the application. Thus, the technical requirements for them are the following:
Promote Page
Image size: 1,200 x 444 pixels
Aspect ratio: 8:3
Increase interactions with the application
Aspect ratio: 16:9
If you intend to use an image in a carousel, montage or billboard advertisement, Facebook recommends using images of different sizes rather than taking into account the technical requirements presented above. Follow the requirements corresponding to each type of advertisement for maximum results!
2. Technical requirements for video advertising
This type of ad is impressive because it allows you to reinforce the message of an ad by using a video. You can run video ads with every objective, except product catalog promotion.
Video format: ideally .MOV or .MP4
Video ratio: ideally 16:9
Resolution: at least 720p
File size: maximum 2.3 GB
Length for Facebook: maximum 120 minutes
Length for Instagram: maximum 60 seconds
Thumbnail size: 1,200 x 675 pixels
Thumbnail aspect ratio: should have the same aspect ratio as the video
Subtitle size: text only, maximum 2,200 characters
Text: 90 characters
Title: 25 characters
Link description: 30 characters
3. Technical requirements for carousel advertising
The carousel ad type allows you to run up to 10 images, videos or montages in a single ad, all linked to different pages.
You can use this type of advertisement with every objective, less with: promote the post, promote the page, interact with people near the business, increase the number of participants in the event and get views on the video. Here are the recommended technical requirements for carousel ads:
Photo
Image size: 1,080 x 1,080 pixels
Aspect ratio: 1:1 (square)
Text: 90 characters
Title: 40 characters
Description: 20 characters
If you want your ad to reach as many people as possible, Facebook recommends using images that contain as little or no superimposed text as possible.
Video
Format: .MOV or .MP4 files
Video ratio: 1:1 (square)
Resolution: at least 720p
File size: maximum 2.3 GB
Length for Facebook: maximum 60 minutes
Length for Instagram: maximum 60 seconds
Thumbnail image size: 1,080 x 1,080 pixels
Thumbnail aspect ratio: should have the same aspect ratio as the video.
If you want to run a carousel type ad with the objective of video clip views, you will be able to use videos only in the ad, and if you want to use the objectives of interactions with the application and ask for the offer, Facebook will allow you to use images in the carousel ad.
4. Technical requirements for montage-type advertising
This type of ad is impressive because it allows you to reinforce the message of an ad by using a video. You can run video ads with every objective, except product catalog promotion.
Video format: ideally .MOV or .MP4
Video ratio: ideally 16:9
Resolution: at least 720p
File size: maximum 2.3 GB
Length for Facebook: maximum 120 minutes
Length for Instagram: maximum 60 seconds
Thumbnail size: 1,200 x 675 pixels
Thumbnail aspect ratio: should have the same aspect ratio as the video
Subtitle size: text only, maximum 2,200 characters
Text: 90 characters
Title: 25 characters
Link description: 30 characters
5. Technical requirements for billboard advertising
The billboard is the newest type of advertisement, being available only for mobile. This allows you to create extremely attractive mobile ads, with six objectives: promote the post, increase brand visibility, amplify the impact, send users to a destination on or off Facebook, get video views, increase website conversions. At first glance, when you see it in the news feed on mobile, it looks quite similar to all other types of advertising. But when you access a flat advertisement, it opens and offers you a captivating experience in which you can interact with the proposed material. At the same time, you are given the option to exit the ad at any time, of course. Components of flat ads Flat ads are made up of several multimedia components, including:
- The actual advertisement
- Photo
- Panorama image
- Video clip
- Carousel
- Text block
- Button
- HEADER
It is not mandatory to use all the components, but you can choose the ones you want included in the ad. At the same time, you have to provide creative content for the ad block that appears in the mobile news feed.
The actual advertisement (what you will see in the newsfeed on mobile)
For this part of the ad you can use either an image or a video. Here are the recommended technical requirements:
Text: 90 characters
Title: 45 characters
Description: 30 characters
Image size: 1200 x 628 pixels
Aspect ratio: 1.9:1
Video format: .MOV or .MP4 file type
Video ratio: 16:9 or 1:1
Photo
A flat photo is an image that implicitly uses the entire surface of the screen. Flat photos have three image sizing options, each with different recommended requirements:
- Width matching (with link)
- Width fit
- Height adjustment
Below are the technical design requirements for each of the sizing options.
Image size:
Fit by width (with link): image width of 1,080 pixels
Fit to width (tap to expand): Minimum image height of 1,080 pixels
Fit to height (by tilting): image height of 1,920 pixels
Aspect ratio: images use the full width of the screen by default
File type: .PNG and .Jpg
Number of images: up to 20 photos can be used in a plan
Panorama image
With the panorama option you can upload wider images than the mobile device, users having the possibility to tilt the phone to rotate the image from one side to another. Here are the technical requirements for panorama images!
Image height: 1,920 pixels
Image width: between 3,240 and 5,400 px (which is 3-5 times larger than the screen size)
Aspect ratio: images use the full width of the screen by default
File type: .PNG and .Jpg
Number of images: up to 20 photos can be used in a plan
Video clip
The video component of the board allows you to incorporate videos along with the rest of the content to create a unique experience.
Technical requirements:
Format: .MOV or .MP4 file type
Length: Keeps the running time of all videos in the board under 2 minutes
Resolution: at least 720p
Orientation: portrait (landscape format videos will automatically resize to portrait format)
Thumbnail: This will be the first frame of the video
We also recommend using subtitles. In this way, users will be able to continue interacting with the video, even if they do not have the speaker on.
Carousel
This component allows you to upload 2-10 images to be presented in carousel format. Each element in the carousel can be linked to another page, and users can scroll the advertisement left and right, on their mobile phone, to interact with them.
Technical design requirements:
Image size: 1,080 pixels (maximum width) x 1,920 pixels (maximum height)
Aspect Ratio: Images can be full or partial height, but all images should be the same size
File type: .PNG or .Jpg
Number of images: maximum 10 images per carousel
Use the same size for all the images you upload to the carousel. If the images are of different sizes, they will be cropped to fit the first image.
Also, note that the images in the carousel use the full screen size by default.
Text block
You can use this component to create a text block that provides context to the ad and to provide users with more information about the product or brand.
Here are all the technical design requirements to put a block of text in the plan:
Text: maximum 500 characters
Font size: 6-72 points
Font color: #rrggbb
Font style: bold, italic or underlined (must be applied to the entire block of text and not to individual words)
Font alignment: left, center or right
Font options: serif or sans serif
Button
Each banner ad must include at least one call-to-action button, which connects to an external URL to which you want to send visitors.
Here are the design requirements for this component!
Height: 48 pixels with 48 pixels of top and bottom padding
Text: maximum 30 characters
Options: serif or sans serif
HEADER
You can add a header that remains fixed at the top of the screen, so that the logo is visible. In the case of headers, the technical requirements are the following:
Image size: 66 pixels (maximum height) x 882 (maximum width)
File type: transparent .PNG
When creating an ad on Facebook, focus on the following elements:
Images and video clips. They have a strong impact on users
The more relevant an ad is to the target audience, the more chances there are for it to make sales
The element of surprise. It is important that your advertisement brings something new. Carefully monitor the market and see what else you can offer to customers.
The call-to-action button. Show the user what to do after seeing the ad.
With over 2 billion users worldwide, of which almost 10 million are Romanian, Facebook has drastically changed the way we interact, both with each other and with the products and services we use. It is therefore the largest social platform, which is why businesses with an active account have a remarkable advantage over those who do not use this promotion channel, because they can come into contact with an extremely large audience.
Used as it should be, Facebook can turn into the most efficient and cost-effective method of advertising for you. Do you want to know how? Contact us using the form below!
