The best tool for seeing other brands’ Facebook and Instagram ad creatives is the Meta Ad Library.

The best place for browsing curated Facebook ad examples is my Meta ads gallery: 200+ hand-picked ad screenshots with a short explainer on why each one work. All images and videos available to download for free.

If you’re looking for more lists of high-conversion ad examples from top brands, check out all my articles below.

• 240+ Best Facebook Ad Examples (2026 Update) – this guide
• 35 Best Facebook Video Ad Examples
• 80+ TOP Instagram Ad Examples
• 40 Instagram Story Ad Examples
• 105+ LinkedIn Ad Examples

I published my first article on best Facebook ad examples in 2018.

Since then, it’s become my habit to capture any great ad creative I spot on Instagram or Meta Ads Library. I save them in a Figma doc (image ads) and Google Drive (videos).

My personal gallery of Meta ad ideas holds well over 1,000 creatives.

Whenever I work on a new brand’s paid ad campaign, I return to this gallery to collect ideas. I also check out the competitors’ Ad Libraries (which is how my own collection expands).

The best thing about having a mixed library of B2C and B2B brand ads is that it helps you come up with out-of-the-box ideas. My go-to trick is to use consumer brand ads as inspiration for my B2B tech clients’ creatives, and vice versa.

In this list of 240+ ads, you’ll find my favourite brands’ advertisements, along with an inside scoop on the latest trends and best practices of Facebook ads.

Facebook ad best practices

What makes a great ad creative?

Based on 10+ years of experience here are my TOP 10 suggestions for successful Facebook ad copywriting and design:

1. Communicate a strong value proposition
2. Use high-quality images and videos
3. Test bright colours and high contrast
4. Add a clear call-to-action in the ad visual
5. Get started with single-image static ads
6. Add other formats like Carousel and video ads
7. Write value-driven ad copy and headlines
8. Follow correct Facebook ad size
9. Include special offers and promotions
10. Show proof like testimonials and ratings

What works in Meta ads in 2026?

I’ve noticed 3 key changes in the Meta ad creatives discourse over the past 12 months:

1. Self-proclaimed Meta ad experts on LinkedIn post about using AI tools to generate “100 creatives in 30 minutes.”

If you’ve ever tried out one of their prompts, you know that’s a lie.

High-performance ad creatives are still created by human designers, mostly in Figma (static ads) and Adobe After Effects (video ads).

2. It’s become much easier to create OK video ads.

Meta recommends running a mix of static and video ads, with more focus on UGC (user-generated content style) videos.

The most beautiful and complex video ads still require the Adobe After Effects skills.

But you can design pretty decent-looking videos that perform with CapCut and Instagram Edits.

3. Competition for people’s attention has never been tougher.

Whenever it gets easier to produce something, there’ll be more of it.

Everyone’s tired of AI slop, and even the most excellent original content suffers from this. This applies to newsletters and blogs, social media posts, and your paid ad creatives.

To stand out in 2026, start from defining your ICP (ideal customer profile).

Who are these people in real life? What are the aesthetics that catch their attention? What’s the best value prop to promote? What’s fun and engaging for them?

Wise’s Ad Library is one I check again and again. They always lead with relevant USPs in bold headlines, build comparisons, and address specific jobs to be done.

2026 Facebook ad examples

Ads that worked in 2020 may not deliver high ROI (return on investment) in 2026. You must be constantly experimenting with new ideas: formats, layout, colours, USPs, etc.

See inspiring Facebook ad creatives from brands across 10 industries:

1. B2C (business to consumer) beauty & health
2. B2C food & grocery products
3. Consumer apps & subscriptions
4. B2C technology products
5. B2C household products
6. DTC (direct to consumer) consumer products
7. B2B (business to business) software brands
8. B2B service providers
9. B2B enterprise-level products
10. Magazines and newsletters

1. Lovable

Best practices & ideas to copy: Strong number-led value prop (save 10k), bold and instantly recognisable brand colours, a lot of text in ad image (nobody reads the text description).

2. Claude

Best practices & ideas to copy: Claude’s (Anthropic) Meta Ad Library has 550 active ads. Why? Because they’ve created specific ads for all their ICPs: developers, founders, designers, etc.

This one’s for marketers. Clean design, familiar integration logos, carousel cards that show real work benefits.

3. Healf

Best practices & ideas to copy: Unconventional ad format that stands out in Instagram Feed, collaboration with a well-known health influencer, number-led “savings” value proposition.

4. Canva

Best practices & ideas to copy: Collaboration with an expert explaining how to use the tool, high-quality UGC video recording, product UI shown in the ad, teaching while promoting the product.

5. Vinted

Best practices & ideas to copy: Collaboration with a major local Gen-Z influencer to show how easy it is to sell on Vinted. On the other hand, the ad invites Aimee France’s followers to sign up to see her Vinted store.

6. Notion

Best practices & ideas to copy: Recognisable brand style, ads with white/light background pop out in the otherwise colourful Instagram Feed, super valuable discount offered, clear CTA inside ad image.

7. Revolut

Best practices & ideas to copy: Question that invites the viewer to think and engage, beautiful design that makes you want one of the cards, portrait-format creative that can be adjusted for Feed placements by Meta’s algorithms.

8. AG1 by Athletic Greens

Best practices & ideas to copy: I like how they’ve made a photo-based ad so much more than that. The bright green headline, overlays with supplement information… And managing to convey so much information by keeping the overall look uncluttered and on-brand.

9. McDonald’s

10. Klarna

11. Squarespace

12. New York Times

13. Loops

14. Templify

15. Shopify

16. Roleo

17. Burger King

18. Charlotte Tilbury

19. Sandqvist

20. Apple

2025 Facebook ad examples

My hand-curated selection of Facebook ads screenshotted in 2025. Enjoy and get inspired.

Boots

Best practices in this ad:

• Create special ads for holidays and occasions like Mother’s Day
• Include your logo in the ad creative
• Use bright contrast and colours
• Showcase multiple products in a carousel ad
• Use the “Shop Now” call to action to drive sales

KFC

Best practices in this ad:

• Promote special offers with limited time to create a sense of urgency
• Use super high-quality photography, enhanced with image editing tools
• Mention the product price in the ad if it’s impressively cheap

Revolut

What’s great about this ad:

• Promote an unique offer, in this case a customised bank card
• Edit static ads into videos: slight movement helps to capture attention
• Include App Store icons throughout the ad, indicating you’re promoting a mobile app

Sensodyne

What’s great about this ad:

• Include social proof, e.g. “No.1 dentist recommended brand”
• Make your product stand out in the visual for higher brand recognition
• Keep it simple and light: Meta ads with white background tend to perform better

Uber Eats

Twix

H&M

Pantene

Lidl

Fairy

Garnier

Doritos

McDonald’s

Charlotte Tilbury

Clarins

Mercedes Benz

Maltesers

Ninja Kitchen

Lofbergs

Maryland Cookies

Harry Potter

Transport for London

M&M’s

YSL Beauty

The Joy of Plants

Walkers

TK Maxx

Toblerone

Vinted

2024 Meta ad examples

The Meta ad examples in this section were collected in late 2024.

• SaaS & B2B Meta ad examples
• B2C digital product ad creatives
• Consumer product Facebook ads
• E-commerce & fashion ads

All of the Meta ad examples that you see here are original screenshots from my Facebook feed or from the Facebook advertising audits I’ve done, and Facebook Ads Library. The Facebook ads’ size is usually 1080 x 1080 pixels for square creatives and 1920 x 1080 for the Story format. 

#1 Heinz

#2 Blinkist

What’s great about this ad:

• The ad has a meme-like style that feels native in Facebook and Instagram
• The creative exemplifies the benefits of the product in a fun, engaging way
• The ad copy is straight to the point, and mentions a clear value prop

#3 Grammarly

What’s great about this ad:

• The visual includes the logo, clear USP, and CTA button
• The double-choice question in the ad invites the viewer to click and find out more
• Static ads tend to outperform video ads in square formats

#4-5 Vinted

#6 Shopify

#7 Wise

#8 Bilance

#9 Oreo

#10 IKEA

#11 McDonald’s

#12 Alohas

#13 Kerastase

#14 Ferm Living

#15 L:a Bruket

💫 2023 update! 💫

Doing the roundup of the latest top Facebook ad examples is one of my favorite tasks in January.

When researching this year’s winner, I went through 50+ brands’ Facebook Ad Library pages.

Here are the 3 key trends that I noticed in 2023 Facebook ad creatives:

1. Brands are sooo slow to update their creatives – many brands run the exact same ads as in 2022. While these creatives may have performed really well, testing a new creative idea biweekly would certainly yield even better results.
2. There are even more portrait-story format ads – some B2C brands have nearly given up on the Feed ad placements and bet big on Stories and Reels. Naturally, all portrait-format ads should be videos.
3. The UGC video ad trend – While promoting UGC (user-generated videos) is the #1 strategy on TikTok, it’s been only slowly adopted by Meta advertisers. In 2023, more brands will be collaborating with content creators to produce their video ads.

But hey, let’s cut the talk and let these smart Meta ads speak for themselves.

#1 Shopify

I chose this social media ad example by Spotify to open the roundup as it’s the epitome of the perfect ad creative in 2023.

It’s a video ad, it’s fast-paced and engaging, it features user-generated content, and it’s also showcasing the product later in the video.

#2 Grammarly

Grammarly is one of the brands I’ve been always following for the best video ad examples. In this simple video ad, they both tell an engaging story and illustrate how their product helps to improve the users’ everyday lives.

Tip: Keep in mind that having the best ad creatives is just one piece of the puzzle. In addition to having the best ad creatives, make sure to also get your Facebook ad campaign structure right.

#3 IKEA

It feels like the advertisements are getting more colourful and fast all across the board. Ikea’s taken the opposite approach. In the overloaded Facebook and Instagram feeds, this Ikea carousel ad example will feel like a breadth of fresh air.

This ad creative is also the perfect proof that you don’t need a huge design team and fancy 3D animations to create a well-performing ad. A bit of creativity will do.

#4 Burger King

Ufff, such a boring ad example from Burger King, the master of creative advertising!

But the point is… Even brands with huge offline and online brand campaigns are using Meta to boost user acquisition. The trick of adding numbers – low prices, discount %, etc. – is not going anywhere in 2023.

As I already wrote in my Facebook Ad Design Hacks, showing some numbers in ad creatives always helps to get better campaign performance.

#5 Starbucks

A “winning ad examples compilation” isn’t complete with a creative by Starbucks. I keep returning to this brand’s Ad Library page to gather inspiration. If there’s one advertiser that keeps continuously reinventing its ad visuals, it’s SB!

I chose this particular ad as I liked how it it combines the promotion of five different products in an single image. An idea to test in 2023! 😉

#6 Job Today

Time for some client appreciation! In 2022 and 2023, I’ve been helping Job Today with their growth marketing strategy and Facebook ads.

Together with their Brand team, we created a collection of 50+ different ad creatives in just two months. I find the video ad below to be a good example of how static ads can be turned into videos with reasonable effort and time.

#7 Canva

Testimonial ads aren’t going anywhere in 2023. There will only be more ways to visualize your user feedback: static ads like Canva’s, videos of user interviews, customer case studies, success stories, etc.

Testimonial and case study ads work well both in Prospecting and Remarketing stages, but you may want to create slightly different ad texts and CTAs for either option.

#8 Qminder

Client example vol 2! Here’s a social advertisement example that we created together with Qminder, designed by yours truly. The ad text is simple and mentioning 2023 on the first week of the year makes the offer feel 110% timely. We also mentioned the main benefits and features of the product to explain how Qminder can help companies improve their visitor experience.

( + I sometimes feel that my job title is Graphic Designer rather than Growth Marketer.)

#9 ClickUp

Recently, ClickUp has become one of the main advertisers whose Ad Library page I check for B2B Facebook ad inspiration. From memes to high-quality testimonial videos, they’ve got all the best practices covered.

This particular example serves as a reminder to promote special offers and discounts and make this the focal point of your ad visual. So simple, so efficient.

#10 Vimeo

When creating video ads for Meta, remember to show your brand in the first 3 seconds and then keep the viewers hooked with fast movement. Check out other Vimeo ads for more examples of fast-paced, informative video ads that introduce the product and features.

That’s it, folks. I could make this article another 50 examples long but in the end, it’s all about what works for your brand. My recommendation for achieving success with your Meta ads in 2023 is to put more effort and time into creating top-notch visuals.

Browse the Ad Library (and this article) for endless inspiration.

💎 2022 update! 💎

Every year, I see an increasing number of brands using video-format ads. Another trend I’ve noticed is that brand awareness-style ads (featuring filmed video content similar to YouTube and TV ads) are en vogue. However, I still believe that Facebook ads that showcase numbers, products, and promotions will bring you the best ROI.

The following 10 Facebook ad examples feature the best static ad creatives from some of the world’s leading brands. Hope you’ll find some inspiration for revamping your own ad creatives!

If you’re working on eCommerce ads, see more examples here: eCommerce Ads Guide & 20 Ad Examples.

#1 AirHelp

There’s no more timely Meta ad example to begin the 2022 showcase with than one advertising help with flight delays. :p

AirHelp’s ad hits right on the nerve: it asks a question that relevant audiences will identify with and offers a solution. Bonus points for mentioning the possible compensation amount.

#2 Bolt

It was encouraging to see that since I left Bolt, there haven’t been many changes to the top-performing ad creatives. We kept the design minimal and catchy and it worked like a charm.

When adding new ad creatives to your campaigns, always leave on some high-performers. Why kill something that’s working?

#3 Starbucks

Starbucks’s ad is a great example of a simple static ad turned into a video. The only things animated in the visual are various coffee packs. You don’t need a huge budget to create video ads, just be creative.

#4 The Ordinary

Think that simply featuring your product on a white background looks boring? Possibly. But it works – the focus is just in the right element. Moreover, this ad will be highly visible in the image-heavy Facebook and Instagram feeds.

#5 Oreo

I’ve always returned to Oreo’s ads for inspiration – they’re always on-brand and the team keeps coming up with new cool ways to make people engage with their product.

#6 Greenpeace

It’s hard to convince people to choose the ethical option. This Facebook ad by Greenpeace uses a soft shock tactic to raise awareness. Also, featuring media coverage of your product and brand is a smart way to add credibility to your message and mission.

#7 IKEA

Carousel ads are still a thing in 2022. Take this example by Ikea. I also like how they’ve managed to “brand” the regular-looking photos with a yellow line + in-image text. I bet this works much better than just a photo.

#8 Squarespace

Here’s one for the SaaS businesses. Instead of showing just a boring product interface, Squarespace shows the result of using their product. Also, using a textured background for a more interesting end result is a nice idea to test in 2022.

#9 The New York Times

This ad serves as a good reminder that Facebook removed its 20% text limit already a couple of years ago. Using text-heavy ads with bright colors is an interesting way to catch people’s attention.

#10 La Roche-Posay

We’ll end the 2022 showcase with another ad from the beauty industry. Similarly to the afore-mentioned ad by The Ordinary, this Facebook creative features a single product on a white backdrop. Only they’ve added a promo offer and some text. Test with both options.

💎 2021 update! 💎

This year, when browsing the Facebook Ad Library for the best new static Facebook ad creatives, I noticed several trends: bold use of color and text as well as a more creative and fun approach to visual communication.

Here are the top 5 trends in Facebook ad creatives in 2021:

1. All top brands use a mix of video and static ad creatives.
2. Advertisers create all their ads in two formats: for the feed and story placements.
3. There’s been a shift towards more colorful ads, introducing more flexibility in regards to the brand CVI.
4. Many brands use automation tools to customize ads for specific locations or product groups.
5. After Facebook removed the 20% text limit, more brands opt for big bold typography with text covering up to 90% of the visual.

#1 Gorillas

In 2021, the grocery delivery ups sprung up like mushrooms after rain. They all advertise pretty much the same message: Get your groceries delivered in 10 (or 15) minutes.

This ad example by Gorillas is exemplative of several design trends: eye-catching colors, bold typography, and a locally customized messaging. 

#2 Nike

Compared to boring product photos on white background (which Nike is also heavily advertising), this creative will attract much more attention in the Facebook feed full of photos and news articles.

If you’re creating ads for an eCommerce brand, test showcasing your products on a colorful backdrop instead of a plain white background.

#3 Canva

This Facebook ad by Canva manages to include two product screenshots AND a headline AND a CTA button. Props to their designers.

 #4 Spotify

Spotify has been using colorful illustrations in their ad visuals for years, so they’re rather leading a trend than following it. In 2021, more brands have connected with designers to create custom illustrations to be used in social media and ad visuals.

As a fan of beautiful illustratorial work, I consider such ads to have a positive effect on the long-term brand perception, even if they may not perform as well CPA-wise as more plain and straightforward creatives.

#5 Restream

Restream’s ad comprises several visual trends: 3D illustrations, gradient color schemes, and bold typography. Moreover, the ad copy is short and straightworward, highlighting the top features and benefits of the product.

Discloser: I am currently working with Restream on their Facebook ad creatives and campaign management.

#6 Bolt 

The advertising team in Bolt is one of the most performance-oriented that I’ve encountered, so checking their ads is a good way to uncover the latest Facebook advertising hacks and trends.

Bold typography, emphasizing relevant numbers, and customizing the ad to the location that they’re targeting help to attract the viewer’s attention as well as make them click and download the app to get the deal.

#7 Klarna

If you want your Facebook ad to feature a photo, try applying it inside a geometrical shape and adding some colorful background. Much more visible and efficient than a basic picture.

#8 Starbucks

Similar to the Nike ad above, Starbucks is placing their products on backdrops bursting with color. That’s been a strategy used by the coffee brand for several years already, so something about it must work.

#9 Squarespace

This text-only ad by Squarespace inspired me to test a similar aesthetic approach with several of my clients. In most cases, ads with heavy text performed surprisingly well. 

Now that Facebook is not disapproving text-heavy ads anymore, it is worth testing a simple ad with colorful background and well-chosen bold fonts. Add some emojis, highlighted words or illustrations to make your ad more interesting.

#10 Revolut

Contrary to most advertisers avoiding dark creatives, Revolut’s going against the flow.

However, I’d recommend to first test dark-shaded ads against light and colorful ones and only doubling down on those once you see that they perform well. In my experience, light-backgrounded and colorful ads outperform very dark creatives.

#11 Snickers

If you’re advertising to millennials and even younger audiences, check out what Snickers is doing with their ads. The creativity of their creative agencies seems to be boundless. Or maybe they just ate a Snickers…

#12 Gorillas

Another strong Instagram ad example by Gorillas, this time centering the visual around number 10 – this is how much it’s supposed to take to get your groceries delivered.

#13 VanMoof

There are three things that make this ad rather smart: the use of strangely positioned bike, light colors, and customized location in the in-image headline. As a combination, I’d assume it performs rather well for them.

#14 COS

Sales ads do not have to look cheap. COS has found a way for to get their -50% sales promotion across in a simple and arguably stylish way.

#15 McDonald’s

We’ll end the 2021 ad example showdown with an ad by McDonald’s. First of all, offering to give anything away for free always gets people clicking. But also, the 3D typography and custom illustrations make the ad look much nicer than a photoshopped burger picture would. 

Colors, illustrations, bold typography… What a 2021-trendy ad.

🎈2020 update! 🎈

To keep this article from becoming too heavy to load, we added 18 new paid social ad examples from 2020 to another page. Check them out here.

Looking for Instagram ad examples instead? Here are 84 best Instagram ad examples and 40 good examples of Instagram story ads.

As you work through this article, you will:

• Have a better sense of what’s working
• Have many new ideas for improving your Facebook ads
• Feel inspired to set up new types of ad campaigns

How to find Facebook ad examples?

If all these ad creatives showcased in this guide are not enough for you or you want to see more ads from a specific brand, you can easily do it.

In 2019, Facebook released their Ads Library to create additional transparency around the ads any specific Facebook page is promoting.

You can type in any brand name and pick a location to see what ads they’re running.

Truth be told, I’ve tested out the Ads Library on many occasions and seen that only a fraction of all the live ad creatives are visible there (when comparing to the ads I know a brand I’m working with is running or the ads I’ve been shown by specific brand in my Facebook Feed.) But hey, it’s better than nothing!

Also, AdEspresso used to have an Ads Gallery that showed thousands of Facebook ad creatives. As of July 2019, they have closed it down. 

Get Facebook ad tactics straight to your inbox: 35+ Best Marketing Newsletters in 2026, Read by TOP 5% Marketers

NEW 20 Facebook ad examples, 2019 edition

#1: DoorDash

#2: Calm

#3: Oatly

#4: Design Pickle

#5: Bolt

#6: Mailchimp

#7: Finnish Design Shop

#8: Slack

#9: Hired

#10: PayPal

#11: Lyft

#12: Blinkist

#13: Ben & Jerry’s

#14: Holini

What makes this ad so good:

Did you notice the “? link” in the ad copy? Adding an extra link for people to click on can increase your Facebook ad’s CTR. + Holini’s also smart about their ad design – use a custom colour filter to turn any stock image into a branded image.

#15: Intercom

#16: Shopify

#17: The New York Times

#18: Asana

#19: Starbucks

#20: Warby Parker

When browsing for new ad examples for the 2019 update, I noticed a few things:

1. An increasing number of advertisers are running video ads – of all the brands I checked out in the Facebook Ads Library, 9/10 had video ads running.
2. Instagram Stories placement is still strongly underused – while Facebook has told that Stories will soon have more views than regular Instagram posts, only 3/10 advertisers had portrait-format Instagram Stories creatives.
3. The best practices haven’t really changed – while there’s a growing trend in colorful and “artsy” ads, the main hacks have remained unchanged: add copy in the ad image, keep it short and catchy, have a clear call-to-action, and so on.

140+ Facebook ad examples, 2018 edition

#1: MOO

What makes this ad so good:

The bright Facebook ad design immediately catches people’s attention + the ad’s headline says clearly what it is they’re selling. When creating Facebook ad images, it’s always a good idea to use an original photo or animation – it’s an easy way to catch people’s attention and show off your branding.

#2: Pipedrive

What makes this ad so good:

The in-image copy makes sure the most important copy gets immediately seen + a CTA button hints people can click on the ad. Pipedrive’s SaaS Facebook ad also makes it easy to understand what product they’re selling – it’s made loud and clear in the ad image, main text, headline, and link description. (Look at it as an interesting use of repetitive yet efficient messaging.)

#3: MindTitan

What makes this ad so good:

This ad example uses the carousel format that lets you add up to 10 images into a single ad (the perfect way of showcasing your products / telling a story) + the ad’s design has an eye-catching contrast to it. You can use Facebook carousel ads to tell a story, showcase your products, or list the benefits to customers (as MindTitan’s ad does).

Full disclosure: MindTitan’s one of my clients ATM.

#4: PayPal

What makes this ad so good:

The icons help to convey the message and make PayPal’s ad a little more engaging, leading to lower Facebook ads cost. A common line between great B2B and B2C Facebook ad examples is their masterful use of colour and minimal design.

#5: Canva

What makes this ad so good:

Canva’s ad is fun and simple at the same time. When you think about your Facebook feed, it’s usually filled with photos. Using a white colourful Facebook ad design helps to get your ad noticed.

#6: Shopify

What makes this ad so good:

Not all Facebook ads are focused on sales. This example by Shopify is using Facebook to share their blog content and increase brand awareness.

#7: Autopilot

What makes this ad so good:

Autopilot ad is a great example of SaaS marketing done right. The text lists their product’s benefits while the carousel’s images showcase their product views and features. As a result, this Facebook ad informs the viewer about Autopilot’s product even before they visit the website.

#8: Zendesk

What makes this ad so good:

The striking minimalism of this ad makes sure people will immediately realize what the product and offer (Try Zendesk Chat) are about. This ad would make for a great remarketing ad for people already familiar with the brand.

#9: Google

What makes this ad so good:

Did you know you can also add videos to your carousel ads? I’ve seen this approach work well for SaaS Facebook ads as it makes an otherwise boring product screenshot come to life.

#10: GoPro

What makes this ad so good:

If you’ve recently launched a new product, you could create a Facebook Custom Audience and advertise it to the existing customer base. How to get them to buy your newest product – offer a trade-up like GoPro.

Read more: How to Set Up Low-budget Facebook Ad Campaigns on Your Own

#11: Hootsuite

What makes this ad so good:

Limited-time offers create a sense of FOMO and make people act quicker (= more signups in a smaller timeframe). When advertising limited-time offers, make sure your campaign budget’s big enough to quickly reach all your audience members.

#12: Teabox

What makes this ad so good:

Teabox’s Facebook video ad example tells a story while also informing people about their upcoming sale. Presale countdown Facebook ads are a great way to build up some hype and get people to save the date.

#13: Leadpages

What makes this ad so good:

If you’ve got some impressive numbers up on your sleeve, why not share these in your Facebook ad. From the no. of users to the no. of people benefitting from your product, mentioning them helps to create more trust in your brand.

#14: OptinMonster

What makes this ad so good:

OptinMonster’s Facebook ad example gives a visual clue to the benefit of their product. This ad certainly caught my attention.

Tip: if you’re doubting between multiple image options, you can always do some Facebook A/B testing to find out what works best.

#15: AWeber

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad isn’t trying to sell you anything. However, it’s asking people to take a fun survey and to submit their email to get their results. In the long term, this Facebook ad is bringing in many new email marketing leads – another interesting way of using Facebook ads as a PPC channel.

#16: Taxify

What makes this ad so good:

Instead of using stock images or screenshots, you can use design tools like Illustrator and Sketch to create a more visual representation of your product. If you consider how crowded Facebook newsfeed is with photos, using a custom design will help you get higher CTRs. And using speed lines wouldn’t hurt, either.

#17: Cobiro

What makes this ad so good:

Cobiro’s Facebook ad is mentioning two well-known brands and even using Google AdWords’ logo. The reason this works is that people will feel more positive about this small brand as they like the bigger brands mentioned.

However, be careful with using other brands’ logos in your ads – you actually need their permission to do so.

#18: IKEA

What makes this ad so good:

The next time you need to announce your sales, instead of creating a complex ad image, simply lay your message out on a blank colourful background. IKEA’s Facebook ad is stunning in its simplicity and efficiency.

#19: Lyft

What makes this ad so good: Well-chosen contrasting colours + straightforward in-image text. In addition, Lyft’s ad copy explains their offer more in detail for those interested.

#20: Soylent

What makes this ad so good: Soylent’s listing all their product’s benefits in the ad copy. You too can use emojis and symbols to add special characters in your ad copy.
Here are some to get you started: ➕ ➡ ✓

#21: GitHub

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad example by GitHub is one of my favourite latest finds. Maybe it’s just me, but I find the gradient background perfect.

Read more: Instagram Ad Design and Copy – The Beginner’s Guide (2018 Update)

#22: SUMO

What makes this ad so good:

This ad looks like it’s part of a Facebook retargeting campaign promoting the the product to people who already tested SUMO’s products. If you’re able to create remarketing audiences of at least 100 people, it’s worth setting up a dedicated ad campaign.

#23: Venngage

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad is sharing an industry report. But before people can download it, they’re asked to submit their email address. + Mentioning the year of your content helps to show it’s relevant NOW.

#24: Drip

What makes this ad so good:

In addition to mentioning the magical word FREE, this Facebook ad example by Drip features a happy-person-photo. All things considered, people will feel more positive about the offer and associate the email course with positive results. A similar approach would also work well in Instagram campaigns.

#25: Asana

What makes this ad so good:

I’ve always been a huge fan of Asana’s colourful Facebook ads – they catch your attention right then and there. When designing your Facebook ads, put it some extra effort as your ad’s image is arguably its most important element (it’s the first thing people will notice).

#26: Allsaints

#27: Happy Socks

What makes this ad so good:

Instead of just promoting their product, Happy Socks is adding a small discount to their offer, making it a lot more attractive to potential buyers. A similar ad could also be used as a remarketing ad – if a website visitor didn’t make a purchase on their first visit, you can offer them a discount to incentivize them to return.

#28: Inkbox

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad copy delivers only the most important information. However, Inkbox’s ad text shows that they’ve perfectly understood their product’s key benefits for the customers.

#29: Adobe Stock

What makes this ad so good:

Another easy way to add a layer of branding on a stock photo is to darken the background image and place your logo over the image. This way, you’ll also increase people’s awareness of your logo.

#30: Cleanly

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad reminds people of a common problem and offers a better solution. Using the “bad” and “good” comparison is a simple way to show people why your product’s beneficial to them.

#31: Hired

What makes this ad so good:

Hired’s Facebook ad example’s copy is actionable and tells exactly what people will get as they click on the ad.

#32: Kissmetrics

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad example is all about the customer – you. “Get, keep, grow…” and other actionable verbs explain the products’ benefits. + the carousel’s symmetry is just spectacular.

#33: New Scientist

What makes this ad so good:

When selling subscription services, you might want to first offer people a free or discounted trial period. Once they’re happy with what they see, you can upsell.

#34: Bloomberg Business

What makes this ad so good:

This example is a little bit different from the rest as it’s a Facebook app install ad.

One of the best practices when promoting a mobile app is to include the name of your app in the ad image. Moreover, to make it clear to people it’s an app, advertisers can include the App Store icons in the design.

#35: Amazon

What makes this ad so good: While this Facebook ad has a really strange headline, it could serve well as a remarketing ad for people interested in this particular product or other toys.

#36: Square

What makes this ad so good:

Here’s another great example of Facebook carousel ad done right. Square is using the carousel’s cards to explain how their product works.

#37: HubSpot

This Facebook ad by HubSpot is a good example of the latest trend: placing the logo and simple text on a solid-color background.

What makes this ad so good:

The best way to inform people about a discount is to place the -X% sign in the Facebook ad image. Overall, using numbers in your Facebook ads is always a good idea.

#38: Heap

What makes this ad so good:

Heap’s Facebook ad is another good example of namedropping. One way to explain your new product to people is via another product they already know.

#39: Grammarly

What makes this ad so good:

Grammarly’s Facebook ad makes a big promise: “Your Life’s About to Change.” Using this copy in the headline is sure to spark many people’s curiosity.

#40: Google

What makes this ad so good:

Google’s Facebook ad is not really about their products. It’s about YOU. When creating ads, think about your customers instead of your product. What’s the unique value you can add to their lives?

#41: Dropbox

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad mentions the size of Dropbox’s user base. If 90k people are already using it, it must be pretty good, right? When you’ve acquired enough customers, you can test a similar approach.

#42: Adidas

What makes this ad so good:

Here’s a great example of how to showcase your product in a simple yet creative way.

#43: Inbound.org

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad example is noteworthy for two reasons: First, how many Facebook ads have you seen that combine black-and-white with bright colours? Second, the ad’s headline addresses directly their core audience – marketers. A more personalized approach is also preferred when creating highly converting ad campaigns.

#44: The Kooples

What makes this ad so good:

This is an example of Facebook dynamic product ads. Here’s how it works: you set up your product catalogue on Facebook and once a person views a particular item on your website, they’ll be shown a personalized retargeting ad with the very item. If you’re in eCommerce, this is your thing!

#45: MailChimp

What makes this ad so good:

In addition to being an amazing email marketing tool, MailChimp’s ads also beam with authenticity. Using a custom design for your Facebook ads is always a preferred option (compared to generic stock images).

See how to set up low-budget Facebook ad campaigns without using boring stock images.

#46: Sleeknote

What makes this ad so good:

Sleeknote’s Facebook ad promises quantifiable results, giving a better sense of how much their product can improve your marketing results.

#47: Asos

What makes this ad so good:

If you’re selling multiple products, use a carousel ad to show people all of them. Moreover, Asos’s ad is super simple, making a light and pleasant impression. Even the SALE sign isn’t too intrusive.

#48: Upwork

What makes this ad so good:

This Facebook ad by Upwork is also focusing on solving a problem for the customers. When writing your Facebook ad headlines, try to use an actionable verb such a “Get” “Try” “Discover” to nudge people to take that action.

#49: ZenHub

What makes this ad so good:

Lately, gradient’s made a comeback and is being used across websites, ads, and other branded material. If you haven’t tried a gradient Facebook ad yet, it’s time to do it.

#50: HubSpot

What makes this ad so good:

One way to get people read the full ad copy is to pose an interesting questions. HubSpot’s Facebook ad image asks “How well do you rank for SEO?” Now which marketers wouldn’t want to find out the answer?

#51: GetResponse

#52: GraphicStock

#53: Marvel

#54: Packlane

#55: Nike

#56: Trapica

#57: Yesware

#58: Copy Hackers

#59: Flywheel

#60: Leadpages

#61: Moz

#62: Sprinklr

#63: The Econimist

#64: Tubular

#65: WishLoop

#66: AppExchange

#67: AdStage

#68: Blue Bottle Coffee

#69: Groupon

#70: Harvest

#71: Google Cloud

#72: Krowdster

#73: Compass

#74: Drift

#75: Eventbrite

#76: CoSchedule

#77: Dell

#78: Amazon Prime Now

#79: Autopilot

#80: LinkedIn

Aaand you’ve reached the end of this rundown.

If you’d like to see your company’s amazingly awesome Facebook ad examples featured in this list, reach out.

The post 240+ Best Facebook Ad Examples (2026 Update) appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

For organic posts, 1080 x 1350 pixels (4:5) is the best-performing feed size in 2026. It takes up more of the mobile screen without cropping on desktop. Square format (1:1, 1080 x 1080 pixels) still works everywhere and is the foolproof choice.

For Meta ads, the same two sizes apply: 1080 x 1350 for feed placements, 1080 x 1080 when one file has to work across every placement.

Facebook Stories and Reels, organic or paid, are 1080 x 1920 pixels (9:16).

However, there is more to know about Facebook ad specs and size. For example, how to design your Facebook ads to get more clicks? Or what Meta ad sizes to create for maximum success?

Running the same creative on Instagram? See the Instagram ad specs and sizes for 2026 → Instagram ad sizes in 2026.

Also, when advertising on Facebook, you’ll have the option to use more than one ad type.

In fact, there are currently ten different Facebook ad formats (not counting Instagram ads), each perfect for some kind of Facebook ad campaign structure. It is super helpful to know about all the seven ad layouts and when to use them.

In this guide, we’ll touch upon the following questions:

• What’s the right Facebook ad size?
• What’s the best Facebook feed post size?
• What are all the different Facebook ad types?
• What are all the Facebook ad specs?
• What are some of the best examples of Facebook ads?
• How and when to use particular ad types?

Let’s begin with the basics: the dimensions for Facebook feed posts and news feed ads. And then move on to more advanced Facebook banner sizes.

But first, a question that 90% of the articles listing the ad sizes do not cover: How to select the right ad types and sizes when creating your Facebook campaigns?

Read more: 35+ Best Marketing Newsletters to Follow in 2026

Facebook post sizes in 2026 (organic posts)

Facebook has quietly shifted toward vertical. 4:5 (1080 x 1350) is now the best-performing feed size because it takes up more of the mobile screen without getting cropped on desktop.

Square format still works, however, and is the safest single export if you only make one.

How to select the right Facebook size for each ad type?

If you’re just getting started with Facebook advertising, you’re likely to need some help with picking the correct ad dimensions.

After all, there are MANY possible placements…

After seeing such a wide variety of options, it is easy to get confused…

Also, back in 2018, the go-to Facebook ad size used to be 1200 x 628 pixels. Now, you can publish Facebook posts that 1080 x 1080 pixels wide or portrait: 1080 x 1350 pixels. This means a lot more real estate in the news feed.

For example, compare these two ads:

❗ 2025 UPDATE! All Facebook feed ad placements are now eligible for the 1:1 format ad sizes, so you don’t need to upload a landscape ad format anymore.

When creating a new Facebook ad campaign, we recommend using Automatic Placements for maximum reach.

Suggested article: 30min DYI Facebook Ad Audit for Non-marketers (and Marketers)

This means that you will need to create ads in at least 2 formats:

• 1080 x 1080 pixels for Facebook and Instagram news feeds
• 1080 x 1920 pixels for Facebook and Instagram Stories

You can upload images with different dimensions under a single ad by selecting “Select a placement to customize” when editing your Meta ads.

Below is an example of the static image ad types we use in a MeetFrank ad campaign. We used the three banner sizes listed above.

What happens if you do not upload some of the special Meta ad sizes?

If you don’t have time or resources to create custom image sizes for Instagram ads, you can also use the 1:1 format ads and Facebook will automatically adjust your creative for the Story placements.

Not adding a custom ad image for the Story placement can result in slightly less good-looking ads. But you can still run them and get ok results.

Here’s the difference:

To sum this up, you can follow these three best practices:

• Use as many Facebook ad placements as possible for maximum reach.
• Upload custom image and video sizes for all the placements you’d like to use.
• If you don’t have time to create all image sizes, just go with the 1080 xs 1080px ad size.

When publishing Facebook posts, you can also use images 1080 xs 1080 pixels wide.

Alright… Let’s now take a look at the Facebook ad specs for all the available ad types, so that you can create high-performance ad creatives.

Facebook ad sizes and formats in 2026

When creating Meta ads for my own managed ad accounts, I always export static image ads at PNG files. JPGs are ok as well, but may deliver slightly lower quality in the final result seen by your audience.

Design at 1080 x 1080 and 1080 x 1920 and you’re covered for roughly 90% of Meta ad delivery.

Here’s the full spec sheet, with the ones that matter marked.

Facebook News Feed ads

The most popular Facebook ad type is News Feed ads. These are the ads that you see when scrolling your Facebook news feed, both on desktop and mobile.

What is the ad size of the Facebook News Feed ad?

• Recommended image size: 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Minimum width and height: 600 pixels.
• Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, crops to 1.91:1 with a link
• Recommended image formats: JPG, PNG (PNG has higher quality)
• Images with 20% or more text may get disapproved by Facebook

Feed ad text character limits:

• Text length: max 125 characters
• Headline length: max 25 characters
• Link description length: max 30 characters

Facebook News Feed video ad specs:

• Resolution: Upload the highest resolution video available that meets file size and ratio limits
• Video file size: 4GB Max
• Recommended video length: 15 – 30 seconds
• Video length minimum: 1 second
• Video length maximum: 240 Minutes
• Video ratio: 9:16 to 16:9
• Minimum dimensions 600 x 315 (1.9:1 landscape) or 600 x 600 (square)
• Recommended video formats: .MP4 and .MOV
• Video captions: Optional but recommended
• Video sound: Optional but recommended

Facebook Carousel ads

Compared to single-image ads, Facebook carousel ads provide a great opportunity to present more images and benefits inside a single ad.

This can mean higher ad engagement rates and, hopefully, also lower cost-per-click prices.

You can add up to 10 images into one Facebook carousel ad. And all of the carousel ad images should be in 1:1 format and 1080 x 1080 pixels wide. Your Meta carousel ads can also include videos instead of static images.

Facebook Carousel ad specs and size:

• Recommended ratio 1:1
• Image size: 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Minimum width and height: 600 pixels (minimum 254 x 133 pixels for Messenger Home carousel ads)
• Minimum cards per ad: 2 images
• Maximum cars per ad: 10 images
• Max image size: 30MB
• Recommended image formats: JPG and PNG

Carousel ad character limits:

• Text length: max 125 characters
• Headline length: max 40 characters
• Link description length: max 30 characters

Tip: You can ensure that your banner images do not include too much text with the Facebook Text Overlay tool.

Facebook carousel video ad specs:

• Recommended resolution: minimum of 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Recommended ratio 1:1
• Minimum cards per ad: 2 images
• Maximum cars per ad: 10 images
• Maximum video file size. 4GB
• Video length: 1 second to 240 minutes
• Recommended video formats: .MP4 and .MOV
• Video captions: Optional but recommended
• Video sound: Optional but recommended

Facebook & Instagram Story ad specs

Instagram Stories placement is slightly overtaking the other Facebook ad placements, with an increasing number of users reacting to Story ads.

If you’re not yet using the Story placements in your Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns, you should: You will get much higher reach and scale the results at a lower cost.

Facebook and Instagram Story ads have the same dimensions and specs, so you can use the same creatives for both placements.

Facebook Story image ad specs:

• Text: no extra text, all text must be part of the image file
• Format: Full-screen vertical ad (9:16)
• Recommended size: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Minimum resolution: 600 x 1067
• File types: .JPG, PNG
• Max. image size: 30MB
• Photo content: visible for 5 seconds

Facebook Story video ad specs:

• Media type: video
• Recommended video duration: 15 seconds
• Minimum length: 3 seconds
• Maximum length: 60 seconds
• Aspect Ratio: 1.9:1 (landscape)
• For videos under 9:16: Colored gradient bars are rendered above and below
• Video file size: 4GB max
• Video Captions: Not available
• Video Sound: Optional
• Frame rate: 30fps max
• File type: .mp4 container
• Video: H.264 video compression, high profile preferred, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan
• Audio: Stereo AAC audio compression, 128kbps + preferred

Read more about Stories ad dimensions in this guide by Facebook.

Facebook Right-hand Column ads

In addition to the main Facebook ad placements – news feed and stories – you can also upload the images in size 1200 x 628 pixels and have them visible in the right-hand column.

The Facebook right-hand column ads can bring you extra reach and clicks. And you can add them with very little extra effort.

Right column ad size and specs:

• Recommended image size: 1200 x 628 pixels
• Minimum width and height of 600 pixels
• Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, but crops to 1.91:1 with link
• Recommended image formats: JPG and PNG

Right column ad character limits:

• Text: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters
• Link description: 30 characters

Facebook Audience Network ad specs

The Facebook Audience Network allows you to extend your Facebook and Instagram campaigns across the internet – and to have your ads shown on thousands of high-quality websites and apps.

In a Facebook ad campaign study, the conversion rates and results were 8x higher among people who saw ads across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network than people who only saw the ads on Facebook.

So it usually makes sense to include the Audience Network placement in your ad campaigns. If possible, also add video creatives into your ad campaigns as many Audience Network placements only show video ads.

Facebook Audience Network ad size and specs:

• Recommended image size: 1200 x 628 pixels
• Minimum width and height of 600 pixels
• Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, but crops to 1.91:1 with link
• Recommended image formats: JPG and PNG

Audience Network ad character limits:

• Text: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters
• Link description: 30 characters

Audience Network video ad specs:

• Resolution: Upload the highest resolution video available that meets file size and ratio limits
• Video file size: 4GB Max
• Recommended video length: 15 – 30 seconds
• Video length minimum: 1 second
• Video length maximum: 240 Minutes
• Video ratio: 9:16 to 16:9
• Minimum dimensions 600 x 315 (1.9:1 landscape) or 600 x 600 (square)
• Recommended video formats: .MP4 and .MOV
• Video captions: Optional but recommended
• Video sound: Optional but recommended

Facebook Instant Article ad dimensions

Instant Articles is a mobile-optimized ad format that enables publishers to distribute fast-loading interactive articles to Facebook’s app.

The Instant Article placement will allow your Facebook ads to appear when people read these articles.

Instant article ad image specs:

• Recommended image size: 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Image ratio: 1:1
• Minimum width and height of 600 pixels
• Recommended image formats: JPG and PNG

Instant article ad character limits:

• Text: 30 characters
• Headline: 25 characters

Instant article video ad specs:

• Recommended to publish the highest resolution video possible
• Recommended video length: 15-30 seconds
• Recommended aspect ratio: 9:16 to 16:9
• Recommended video formats: .MP4 and .MOV
• Max video file size: 4GB

Facebook Marketplace ad creatives

Facebook Marketplace is a place on Facebook’s platform where users can buy and sell items. As they browse around, they will also spot some ads in the feed.

We wouldn’t recommend using Marketplace as the only placement in your ad campaign as the potential reach would be fairly low.

However, if you already have ad images in 1:1 format for other placements (e..g for the Audience Network), you can also add the Marketplace placements for additional reach.

Facebook Marketplace ad image guidelines and dimensions:

• Recommended image size: 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Minimum width and height: 600 pixels
• Recommended image formats: JPG and PNG

Marketplace ad character limits:

• Text: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters
• Link description: 30 characters

Facebook Marketplace video ad specs:

• Resolution: Upload the highest resolution video available that meets file size and ratio limits
• Video file size: 4GB Max
• Recommended video length: 15-30 seconds
• Video length minimum: 1 second
• Video length maximum: 240 Minutes
• Video ratio: 9:16 to 16:9
• Minimum dimensions 600 x 315 (1.9:1 landscape) or 600 x 600 (square)
• Recommended video formats: .MP4 and .MOV
• Video captions: Optional but recommended
• Video sound: Optional but recommended

Facebook Messenger ad specs

Facebook Messenger ads appear in between the messages in the Facebook Messenger app. People will see these ads in the Chats tab.

At first, users will see a collapsed version of your ad, like the example below:

If the viewer is interested in the offer, they can tap on it to expand the ad to find out more.

Learn more about Facebook Messenger ads in this guide by Facebook.

Facebook Messenger ad size and specs:

• Format: single-image ad
• Recommended image size for collapsed ad: 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Recommended image size for expanded ad: 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Image formats: JPG and PNG

Facebook Messenger ad character limits:

• Text: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters
• Link description: 30 characters

Facebook Sponsored Message ad specs

The Sponsored Message ads allow advertisers to have direct conversations with their audience on Messenger.

There’s a Facebook Messenger policy that businesses cannot send messages to contacts after 24 hours of a user’s last contact. Unless they are sent as sponsored messages.

That’s exactly when the Sponsored Messages come into play: you can re-engage with people with whom you had conversations in Messenger by using these paid ads.

Sponsored message ad image size:

• Recommended image size: 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Image ratio: 1:1
• Minimum width and height of 600 pixels
• Recommended image formats: JPG and PNG

Sponsored message ad character limits:

• Text: 30 characters
• Headline: 25 characters

Quick recap

Although there seems to be an endless amount of different Facebook ad placements, specs, and dimensions, all the ads actually have similar requirements.

This means that you can already reach 100% of your Meta ad audience by uploading static image ads in three sizes:

• 1080 x 1080 pixels for Facebook and Instagram news feed
• 1080 x 1920 pixels for Facebook and Instagram Stories

Also, follow these character limits to make sure that your Facebook ads fit in all placements:

• Text: 125 characters
• Headline: 25 characters
• Link description: 30 characters

Not that difficult, is it? Learn more about creating highly converting Facebook ads in these articles:

215+ Best Facebook Ad Examples from TOP Brands
16 Copywriting Tips for Facebook Ads and Social Media Posts
28 Facebook Advertising Hacks for Complete Success

The post Facebook Post & Ad Sizes in 2026 – Foolproof Guide [Updated] appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Cool. I’ve been doing that a lot recently, too.

That’s because video ads have become an indisputable requirement for any Facebook advertising campaign.

When researching Facebook Ad Library for good examples, I noticed that 80% of the TOP brands’  Facebook ad creatives were videos.

Facebook video ads have become a necessity in 2025. You can’t go on running static ads only.

For more ideas, browse my Meta ad examples gallery with 230+ static and video ads, or, for B2B campaigns, these 105+ LinkedIn ad examples.

Read more about social media advertising trends in 2025.

Fun fact: Facebook algorithms deliver static and video ads to different audiences, depending on what a user is more likely to react to. So if you want to reach the people more susceptible to video content, you’ll need attractive video creatives.👀

The #1 obstacle that marketers come across when creating video ads for their Facebook or Instagram campaigns is the lack of skill and know-how.

For additional inspiration, you or check out what we’ve published on this blog – including 180 Best Facebook ad examples and 84 Best Instagram ad examples.

Meta video ad best practices

Before I created my first video ads, I had a number of questions:

• What are Facebook video ads’ best practices?
• How long should the ad videos be and what’s the correct size of Facebook video ads?
• What should the Facebook video ads feature?
• What tools are used to create video ads?
• Do we need an agency to create the ad videos for us?

I’ll do my best to answer all of these questions for you in this article.

Let’s not drag this intro too long and get to the Facebook video ad examples!

Best Facebook video ad examples,  2025 update

I found the following video ads while browsing the Facebook Ad Library – I like to regularly check my selected 100 brands’ ad creatives to keep my creative know-how up to date.

#1: Oreo

I envy whoever produced this video ad for Oreo as it’s perfectly executed, having a high-quality sleek look, fast-paced movement, and eye-capturing shifting patterns.

#2: Deliveroo

Deliveroo is running tens of similar Facebook ads, each featuring various city districts and relevant restaurants. Such automatically customized ads are usually created with a creative automation tool, e.g. Smartly. 

​#3: Spotify

Similarly to the previous ad, this Spotify looks a lot like it’s created using an automated Facebook video duplication tool.

Be it as it may, they have managed to create an engaging Facebook video ad with very few resources: An album cover, mixed colorful elements, and on-point typography.

#4: Restream

Working with Restream, we created a set of Facebook video ads that are essentially an animated version of their static ads. 

Bringing your static ads to life is a good way to get started with video advertising on Facebook. You just need a motion designer who can help to make your existing design assets move.

#5: Airbnb

The first four ads that you saw were all around 15 seconds long or even shorter. In contrast, this one by Airbnb is a brand awareness ad: it runs for 40 seconds and tells an inspiring story.

It is a best practice to use a mix of performance-oriented and brand awareness ads. Both need a slightly different approach:

• Performance ads should direct the viewer to make a purchase or take some other action. These ads usually end with a clear call-to-action.
• Brand awareness ads’ goal is to create… well… awareness about a brand and drive positive brand perception. These ads do not usually ask people to take an action immediately.

#6: Milka

Pardon my French. This ad by Milka is essentially reminding people to be nicer to each other. A simple and on-brand Facebook video ad.

#7: Sephora

This ad looks like it took a lot of work, so it is likely to be part of a big global Facebook campaign. 

You can create a mix of Facebook ads – some that take less time to create and that you run in the short-term + the branding ads that you invest more time and money into and will run for a longer period, e.g. for 3 months. 

#8: Klarna

I am a big fan of Facebook ad creatives that follow closely the brand’s CVI. That’s why I’ve always liked Klarna’s ads – they stay true to their pink color palette and as a result, their ads are easily recognizable in the news feed.

# 9: Snickers

Take notice of how this Facebook ad is pairing filmed video content with colorful background and typography.

By using highly contrasting sections throughout your Facebook video ad, you can assure that it will capture your audience’s attention while they scroll through their Instagram or Facebook feeds.  

#10 Moo

One more Facebook video ad effect to test out is the “endless loop” technique.

Repeating motion effects are especially helpful if you have interesting video content that lasts only a few seconds. To make sure your ad gets shows for the full 15-second story ad length, make it repeat on a loop for 15 sec.

#11: Nars

#12: Mailchimp

#13: Dior

#14: Grammarly

#15:Wrike

Facebook video ad examples, 2020 edition

Below, you will find the Meta ad examples that I collected for the previous release of this article. 

Looking at some of them made me think that we’ve come a long way from the time when only a few brands were able to produce high-quality video content.

I should probably start to learn video editing…

#16: VSCO

The Instagram video ad by VSCO showcases their product features in a simplified 15-second video. Here are some key takeaways for you to consider:

• The first 3 seconds matter most – Notice how the first few frames are using a bright color to lead people’s attention to the the ad copy “transformative tools” and get them hooked to watch the rest of the video.
• Video ads ≠ no copy – In fact, it’s a good idea to keep copy in your ad video to better explain what’s going on.

#17: Facebook

Yeah, Facebook is advertising on their own platform and they’re pretty good at it. Here’s what they’re doing well:

• The ad asks a question – there’s a highly visible question always visible in the ad video that catches the viewers’ attention.
• Video & message match – Notice how the message “Need a push?” matches with the moving car’s message.
• Simplicity – a video ad does not have to be 30-seconds long and take days to create. You can start testing with simple animations that are simple yet catch people’s attention.

#18: Monese

Monese’s video ad explains how their product works and shows their app in action. Here’s what’s noteworthy about this ad:

• Display your product – on the one hand, you won’t need as much new content. On the other hand, people will get familiar with how your product looks and feels. It’s a win-win.
• End with a call-to-action – don’t leave people hanging after watching your video. Tell them what’s the next step to take. In this case, it’s “download the app.”

#19: Squarespace

This Instagram video ad by Squarespace is another nice example of simple video design in action:

• Show small changes – showing small changes such as the growing numbers’ count in this ad is a good trick for catching the viewers’ attention.
• Show you logo – It’s a commonly known best practice to show your logo throughout the video ad (that’s also a suggestion in Youtube’s video ads’ playbook)

#20: Nike

If you’re working with a lifestyle or eCommerce brand, your audience might appreciate more story-focused ads. Nike’s ad would make for a great branding video.

• Make it look high quality – if you plan to film your Facebook video ads, make sure you’re using a high end camera.
• Mix video footage & copy – seriously, having some copy in your video ads makes them a lot more comprehensible and having a powerful impact on the audience.

#21: Web Summit

Here’s another example of a story-specific ad, showing how a conference venue is being set up in the matter of hours (being compressed into a 30-second video).

• Tell a story – our brains are hardwired to look for patterns and follow stories, leading your audience being hooked to your video ad
• You don’t need a fancy agency – Web Summit’s video ad could easily have been recorded by a camera set up by a crew member and edited by another crew member. Easy.

#22: AppSumo

This ad is not really a video ad but a Slideshow consisting of AppSumo’s product reviews. Here’s what I like about it:

• Creating it took 5 minutes max – you can create a similar ad by uploading 3-5 images to Facebook and creating a Slideshow ad.
• Showcase testimonials – third-party testimonials increase trust in your product. This ad could be shown in a Facebook retargeting campaign to nudge people to make a purchase.

#23: Mango

Mango’s Facebook ad is like a tiny movie that combines nice views, a celebrity model and the brand’s products.

• Use video ads for branding – while this ad doesn’t invite you to buy any specific product, it reminds you about the brand.
• Work with influencers – if you’ve got enough cash, having an influencer (that’s loved by your target audience) in your ad videos doesn’t hurt.

#24: Reedeshop

• Animate simple messages – even making a word blink or change color can help increase your ad’s click-through rate.
• Use the right ad formats – when creating video ads for Facebook and Instagram, you can upload ads in multiple sizes. Check out all the current Instagram ad specs here.

#25: The New York Times

This is one of my all-time favourite video ads. Seriously, I think it’s genius.

• Create unique ads – The NYT video ad is unique in that it only uses text to tell a story, But it’s super catchy at that.
• Know your tools – I created a similar video ad for a client by using Photoshop only (creating video ads is easier than you think).

The top 10 Facebook and Instagram video ad examples were my favourites. Up next, you will find more video ads for even more inspiration.

But before you check out the rest, here’s a list of tools that you can use to create video ads:

• Photoshop for GIFs + Illustrator to create icons, etc.
• Sketch + Flinto/Kite
• Adobe After Effects
• Record videos on your own
• Buy video footage on Stocksy or other stock photo sites

#26: BeUnsettled

BeUnsettled’s video ad is quote basic in terms of video content. However, they’ve combined video footage that looks like stock videos with copy, giving it more substance.

The nature-movie-like frames also fit perfectly into anyone’s Instagram feed, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on whether the ad manages to catch the target audience’s attention.

#27: Pelacase

This is another example of a Facebook video ad using average video footage, but using the correct medium to tell the story.

#28: Facebook

Here’s a good Facebook video ad example for marketers with small budgets that want to test our some kind of video animation.

You could basically take a static image and pair it with an animated loading icon – you’re guaranteed to get people look and wait for your ad video to load, without this ever happening. But then again, you’ve already got their attention, so they might as well read the rest of your ad.

#29: Okia

Playing around with text is the easiest way to create video ads. You could do a similar video on Photoshop in around 10 minutes. (+ the hours you’ll spend to come up with a good message and unique value proposition ideas for your ad).

#30: BetterMe

If you saw this ad as a static image v.s. a GIF ad, which one would catch your attention?

Try turning some of your existing static Facebook ad designs into GIFs to find out if it helps to increase the CTR and lower the cost-per-result.

#31: MyTheresa

Here’s an example of an Instagram ad that probably required a high budget to create. This is definitely appealing to a lot of luxury goods buyers.

However, spending tens of thousands of dollars on video creation does not always mean your ad is 10 times more efficient. Make sure to think who your target audience is before buying a video from an agency.

#32: Stuudionahk

For a leather goods brand like this one, creating a video ad to showcase their products makes a lot of sense. However, I would always suggest that you pair your video ads with image ads to see what works best.

#33: DRM Bracelets

This is a completely random campaign by some drop shipping brand. But I have to give it to them – using the country name in the ad is a nice personalised touch.

#34: Trvl

Notice how this Instagram video ad example by Trvl combines images, copy and colorful backgrounds to create a video-like effect. In fact, there’s no video footage in this ad – another proof that you don’t need a large budget to create marketing videos.

#35: Monese

I’ve always been a fan of slightly animated video ads (we also test a lot of them in Taxify). The reason these animations work is that they catch people’s attention but don’t lead the focus away from the ad’s main message.

Alright… We’ve reached the end of our video ad showdown.

Here are some key takeaways to remember:

• You need to test video ads – there are brands whose audiences love video ads. But there are also Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns where image ads work best.
• Creating video ads doesn’t have to be expensive – many of the examples above could have been made in just a few hours. With help from one of the many great unlimited video editing companies, you can keep production fast and affordable. Expenses do not equal results in the case of Facebook ads.
• There are many video ad hacks – from catching the attention in the first 3 seconds to ending the video with a clear call-to-action, there’s a lot you can do to double or even triple your video ads’ conversion rate.

P.S. if you’ve got some cool Facebook or Instagram video ad examples, send them over and we’re happy to include them in this list.

The post 35 Facebook Video Ad Examples – 2025 Update appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Ok, getting to the article now…

—

How to get good results with your eCommerce Facebook ads?

Based on most blog articles on the topic, you’re supposed to mess around with complex ad formats and set up a Facebook ad campaign structure based on a five-level conversion funnel.

But in reality, the key to successful eCommerce Facebook campaigns is to keep them simple.

If you’ve ever looked at the Facebook and Instagram ad creatives used by big-name brands, you should already know that most of them run basic single-image ads. No Collection ads, no dynamic remarketing, no carousels.

In the past couple of years, I have audited many online stores’ Facebook ad accounts and helped them to scale the results while lowering Facebook ads cost.

What we’ve seen s that detailed customer segmentation and exotic campaign objectives only damage the performance.

So in order to succeed, how should you set up your eCommerce Facebook ads and how to create world-class Facebook ad visuals?

🍩 Here are 12 suggestions to keep in mind:

1. Keep your marketing funnel simple
2. Use a minimal Facebook ad campaign structure
3. Avoid creating new ad sets for each new promotion
4. Keep your target audiences broad
5. Do not over-optimize your campaigns
6. Optimize on conversions, not clicks
7. Perfect your Facebook Pixel setup
8. Use the optimal number of ad creatives
9. Use a mix of static and video ads
10. Create ad visuals in two formats: feed + stories
11. Copywrite the perfect headlines + texts
12. Experiment strategically and document key learnings

We’re gonna expand on each of these suggestions in a moment. 

In case you’re rather interested in perfecting your eCommerce ads design, scroll ahead until you reach the 20 eCommerce Facebook ad examples that I personally consider to be smart and inspiring (and that I assume are bringing good results to the brands using them).

Rule #1: Keep your marketing funnel simple

One of the main mistakes I have seen eCommerce businesses make with their Facebook ads is that they tend to overcomplicate their marketing funnel and customer segmentation.

You don’t need to create an ad campaign for every one of your 5 marketing funnel stages:

• Awareness
• Consideration/lead
• New customer
• Existing customer
• Churned customer

You can’t have it all as it will spread your budget too thin and each campaign and ad set will collect too few conversions to perform optimally.

You can’t have it all

Setting up Facebook ad campaigns for three different audiences is enough:

• Prospecting
• Remarketing
• Retention

Also, you should split your campaigns per country or per region, so that countries with similar behavioral patterns and cost of advertising are bundled together.

For more detailed suggestions, read more about my approach to Facebook ad campaign structure.

Rule #2: Use a minimal Facebook ad campaign structure

Another big mistake that many brands fall upon when setting up their Facebook campaigns is creating a separate ad set (or even a separate campaign, even worse) for each customer segment.

Sometimes, companies end up with 5-10 different target audiences, each having different ad sets with specific creatives and messaging.

While hyper-segmentation works well in some areas of marketing, it doesn’t perform well in the Facebook Ads Manager.

Always keep the number of your Facebook ad campaigns and ad sets minimal.

I usually suggest the following approach to my eCommerce clients:

🍪 One Prospecting campaign with up to 3 active ad sets:

• One value-based LAL (lookalike) audience of your past 60 days top purchasers (start with 2% LAL and expand up to 8% LAL)
• One broad audience of all people living in your target area, aged x-x
• One interest-based audience that signifies one of your more specific customer segments (you can switch these over time, but don’t have 5 different ones running at the same time)

🍪One Remarketing campaign with up to 2 active ad sets:

• Past 30 days website visitors
• People who added something to the shopping cart in the past 60 days

If you also run Awareness video ad campaigns (which I do not recommend), you could add a third remarketing ad set for video viewers.

🍪 One Retention campaign with up to 2 active ad sets:

• Past customers who haven’t bought anything for 30 days
• Past customers who haven’t bought anything for 90 days

Sometimes, a single retention ad set is also enough.

You can multiply the above campaign structure for each target country or region.

Rule #3: Avoid creating new ad sets for each new promotion

Continuing with eCommerce Facebook ad mistakes, here’s another one: creating a new ad campaign or ad set every time you want to promote a special offer or a new collection of products.

Facebook ad sets work in a way that the algorithms learn based on your conversion data. If you create new ad sets all the time, you will lose all your historical data (and will have higher CPA costs).

It makes much more sense to collect all your Purchase conversions under one ad set so that Facebook’s algorithms can learn more about your target audience and deliver ads to increasingly relevant people in your audience.

Instead of creating new campaigns and ad sets, try to re-use the existing ones. 

You can even change an existing ad set’s audience and fully replace all the creatives inside it, should you want to advertise a different offer to another audience.

Rule #4: Keep your target audiences broad

Facebook Prospecting-level ads bring the best results when you keep your ad sets’ targeting broad. 

And by broad I mean at least 5% of a small country’s population and 2% of a large country’s population.

For example, when setting up Prospecting ad campaigns in the US, I like to keep the audience size 3M or broader.

Don’t forget to exclude the past 60 days’ purchasers

You can go a bit more narrow when using lookalike audiences and use a 2% LAL audience even if it means reaching fewer people.

When it comes to Remarketing campaigns, each ad set’s audience should have at least 1,000 people in it. Facebook won’t usually deliver good results for an audience smaller than that.

Rule #5: Do not over-optimize your campaigns

Facebook Ads Manager offers unlimited options for optimizing every single detail of your campaigns, from custom ad placements to hourly scheduling of your ad delivery.

But in fact, the fewer special optimization features you use, the better job Facebook algorithms will do.

This is especially important when creating Prospecting campaigns (which probably take up 60% or more of your budget).

• Use campaign-level budget optimization
• Use automated ad placements
• Do not use customized ad scheduling

And while it’s tempting, do not make changes to your ad sets more than once a week. Otherwise, your ads will remain in the Learning Phase forever and won’t deliver optimal results.

It’s a best practice to do all the changes to your ad campaigns at once. So if you want to update the budget, audience, and upload new ad creatives, do it simultaneously and not on separate days.

Less work = better results

This doesn’t mean that you should leave your eCommerce Instagram and Facebook ad campaigns running for months without a single change.

Keep working on new ad creative ideas and experiment with new ad visuals at least twice a month.

Rule #6: Optimize on conversions, not clicks

Companies that do not have their Facebook Pixel set up often tend to optimize the campaigns on link clicks.

And I’ve also seen the Facebook ad accounts with perfect Pixel setup still running Traffic campaigns instead of Conversion campaigns.

Here’s the problem: if you tell Facebook that you want to get clicks from an ad campaign, the algorithms will deliver just that: clicks. 

But those clicks rarely turn into conversions.

That’s because Facebook doesn’t know that you also want Purchase conversions. It is bringing you cheap clicks from people who are in the habit of browsing the websites but not buying.

You reap what you sow, as they say

If you optimize your ad campaigns on conversions (website Purchases), you are signalling to Facebook that you’re interested in reaching people who’d make a purchase. And that’s what you’ll get.

Which scenario would you rather prefer:

1. You spend $500 to get 2000 website clicks at $0,25 cost-per-click + 10 purchases at $50 cost-per-purchase
2. You spend $500 to get 500 website clicks at $1 cost-per-click + 50 purchases at $10 cost-per-purchase

Always optimize your eCommerce ad campaigns (Prospecting, Remarketing, and Retention campaigns each) on Purchase conversions.

Rule #7: Perfect your Facebook Pixel setup

Setting up the Facebook Pixel takes about 1 hour and there’s no excuse for skipping this.

Essentially, you can’t get proper results from Facebook advertising without passing important website events like Add-to-cart and Purchase to the ad platform.

To ensure that your Pixel is correctly set up, compare the event count in Facebook Events Manager with your other website data sources, e.g. Google Analytics.

There might be small discrepancies in the data, but it shouldn’t fluctuate more than 20%.

Review the most important event’s count on Facebook v.s. other reporting platforms on a weekly basis to ensure that your Pixel receives correct data.

Rule #8: Use the optimal number of ad creatives

Let’s move on to the fun part: the ad creatives.

The rule that ad visuals contribute hugely to your results doesn’t only apply to eCommerce brands but any other industry as well.

But there’s a limit to how many active ad creatives you should have per ad set. 

If you have too few, there won’t be enough variety. If you have too many, it’s going to hurdle your campaign performance due to a time-consuming learning curve.

💎 The optimal number of active ad creatives per ad set is 6-8 visuals.

Rule #9: Use a mix of static and video ads

When working on my clients’ ad campaigns, I like to set up a varied selection of creatives in each ad set:

• 2 single-image static ads in one style
• 2 single-image static ads in a different style
• 2 video ads with different lengths (15 sec and 30+ sec)
• 1 carousel ad

Based on the initial results, you can either create more static or video creatives and keep experimenting with new ideas.

The main reason for including a mix of static and video ads is that they often appear in different ad placements. If you only use single-image static ads, you will miss out on video-only placements.

People often complain that creating video ads is super difficult. That’s not necessarily true. You don’t need to film original content in order to have video creatives. Use stock videos or animate some static product images and mix it with animated typography.

You can slightly animate your static ads to get a video ad

For creative inspiration, see these collections of Facebook ad examples:

• 195 Best Facebook Ad Examples (2021 Edition)
• 84 TOP Instagram Ad Examples (2021 Update)
• 40 Instagram Story Examples – Static + Video 

🔥 P.S. When reading a couple of blog articles on eCommerce ads, I came across recommendations to use all of the following ad formats:

• Collection ads 
• Video ads 
• Domain ads
• Instant Experience ads
• Lead ads 
• Carousel ads
• Facebook Dynamic ads

In fact, I have never seen an eCommerce brand get good results with Collection ads, Instant Experience ads, Lead ads, and Dynamic ads. 

As far as I’m concerned, I do not recommend using them (or first testing as an experiment).

Rule #10: Create ad visuals in two formats: feed + stories

Quite often when auditing Facebook ad accounts, I see brands using only the 1:1 (square) format ad creatives.

This means that they’re missing out on good-looking visuals in the portrait-format placements: Facebook stories, Instagram stories, Messenger stories.

And a large share of Facebook ad views happens exactly in-between the stories.

Here’s a comparison of how an ad visual in 1:1 format v.s. Story format will appear in the Instagram stories placement:

That’s probably not the brand image you’d want to cultivate. Rather, you’d want to have something looking like this:

When creating and uploading creatives to your Facebook ad campaigns, always add a special format for the story placements.

Upload both 1:1 and Story format visuals

🍊 Pro tip: Make sure to leave the top and bottom 20% of your story-format ad designs empty of any content and Instagram will add automatic overlays on top of your ad visual.

Read more about Facebook specs and size.

Rule #11: Copywrite the perfect headlines + texts

While the ad visual is the make-or-break element of any Facebook ad creative, the texts you use still contribute to the overall performance.

The most important text of your Facebook ads is the in-image headline.

I almost never upload a Facebook ad creative that only includes an image without adding a short headline with the USP (unique value proposition) on top of it.

If people aren’t attracted by your ad visual, they will never read the ad text. That’s why, you should include the most important slogan in the image itself.

When it comes to eCommerce ads, there might be some use cases where you wouldn’t want to include an in-image text. For example, if you’re advertising an image from a photoshoot. But if possible, I’d still recommend testing both options: with and without a headline.

You can also mix a text, logo, and photo

Another important principle to keep in mind: do not expect people to know your product.

Avoid catchy slogans and ad texts that do not explain what your product and its main benefits are. Think of Facebook ads rather as your website, not on-street brand ads.

Here are a couple of additional tips for perfecting your Facebook ad copywriting:

1. Keep it short and simple
2. Talk about the most relevant product benefits and value props
3. Address the user instead of talking about your brand (“we did X”)
4. Use active language: do, get, make, create, be, etc.
5. Assume that most people only read the first 2 lines of your ad text (the one that appears above or under the image of in-feed ads)

Read more: 16 Copywriting Tips for Facebook Ads and Social Media Posts

Rule #12: Experiment strategically and document key learnings

Most brands that I’ve worked with do not have a well-documented ad experimentation strategy. The PPC Manager just runs various experiments and keeps the results in their head.

If a new person were to join your Marketing team, would you be able to point them towards a document that gives an overview of all the Facebook ad experiments and top-performing creatives?

Or what if the agency or team member managing Facebook ad campaigns leaves the company? You would lose a lot of valuable information…

Unless you’ve properly documented all the experiments.

Whenever I start working with a new client’s Facebook ad account, we establish a spreadsheet for documenting all ongoing and completed experiments.

How the experiment tracking sheet looks like

I also like to keep track of all the Facebook ad creatives that we’ve created and tested.

Creative reporting could either be done:

• On a Figma page where you design your ads
• On a dedicated page in Notion, Confluence, or other documentation platform
• On a spreadsheet together with the PPC experiments log

Personally, I use a mix of all three + sometimes also write quarterly reviews that look back into all past 3 months’ experiments and tested ad visuals.

If I’m setting up a specific Facebook ad campaign for testing new creatives each in a separate ad set, I like to later add the test results to a Google Sheet, so that it will be easy to catch a quick overview in the future.

Example creative test report (with dummy data)

I have written about Facebook ads A/B testing in this blog before. Check it out for some ideas for your next experiments.

Or if you’re looking for inspiration specifically for your eCommerce business, gather new ideas from the 20 brands below. 

🍋 20 eCommerce Facebook ad examples

When browsing the following ad creatives, notice the following best practices used by almost all of the showcased brands:

1. They use a mix of video and static ads
2. There’s almost always an in-image text in the ad visual
3. All ad creatives are brightly colored and eye-catching
4. All photos and images used are of the best possible quality
5. There’s a lot of variety between the ad creatives by the same brand
6. Many eCommerce Facebook ads feature a promo offer
7. Almost all ad creatives use the “Shop Now” call-to-action
8. The focus is on the visual, not the ad text

While I have included a wide mix of various ad formats like Collection ads, in general, single-image ads, carousel ads, and simple video ads tend to perform the best.

But you can never know, so test with a variety of creative ideas and ad formats.

#1 Made.com

See the full video ad on this link.

#2 Nike

#3 AirBaltic

As you can see, there’s a different ad visual for the story placements.

#4 COS

See the full video ad on this link.

#5 NARS Cosmetics

#6 NARS Cosmetics 

See the full video ad on this link.

#7 & Other Stories

#8 Finnish Design Shop

#9 The Sill

See the full video ad on this link.

#10 Starbucks

See the full video ad on this link.

#11 La Roche-Posay

#13 Teabox

#14 Vagabond Shoemakers

#15 Sandqvist

#16 Click & Grow

#17 Ferm Living

#18 Goli

#19 Pärla

#20 Mytheresa

Thx for reading, thx for watching!

If you’d like to be notified about upcoming blog articles, subscribe to my newsletter (max 2 emails per month.)

In case you’d like to work together on your Facebook ad campaigns, reach out at marketing@karolakarlson. I’m booked with ongoing projects until the end of 2021, but then again I’m bad at saying no to brands with cool products.

The post 12 Rules for eCommerce Facebook Ads + 20 Ad Examples appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Your Facebook ad campaign metrics also indicate whether you’re getting a positive ROI (return on investment). All in all, it is crucial that you measure your Facebook ad performance on a regular basis, ideally every week.

But how to know which numbers to track? Because there’s an almost endless choice of metrics available in the Facebook Ads Manager: Reach, Impressions, CPC, CPM, CTR, CPA, Quality Ranking, Engagement Rate Ranking, Landing Page View (All or Unique?) Video Views, Ad Recall Lift, Spend, Revenue, ROAS…  🤯

Which metrics to pick? – GIF source

You can easily get lost and derailed when evaluating your Facebook ad campaign results.

So what are the Facebook ad metrics that you absolutely should be checking? Personally, I always check three key metrics and then follow up with another ten that I use to better understand what’s affecting my top three. Also, the metrics that I review depend on the campaign objective.

By the end of this guide, you will know answers to all the following questions:

• How to see all important Facebook advertising metrics in the Ads Manager?
• Which campaign KPIs should you track and which ones can you ignore?
• How to evaluate and improve your Facebook ad performance?

Let’s start with a crash course in Facebook ad analytics and see how to navigate the Ads Manager and set up Custom Reports for faster performance evaluation.

How to review campaign KPIs in the Facebook Ads Manager?

All Facebook ad metrics can be seen in the Meta Ads Manager (formerly Facebook Ads Manager). If you’ve set up the Meta Pixel and Conversions API correctly, you won’t need any additional 3rd party tools for Facebook ad reporting. Since Apple’s iOS privacy changes in 2021, some of the conversions in Ads Manager are modelled rather than tracked one by one, so the Conversions API is no longer optional.

(However, if you’re working with a mobile application, you may want to use an attribution tool for reporting, so that you don’t get your app results attributed to multiple advertising channels.)

For quick access to your Facebook Ads Manager, you can bookmark this link: Open your Facebook Ads Manager.

In the below screenshot, you can see the default Ads Manager report. However, you can click on the “Columns: Performance” menu to customize your advertising report.

Once you click on the “Columns: Performance” menu, you can see a selection of default ad reports. However, scroll past them and select “Customize columns” to access a wide selection of additional Facebook ad KPIs.

You can select all the metrics that you want to see and organize them in the most convenient order.

Once you’re happy with your custom report, you can save it as preset and access it faster the next time.

⭐ Tip: If you always use the same custom Facebook Ads Manager report, bookmark the URL of this view for a 1-click access to your campaign results.

Now that you’re aware of how to access, navigate, and customize your campaign metrics in the Facebook Ads Manager, let’s see which KPIs should you add to those custom reports.

I will also explain why some Facebook KPIs are best to ignore – they won’t reflect on your real campaign performance and tend to be shown as vanity metrics.

TOP 3 Facebook ad metrics to measure

While there are around 10 different metrics that I track, depending on the campaign setup and goals, there are always the TOP three KPIs that I check every single time:

1. CPA – cost per acquisition
2. ROAS – return on ad spend
3. Frequency – impressions/reach

These metrics give an immediate overview of the ad account’s overall performance + your conversion-optimized campaign’s results.

Let’s see how to evaluate these metrics.

1. CPA – cost per acquisition

In all likelihood, you are running Facebook ad campaigns to collect results that can be measured by a conversion: either a new lead, 1st-time customer, app install, website purchase, etc.

If you’re not optimizing your Facebook advertising towards a conversion, you may want to reconsider your strategy. Read the guide to Facebook ad account audit to make sure you’re on the right track.

The CPA – cost per acquisition – shows how much it costs to achieve one conversion.

Essentially, CPA = total amount spent / number of customers acquired.

The reason why this metric is so important is that it allows you to immediately understand if the new customer’s or lead’s acquisition cost is sustainable in the long run: are you making more money from the customer than it takes to acquire her?

The CPA benchmark is completely different for every brand, depending on your industry, product type, and its net cost. You should aim to achieve a CPA that is lower than what you spend on creating and delivering your product.

2. ROAS – return on ad spend

The return on ad spend indicates whether your Facebook ads are paying off. If the ROAS is negative, it means you are losing money.

You can either see your ad campaign’s ROAS directly in the Facebook Ads Manager or use a spreadsheet / 3rd-party analytics tool to calculate it.

In order to see ROAS on your Facebook ad account, you will need to pass purchase values via the Facebook Pixel or Facebook app SDK.

What ROAS should you aim for?

I have seen companies achieving the ROAS of 12.0 with Facebook ads and others that are in the growth phase and happy with a ROAS of 0.50. 

Also, your return on ad spend will vary per campaign objective: 

• Remarketing campaigns usually have the highest ROAS, up to 20.0
• Awareness and Reach campaigns usually have a ROAS close to 0.0

You should calculate the overall ROAS of your acquisition, remarketing, and awareness campaigns combined to understand the total ROI of your Facebook ad campaigns.

If your total ROAS is under 1.0, ask yourself whether there’s really any point to running Facebook ads. In many cases, if the company’s still in growth phase and willing to invest at a negative net rate, it does make sense.

In addition to ROAS, many companies also calculate Facebook ad ROI by comparing the CPA to average customer lifetime value.

If the customer that you acquire via Facebook will keep making purchases (e.g. monthly subscriptions or small repeat purchases), you can calculate your average LTV to better understand the long-term ROI of your ads. Maybe your 14-day ROAS is low, but when you compare the CPA to a 6-month lifetime value, your advertising ROI will make more sense.

3. Frequency

Facebook ad frequency shows how many times a unique user has seen your ad during a set time period.

I usually check the frequency of past 7 days and 30 days. If the frequency is very high, it means that most people in your target audience have been reached times over. It’s time to either lower your ad budget or expand the target audience.

Frequency = Impressions / Reach

The frequency benchmarks also vary per campaign type.

• For Prospecting campaigns, I generally aim for a 7-day frequency of 3-5
• For Remarketing campaigns, the 7-day frequency can go up to 10-12 
• For Awareness campaigns that have a broad target audience, the 7-day frequency of 2-3 seems to be the golden ratio

TOP 3 Facebook ad metrics you should ignore

Before we get to the rest of the Facebook KPIs that help you understand campaign performance, let’s stop for a moment and see the ones that you should NOT be tracking.

Here are the 3 Facebook vanity metrics that I see companies reporting on:

• CPM – cost per 1,000 impressions
• CPC – cost per click
• Ad click-through rate + ad relevance diagnostics

Ad agencies often like to show these metrics to their clients. “Look, there’s been an improvement in CPMs this week.” Or another one I’ve often heard: “The results got worse because the CPM is getting higher.”

Here’s the thing: it is not the CPM that you should be evaluating. Always measure the CPA.

You can bring your CPM and CPC down by 10x easily by targeting a broader target audience or optimizing your campaigns on Reach or Clicks. But getting cheaper top-of-the-funnel results is useless if at the same time your real acquisition costs increase.

Which campaign results would you prefer to have:

Campaign 1:

• Targeting a 1% LAL audience in the US, optimized for purchases (Sales objective)
• Total cost = $425
• CPM = $65
• CPC = $2.3
• You get 50 purchases at $8.5 CPA

Campaign 2:

• Targeting everyone aged 18-60 in the US, optimized for link clicks (Traffic objective)
• Total cost = $425
• CPM = $5.5
• CPC = $0.3
• You get 25 purchases at $17 CPA

Naturally, you’d prefer Campaign 1 that has a higher CPM and CPC Facebook ad cost, but because it is targeted at a more relevant audience, it brings more conversions and thereby has a lower CPA.

That’s a bold comparison, but I’ve seen broadly targeted click-optimized campaigns (in the US) bring website visits at $0.15, but none of the 5,000 visitors converted. While conversion-optimized campaigns help you reach a much more relevant yet smaller audience that costs 10x more to reach, but is 50x more likely to convert.

If your Facebook advertising goal is to drive sales or other conversions, track the acquisition metrics (CPA, ROAS, number of results), not vanity metrics (CPM, CPC, Click-through rate).

Let’s also talk about the CTR or Click-through rate.

Sometimes, advertisers look at the CTR to understand whether their ad creatives are attractive to the target audience. However, I consider this to be a vanity metric as well. As long as your ads deliver a CPA and ROAS that you’re happy with, looking at the CTR doesn’t help to improve anything.

The same story goes for the ad relevance diagnostics (Quality Ranking, Engagement Rate Ranking and Conversion Rate Ranking). It is your ROAS and CPA that matter!

Instead of checking the vanity metrics, make sure to update your Facebook ad creatives every 2-3 weeks to avoid ad fatigue. Pause the 3-5 lower-performing creatives and add 3-5 new creatives into your existing ad sets. Need ideas? Start from these 240+ Facebook ad examples.

Read more: Facebook Advertising Cost Benchmarks

9 more Facebook KPIs to better understand your campaigns

While the TOP 3 Facebook ad metrics – CPA, ROAS, and frequency – give a fast high-level understanding of your ad account performance, you may want to get additional clues for optimizing your campaigns towards an even better performance.

The additional numbers you can check in your Facebook ad reports depend on what type of product you’re advertising. For example, the marketers running ads for mobile app, SaaS products or online stores all have slightly different metrics to check.

This said, here are the 9 additional Facebook metrics that I look at most frequently:

1. Total cost v.s. ad budget
2. Reach / target audience size
3. Number of mid-funnel conversions
4. Cost per mid-funnel conversions
5. Unique conversions + unique CPA
6. ROAS of 7 days + ROAS of 30 days
7. Results per ad creative
8. Marketing funnel conversion rates
9. Landing page conversion rate

Some of these metrics are not directly available in the Facebook Ads Manager. However, you can easily collect them on a spreadsheet or calculate them in your head while looking at your Facebook ads report.

Below, you will find a quick explanation about each.

7. Total cost v.s. ad budget

Sometimes, when your target audience is very small or there’s a problem with your ad campaign delivery, Facebook won’t use the total daily or lifetime budget that you have assigned.

To notice such problems, you can check the expected ad spend (calculated based on your set budgets) v.s. the real ad spend per campaign. 

If you notice that some campaigns are not using the full extent of the allocated budget, you may need to troubleshoot them.

8. Reach / target audience size

This metric will tell you what % of your ad set’s audience has been reached during a set time period.

I usually check the past 30 days Reach and compare it to the total audience size. You can either do this exercise on campaign or ad set level.

For example, if your total audience size is 2,000,000 people and your ad campaign reached 1,400,000 people in the past 30 days, it means that 70% of your target audience members have seen your ads.

Usually, if your Facebook ads have reached a high % of target audience, the performance will start dropping. 

There are no more new people to deliver your ads to.

In case I notice that more than 60% of my target audience has already been reached, I consider expanding the target audience. For example, I might create a new Lookalike audience of 5% and replace it with the previously used 3% Lookalike audience. If you use Advantage+ audience, Meta treats your audience as a suggestion and can deliver beyond it, so keep an eye on frequency instead.

9. Number of mid-funnel conversions

All advertisers have a one north star conversion. This is usually a purchase from an online store or the first purchase inside the mobile application.

However, there’s a number of aiding conversions that a user will do before committing the final conversion.

Conversions of eCommerce Facebook ads:

• Online store visit
• Product landing page views
• Add to cart
• Add payment method
• Complete order

Conversions of SaaS Facebook ads:

• Website visit
• Registration
• Free trial signup
• Purchase

Conversions of mobile app Facebook ads:

• Click to App Store
• App install
• In-app registration
• In-app actions
• In-app purchase

Look at all of your conversion funnel steps and seeing how many conversions you had for each. Sometimes, this can help to identify the problematic step in your conversion funnel.

10. Cost per mid-funnel conversions

When gathering data about your mid-funnel conversions, take a look at their cost-per-action.

How much does a mid-funnel conversion cost? If you multiply the cost with the conversion rate from this event to the final purchase, you get an indication of the total CPA.

Also, I like to keep track of some mid-funnel conversions’ cost on a week-on-week or month-on-month basis to understand if there’s any significant change.

Tip: To avoid getting lots of mid-funnel conversions that do not lead to the final purchase, optimize your Facebook campaigns always on the final purchase event. This way, you will indicate to Facebook algorithms that you’re interested in the final conversion, not mid-funnel events.

11. Marketing funnel conversion rates

Once you have collected your mid-funnel events’ numbers onto a spreadsheet, go ahead and create formulas to calculate the conversion rates from one conversion to the next.

E.g. if you know the number of website visits, add-to-cart events, and purchases, you can calculate the conversion rate between those events.

Looking at your marketing funnel conversion rates helps to identify any problematic stages.

For example, you might get 500 of Add-to-cart conversions, but only 90 visitors complete the purchase. This might indicate that there’s a problem with your online store checkout, there are not enough payment methods available or the shipping fees are too high.

Or maybe you get a lot of app installs, but none of those users will purchase. This can be a sign of poor in-app value proposition or a mismatch about what you promise in the ads v.s. what your product actually offers.

Another useful thing about reporting on full-funnel conversion rates on a week-on-week or month-on-month basis is that you will immediately notice if some conversion rate suddenly drops. And you can pinpoint + fix the issue faster.

12. Unique conversions + unique CPA

Depending on how your Facebook Pixel events are set up, Facebook may sometimes report on multiple conversions per user.

For example, if you optimize your campaigns on online store purchases and one user makes 3 purchases, Facebook will report this as 3 conversions.

If you want to see the results per unique user, check the unique conversions and their cost.

You can easily add the unique conversions to your Facebook ad reports by customizing the columns.

Even better if you use a third-party reporting tool, e.g. Appsflyer for mobile apps or your in-house built reporting system to match Facebook conversions with actual purchases.

The picture you get from the Ads Manager doesn’t always match the real results, so review if there’s a difference from time to time.

13. ROAS of 7 days + ROAS of 30 days

The most common conversion window that Facebook advertisers use is 7-day click and 1-day view, which is still Meta’s default setting.

This means that Facebook will attribute to its campaigns all the conversions that happen either 7 days after a user clicks on your ad or 24h after they’ve seen your ad.

When looking at the ROAS (return on ad spend) metric in your Facebook analytics, you will see the ROAS of your selected time period. As I like to report on ad campaign results on a weekly basis, I check the past 7 days ROAS.

If there’s a free trial period or a chance for repeat purchases within a 30-day period, I prefer to report on my ad campaigns’ ROAS on a spreadsheet and not directly in the Ads Manager. And I like to look at both the 7 days ROAS as well as 30 days ROAS. That’s because the users that have been acquired within a specific week might keep bringing additional value to the company. 

14. Results per ad creative

As I believe that good Facebook ad creatives play a huge role in campaigns’ success, I wanted to dedicate one point purely to ad visual evaluation.

When reviewing my clients’ Facebook ad campaigns on a weekly basis, I like click onto the ad creative level and see which ads are performing the best.

This helps me understand what types of creatives to create for the next A/B tests (top-performers) and which ones to avoid in the future (low-performers). Here’s my 3-step process to improve your Meta ad creatives.

I always evaluate ad creatives’ performance on the number of conversions that they bring (no vanity metrics like CPMs or CTRs!).

There’s one exception, however. Inside Awareness campaigns, I look at the Estimated Ad Recall Lift metric and consider the ads with the highest Reach and Ad Recall Lifts to be the top-performers. These are the ads that Facebook algorithms consider to work best, so they show them more frequently than other ads.

Evaluate Awareness ads by Estimated Ad Recall Lift

For an overview of good Facebook ad examples, browse my free Meta ads gallery with 230+ annotated Facebook and Instagram ads.

15. Landing page conversion rate

Whatever your product, its sales funnel goes beyond Facebook and Instagram. And many Facebook advertisers tend to forget about it.

If you’re running an eCommerce brand, you take people to an online store. If you advertise a mobile app, your users will be directed to App Store to install your app.

Your Facebook ads’ post-click experience is a critical part of your campaign. That’s why, you should also keep an eye on the landing page conversion rate. 

There are two main reasons for low landing page conversion rates:

1. Your value proposition is not attractive, people are not interested in your product
2. There’s a big mismatch between what people see in your ad creatives v.s. on the landing page

Understanding the reasons behind low post-click conversion rates will help you to optimize your campaign performance even further.

Quick recap

Whether you like to analyze your Facebook ad metrics in the Ads Manager or export them to a spreadsheet or 3rd-party analytics tool, the KPIs to check remain the same.

Below is the list of TOP 15 Facebook ad KPIs to remember.

3 most important Facebook metrics:

• CPA – cost per acquisition
• ROAS – return on ad spend
• Frequency – impressions/reach

3 Facebook ad vanity metrics:

• CPM – cost per 1,000 impressions
• CPC – cost per click
• Ad click-through rate + ad relevance diagnostics

9 additional Facebook KPIs to understand your campaign performance:

• Total cost v.s. ad budget
• Reach / target audience size
• Number of mid-funnel conversions
• Cost per mid-funnel conversions
• Unique conversions + unique CPA
• ROAS of 7 days + ROAS of 30 days
• Results per ad creative
• Marketing funnel conversion rates
• Landing page conversion rate

Et voilà! You’re set to open your Ads Manager and give your account a quick audit.

The post TOP 15 Facebook Ad Metrics to Track or Ignore in 2026 appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

This article’s going to answer all these questions. But first, here’s a quick answer to your question, based on research by Revealbot.

Looking at the Facebook ads cost data from April 2020 – April 2021, we can see that the average Facebook ads CPC is between $0.5 – $3,5.

Facebook ads CPC in 2021

Another important Facebook advertising cost metric that many advertisers keep their eye on is the CPM – cost per 1,000 views. 

In March 2021, the average Facebook CPM was between $2 – $20.

Facebook ads CPM in 2021

As you can already see from the two charts above, the Facebook ads cost can vary a lot based on your Facebook ad campaign setup.

After reading this article, you’ll have a much better overview of:

• How much you should pay for a Facebook ad click?
• Which Facebook ad placements have the lowest costs?
• How to lower the cost of Facebook ads?

Quick tip: One of the fastest ways to lower your Facebook ads cost is to improve your Facebook campaign structure and review your Facebook ad metrics. Start with this Facebook ad audit to ensure you’ve got everything set up correctly.

Alright, let’s start with the most burning question:

How much does it cost to advertise on Facebook?

While there is no way to tell exactly how much you’re going to pay for a click or results on Facebook, there are some benchmarks you can follow.

For example, AdEspresso’s research of 2017 Q4 results shows that the average CPC on Facebook is anywhere between $0.20-$0.80.

In-between 2017-2021, the advertising costs have significantly increased. You should now be ready to pay up to $3 per ad click. (Although some ads for broad audiences still deliver $0.20 CPC, even in the US.)

The average CPC is $0.20-$0.80 – Source: AdEspresso

The cost of Facebook advertising depends on multiple factors:

• Your target audience
• The seasonality
• Your marketing objective
• Competition
• Ad placements
• Quality of your ad creatives

Factor #1. The timing of your campaign

When evaluating your Facebook ads cost, it’s important to take into account the time of year.

For example, it’s more expensive to advertise during the holidays when everyone is using Facebook advertising to increase sales.

That’s also what AdEspresso’s data shows: The most expensive months for advertising are October, November, and December.

October, November, and December are the most expensive months – Source: AdEspresso

Key takeaway;

If your product’s sales aren’t affected by the time of year, you could spend less during the Autumn/Winter season and allocate a higher budget to Spring/Summer.

However, if the revenue you earn per sales is lower than the acquisition via Facebook ads, you should advertise all year round.

In case you’re running an online store, see this guide on eCommerce Facebook ads to bring down your CPC and CPA costs.

There is also a difference in your Facebook ads CPC depending on the hour of day.

Different time of day = different CPC – Source: AdEspresso

As the above chart is taking into account the average per all ads analyzed, it doesn’t reflect as well on how the cost in time depends on your product.

For example, when you’re selling pizzas, people are more likely to be interested in your ads during lunch, dinner, and late at night. That’s also when your CPC will be lower.

On the other hand, promoting B2B or SaaS Facebook ads outside of office hours is likely to make those ads’ CPC higher.

Here’s an example of how a Facebook campaign’s click-through rates and CPC changes, depending on the time of day. It’s not a big difference, but when you’re tight on budget, knowing your most profitable advertising times can be a life-saver.

Find your most profitable advertising times

If you want to advertise only during specific times of day, you can use the custom ad schedule feature.

You can set a custom schedule for your ads

If you’re unsure what are the best times for running your Facebook ads campaign, use the automatic scheduling and let Facebook’s algorithms do the heavy lifting.

You can later check your ad reports to discover which weekdays and times of day worked best.

Factor #2. Your target audience

There’s a high chance you’re not selling your product to the entire population.

And your cost of Facebook ads will also depend on who it is you’re targeting. For example, it costs less to reach people aged between 18-24 than those aged 55-64.

What’s your target audience’s age? – Source: AdEspresso

Moreover, the gender of your target audience can make a big difference in your Facebook ads pricing.

Surprisingly, it can cost more to attain Facebook Page likes from women than from men. This could be due to more eCommerce brands targeting women.

Women’s likes cost more – Source: AdEspresso

Key takeaway: The better you know you target audience, the easier you’ll find evaluating (and lowering) the advertising costs.

Factor #3. Your Facebook ad placement

When setting up your Facebook ads campaigns, you can select automatic ad placements or pick specific channels for your ads to be shown in.

For quick reference, here are the currently available Facebook ad placements:

• Facebook Desktop newsfeed
• Facebook Mobile newsfeed
• Instant Articles
• In-stream videos
• Facebook Desktop right column
• Instagram feed
• Instagram Stories
• Facebook Audience Network
• Facebook Messenger home
• Messenger Sponsored messages

Read more about all the Facebook ad types and their specs here: Facebook Ads Specs and Size (Always Up-to-date Guide)

AdEspresso’s data from 2016 shows that the cost-per-click of your Facebook ads variated greatly between different placements.

Ad placement can make a huge difference – Source: AdEspresso

It looks that the Facebook Audience Network is the cheapest ad placement while Instagram ads cost is the highest.

However, remember that this chart only shows the cost-per-click.

What about the cost per conversion? Or cost per signup?

As Facebook Audience Network consists of thousands of different apps and games, there’s a high chance that many clicks from that channel were accidentally made.

Here’s a randomly chosen campaign example that shows the number of clicks and app installs of a Facebook Mobile App Installs campaign.

Not all clicks turn into conversions

Notice that the click-to-install conversion rate in the Audience Network is only 20.8% while in the Facebook Mobile newsfeed it’s 55.4%.

So how to choose your Facebook ad placements and lower the cost?

I recommend that you run your Facebook ad campaigns with automatic placements for some time. After you’ve got some results, you can exclude the placements where costs are highest.

However, if the cost-per-acquisition in all placements is lower than your earnings from sales, keep all of them running to reach more people.

Factor #4. Your campaign objective

When creating a new Facebook ad campaign, you can choose between many objectives.

Facebook offers you many objectives

Depending on your Facebook ad goals, you’ll be paying a different amount for clicks and other types of conversions.

Usually, campaigns with broad target audiences optimized on Reach (Brand Awareness or Traffic campaigns) have lower cost per 1,000 impressions. Conversion-optimized campaigns make it more expensive to reach your audience, but the audience’s quality and engagement are also much higher.

Facebook ads CPM by campaign objective, 2021 data

Conversion-optimized ads may seem more expensive, but they also deliver more results,

This also makes perfect sense – the goal of a Reach campaign is for many people to see the ad, not click on it.

Tip: If your goal is to get people clicking on your ad, use the Traffic campaign objective.

When promoting your blog articles on Facebook, use the Engagement objective.

For example, there’s also a difference between the cost-per-like and cost-per-app-install.

Cost-per-app-install vs. cost-per-like – Source: AdEspresso

As you can see, the different objectives also perform at different rates depending on the placement.

This is getting too confusing?

We’ll learn more about selecting the right objective and optimization methods in the second half of this article.

Factor #5. Your ads’ relevance

In the end, the cost of Facebook ads comes down to THE most important factor: is your product relevant to people?

Do they want to buy it?

Do they want to click on your ad to find out more?

Or are they looking at your ads and thinking…

These ads are soo annoying

For example, if Hired were promoting these carousel ads to marketers instead of developers, their Facebook ads cost would skyrocket while their campaign underperforms.

This ad is relevant to developers, but not marketers

Or if Teabox were targeting different ads for people liking chai vs. black tea, their ads would probably have higher click-through rates and lower cost-per-click and cost-per-conversion.

Chai lovers are more likely to click on this ad

When analyzing 104,256 Facebook ads, AdEspresso discovered that Facebook campaigns’ Relevance Score successfully predicts both the cost-per-click and click-through rate.

If your ads’ relevance is high (meaning people engage with your ads), the cost-per-click will be significantly lower.

You better make your ads relevant – Source: AdEspresso

Tip: You can see your ads’ relevance score as you break down your Facebook reports by Performance and navigate to the Ads view.

What is a good relevance score?

I would say it’s anywhere between 5 to 10 points. However, ads with relevance score of 8-10 usually have a lower cost than the rest.

Find every ads’ relevance score

How to increase your relevance score?

• Nail your USP – unique value proposition
• Create eye-catching Facebook ad designs
• Make sure your ad targeting is focused on the right audience

Now that you’ve got an overview of some numbers and benchmarks for Facebook ads cost, let’s move on and see how to set up your Facebook ad bidding.

How Facebook ad bidding works?

Facebook ad bidding works like a worldwide auction where every second thousands of transactions are made.

Even while you’re fast asleep, your ad campaigns are participating in hundreds of auctions that determine whether your ads will be shown to the people you’re targeting.

In order to win the Facebook ad auction and keep your advertising costs low, it’s important to understand how the auction works. Or for that matter, how the entire Facebook ad bidding game works.

How Facebook ad auctions work:

First, you need to know that Facebook’s ad delivery is driven by two main goals:

• Creating value for advertisers by helping them to reach the best target audience
• Providing positive, relevant experiences for people using Facebook, Instagram or Audience Network

Read more: Facebook’s official page about ads pricing.

Unlike in a traditional auction, the winner isn’t the one who makes the highest monetary bid.

It’s the ad that creates the most overall value.

Facebook relies on three factors to determine the winner of an auction: Advertiser Bid + Ad Quality & Relevance + Estimated Action Rates

This is how Facebook ad auctions work

Advertiser bid – that’s the bid you place on your ad sets. You can also use automatic bidding, so that Facebook’s algorithms will determine the best amounts to bid at any given auction.

Ad quality & relevance – your ad’s relevance score isn’t only important for keeping your ad. According to Facebook, if your ad has got lots of negative feedback, it may decrease the ad’s total value.

Estimated action rates – The estimated action rate is a Facebook’s calculated measure that shows how likely a person is to take the actions you’ve optimized for. Facebook needs at least a couple of results per day to be able to estimate your campaigns’ action rates. The longer your ad campaigns will run, the better Facebook can optimize them.

Every time a Facebook ads auction occurs on the background, Facebook will standardize the factors and combine them into a total measure. The ad with the highest total value wins and gets delivered to people’s newsfeeds.

Key takeaway: A high bid won’t guarantee your ads will win the auction, unless they’re also relevant to the target audience.

How to win the Facebook ad auction

How to set up your Facebook ads budget?

You can set up your Facebook campaign’s budget in the in the Budget & Schedule section during your campaign setup phase.

Up next, we’ll take a closer look at all the options you have.

Go to the Budget & Schedule section

In the Budget section, you can select between two Facebook features:

Option 1: Daily budget

This is how much Facebook will spend on delivering your ads every day during your campaign’s set dates.

Note that when setting a daily budget, you’re setting an average. Facebook might still spend slightly more or less each day, depending on the opportunities that arise.

$10 is the average daily expenditure

Option 2: Lifetime budget

By using the Lifetime budget, you’re telling Facebook the amount you’re willing to spend over the duration of your ad campaign.

This means that on some days, you may spend $10 while only $2 on others.

Important! After you’ve published your Facebook ad campaign, you won’t be able to change the budget type, only the sums you want to spend.

Tip: If you want to switch your ad budget from lifetime budget to daily budget or vice versa, you can duplicate an existing ad set and change its budgeting method. Then, pause the old ad set.

Which budget type should you use?

Some performance marketers believe that using a Lifetime budget gives Facebook more room for optimization. However, if your campaign runs for less than a month, Facebook may not have enough data to optimize the ad delivery.

I personally prefer to set daily budgets – they’re more flexible and transparent when changed throughout the campaign.

January 2018 UPDATE

As a recent Facebook update, you can now also set campaign-level ad budgets. The new feature is called Campaign Budget Optimization.

As you publish a campaign-level budget ad campaign, Facebook’s algorithms will start learning, and will allocate your budget between the ad sets so that you will get the most results at the lowest cost.

How Campaign Budget Optimization works

How to set up your ad optimization & delivery?

As you scroll down to the next phase of your Facebook campaign setup, you will see something like this:

Scroll down until you see this

Optimization & Delivery… What is it?

Basically, here’s where you can tell Facebook what is your desired advertising goal and how much you’re willing to pay for it.

According to Facebook, the campaign optimization works like this:

“Your optimization choice tells us what to value when delivering your ad. For example, you could tell us to show your ad to the people in your target audience most likely to click a link to your website (optimizing for link clicks) or to show it as many times as possible (optimizing for impressions).”

Click on Optimization for Ad Delivery section

As you look at all the optimization methods for the first time, it can get pretty confusing.

Mind blown

Here’s a quick overview of all ad delivery optimization options together with explanations:

Conversions – When optimizing for conversions, Facebook will deliver your ads to the people who are the most likely to convert. The conversion could be a signup, purchase, app install, etc.

Post Engagement – When bidding on Post Engagement, Facebook will show your ads to the people most interested to like, comment or share your ad.

Impressions – Your Facebook ads will be delivered to as many people as many times as possible while staying within the limits of your advertising budget. There’s no algorithmic optimization regarding who is more likely to engage with your ad.

Link Clicks – Facebook will deliver your ads to the people most likely to click on your ad. With this optimization method, you’ll be charged every time someone clicks on your ad.

Daily Unique Reach – Facebook will deliver your ads to your target audience members up to once per day. That’s a good way to keep your ad frequency under control. I personally like to use frequency capping for Facebook remarketing campaigns.

Brand Awareness – Facebook will serve your ads to people most likely to be interested in your offer. You can use this delivery optimization method to make a campaign visible to a large audience. You will be charged on the basis of CPM — you’ll pay for every 1,000 ad impressions.

Should you use Manual vs. Automatic ad bids?

The next step of your Facebook ad budget setup is to select whether you’d like to use Manual or Automatic bid.

If you’re unsure how much your Facebook ads cost, always use automatic bidding.

However, if you’re interested in reaching more people at a higher Facebook ads pricing, you can set up a Manual bid to win more ad auctions.

Manual bidding options

And as you’re setting the Manual bid, there’s another set of options:

The Maximum vs. Average bid.

By now, you may start to get confused… There are TWO types of manual bids?!

Here’s what’s different about Maximum and Average manual bids.

When using the Maximum bid, Facebook’s algorithms stop delivering your ads if there’s a risk that the cost per result will be higher than your bid.

As you set an Average bid, Facebook will use the Pacing method to optimize your ad delivery for the optimal ROI.

Conversions in the box are missed with max bid – Image source

Here’s Facebook’s Pacing explained by Smartly.io:

“Without pacing, the ad set would spend the entire budget in the beginning of the day for more expensive ads and miss the better opportunities in the end of the day. The Pacing algorithm learns the optimal bid over time.”

Here’s an explanatory table by Smartly.io, showing when to use the Maximum vs. Average bids.

Plenty of useful information here – Image source

Pay close attention to the last rows of the comparison table.

With the Maximum bid, you will maximize your profit. With Average bid, you will optimize delivery while sometimes paying more per conversion.

How to set the right Facebook ad bids?

When setting a Manual ad bid, you likely have two main goals:

1. Get as many results as possible
2. At the lowest advertising cost possible

Wouldn’t that be nice…

So how can you set the right bid to keep your Facebook ad costs low but at the same time, drive enough traffic to your website?

One option is to use the bids suggested by Facebook.

The suggested bid is a sum that Facebook considers to be sufficient to achieve your anticipated result (e.g. a link click or conversion).

In the parentheses next to the suggested bid, you can see the bid range. This number shows a spectrum of bids that are currently winning auctions across the world that reach the same audience as you’re targeting.

Tip: As you check the Manual bidding method, Facebook is usually suggesting a really high bid. Make sure to change the sum in the box.

For example, if Facebook first suggests that you bid €3.10 per 1k impressions and the bid range is (€1.20–€3.40), you could bid €1.60 or even €1.25.

However, there’s an even better way for finding out how much you should bid per result.

Start running a new campaign on automatic bidding. After you’ve collected enough data about your average cost-per-result, you can change the bidding method to Manual and insert your target bid.

How to keep the cost of Facebook ads low?

Now that you’re aware of the average Facebook CPC and CPM, you may be thinking “But I want my ads to cost even less.”

Well, it’s totally possible.

But there isn’t a shortcut to lower ads costs. You need to put in some extra work and time to achieve better results.

Here’s what you’ll have to do.

1. Improve your USP

USP – the unique selling proposition – is what makes your product relevant to its users while also differentiating you from the competition.

Advertising legend Rosser Reeves explained in his book that USP has three parts:

1. Each advertisement must explain a clear and relevant benefit to the consumer.
2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique.
3. The promise must be so compelling that it can move the mass of millions.

For example, App Academy’s Facebook ad offers a clear benefit and also explains how much a person could earn after completing the curriculum.

App Adacemy nailed it!

Sometimes, it’s ok to advertise a message also used by your competitors. But try to find a small differentiator that makes your product more memorable.

There are thousands of companies selling socks in the world. However, through smart branding and great visuals, Happy Socks is able to differentiate its products from the rest.

Happy Socks definitely deserves its name

Key takeaway: Whatever it is you’re promoting try to find the key benefit to the buyer and make sure it’s clearly readable in your Facebook ads.

Check out these 180 best Facebook ad examples for more inspiration.

2. Ensure you’re targeting the right audience

There has been so much talk about buyer personas and knowing your customers that everyone’s kind of tired of it already.

Yea, yea… Don’t come to me with another customer survey talk.

You probably know how your Facebook ad targeting should look like.

But do you really?

Have you checked the Facebook Audience Insights tool to see which demographics are most interested in your product?

No?

You can do it right now.

Facebook Audience Insights tool – Image source

Using Audience Insights, you can get aggregate and anonymous information such as:

• Demographics – Age and gender, lifestyle, education, relationship status, job role and household size
• Page likes – The top Pages people like in different categories
• Location and language – Where do people live, and what languages do they speak
• Facebook usage – How frequently are people in your target audience logging onto Facebook and what device(s) they are using when they log on
• Purchases activity – Past purchase behavior (i.e. heavy buyers of women’s apparel) and purchase methods (i.e., in-store, online)

Later on, you can create interest-based Facebook audiences that reach more people interested in your product. Or you will know what are the best locations for promoting your product.

There’s some fascinating data to be discovered.

3. Target advanced Facebook audiences

When creating new Facebook marketing audiences, don’t let yourself be limited to Saved Audiences (the interest-based audiences that are easy to create).

Saved Audiences will only get you so far

There are also other audience types available on Facebook: Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences.

And these two audience types go a long way in helping you reduce your Facebook advertising costs.

A Custom Audience is Facebook audience that’s based on the data available from the Facebook Pixel on your website/landing page. You can also create Custom Audiences based on e-mail lists or in-app actions.

Creating a Custom Audience

A Lookalike Audience is a Facebook audience that helps your reach new people similar to your existing customers or website visitors. As a result, you can reach people who are likely to be interested in your product.

… and creating a Lookalike Audience

In the perfect campaign structure, you should be using all of the three Facebook audience types to reach slightly different audience segments.

Here’s a more in-depth article explaining how to create Facebook and Instagram target audiences.

4. Exclude past converters from your audience

A tiny yet super efficient hack to keep your Facebook CPC and CPC low is to exclude from your target audiences the people who have already converted.

You can move those people to the next step in your Facebook marketing funnel instead of delivering them the same ads over and over again.

Different levels require different approach – Source: KlientBoost

Here’s how to exclude the past converters from your Facebook audiences:

• Create a Facebook Custom Audience of people who have visited specific web pages (e.g. your download thank you page or a blog article).
• Use the EXCLUDE feature when setting up your ad set’s audience to stop targeting people in this Custom Audience.

Exclude past converters

5. Create highly converting ad images

Consumer Acquisition has found that images are arguably the most important part of your ads. They’re responsible for 75%-90% of your ad performance.

Goes without saying that your ad’s image plays a key role in its success or demise.

There are ads that immediately catch every viewers’ attention. Like this one by Facebook for example…

This ad is eye-catching, isn’t it?

… And then there are ads that just inhabit the newsfeed without anyone noticing.

Want to make sure your ads look more like Facebook’s and catch everyone’s attention?

Here are the key 8 Facebook ad design commands to follow:

1. Use bright colours – a study by UsabilityTools showed that using highly contrasting call-to-actions resulted in 75% higher click-through rate, compared to a low-contrast CTA.
2. Avoid plain stock photos – If you must use a stock photo, use a colour overlay to make it more interesting.
3. Include icons and symbols – Create simple ad designs that mainly consist of symbols and backgrounds. Simple is efficient.
4. Show your product – if your product can be represented in an image, create a Facebook ad with it.
5. Test multiple ad formats – create Facebook Carousel ads or Slideshow ads to bring novelty to your mix of image ads.
6. Match ad design with landing pages – Make sure that before-the-click and after-the-click have the same branded look about them.
7. Use in-image text – add your value proposition in the ad image.
8. Keep your in-image copy short – people prefer images light in text.

Spotify’s Facebook ad just pop with color.

Spotify Facebook ad example

6. Add videos to your marketing mix

Videos aren’t only a nice addition to your ad sets. They can significantly lower your advertising costs.

Facebook did a case study with Refinery29, comparing the results of two various campaign tactics:

• Campaign A employed creative and images focused strictly on generating subscriptions.
• Campaign B over the same period featured different “sequenced” video-first ads that first told the brand story, next provided product information before inviting people to sign up.

The result?

Refinery29 had an 87% increase in traffic to the landing page and a 56% increase in subscription rate for those people who saw the branding video first.

Numbers don’t lie – Image source

The key to successful video ads is engaging people during the first 3-5 seconds.

Wistia did a research and discovered that as the video length increases, the engagement drops.

Short videos are more engaging – Image source

It makes sense to keep your Facebook video ads under 2 minutes. Even better if you’re able to engage people with a 30-second video.

7. Write stronger ad copy

Imagine you’ve spotted a really cool Facebook ad image in your newsfeed.

Would you click on it right away?

Or would you also read through the ad copy first?

If you’re like most people, you’ll also want to know what the copy is saying before making a click, not to speak of making a purchase.

Your ad copy matters. A lot.

So how can you write great Facebook ad copy?

Here’s what Joanna Wiebe, the queen of conversion copywriting, recommends:

• Write for the click. Your ad headline should be a CTA all of its own.
• Connect “what” with “why.” State what to do – and then say why. What’s the benefit or outcome of acting?
• Focus on a single, specific thought. People can’t save time and money. They can save time. Or they can save money. Simplify.
• Use numerals and special characters. We need to draw the eye. So people won’t save a thousand bucks. They can save $1000.
• Show empathy. The more you’re in their head, the more you’re in their head.
• Use “new.” Nothing puts an itch in people like the word “new.”
• Keep it short. AdEspresso found that a max of 5 words is best for FB ad headlines.
• Mention the offer, including any incentives. That could be free shipping or a downloadable ebook.
• Make a promise. But back it up.

Here’s a great Facebook post example by Intercom that’s both actionable and makes you want to get their e-book.

8. Avoid Facebook ad fatigue

Ad fatigue is like a monster gnawing on your good Facebook ad CPCs.

But it’s main goal isn’t to make you lose the Facebook ad auction and fail miserably. Its goal is to improve the experience for people seeing your ads and bring you more sales.

Looks like ad fatigue to me…

Ad fatigue means that people have gotten tired of seeing your Facebook ads for so many consecutive times.

Once you hit the ad fatigue, several things will happen:

• People stop noticing your Facebook ads in their newsfeed – this means fewer attention, likes, and shares.
• People stop clicking on your Facebook ads – you will start paying more per every Facebook ad click.
• Your ad campaign’s costs skyrocket – to get the same amount of new sales, you must pay a lot more.

So how can you avoid the ad fatigue?

The easiest way to predict ad fatigue is to check your Facebook ad frequency – how many times an avg. audience member has seen your ad.

To check this metric, go to the Facebook Ads Manager, click on a campaign, and in the reporting section select the Delivery view.

Check your ad frequency

You can check the ad frequency per campaign, ad set or specific ads. I recommend that you check the ad set level frequency.

Here you can see the campaign level frequency

Tip: In most cases, it’s best to keep your Facebook ad frequency under 2-3 points.

However, when working with Facebook remarketing campaigns, you can also let your ad frequency get slightly higher. I’ve also seen great remarketing results at the frequency of 15+ views.

Once you see your ad frequency increase and results drop, you can add new offers and ad designs to your campaign to keep your target audience interested.

For example, Lyft is using tons of different ads to catch their audience’s attention.

Keep adding new designs to your Facebook campaign

You can also change your Facebook target audience to reach new people who haven’t yet seen your ads and won’t have the ad fatigue.

Quick Recap

Alright, folks.

This article has gotten way too long and you’ve probably already forgotten some of the key learnings from the first half of the article.

So here’s a quick overview of everything we covered:

• The average Facebook ads cost-per-click in 2021 is between $0.5 – $3.5.
• However, your cost of Facebook ads depends on multiple factors.
• That’s why, there’s no one Golden Facebook CPC.
• But you must check whether your ads have a positive ROI.
• Meaning that your cost-per-acquisition is smaller than what you’ll earn per conversion.

To keep your Facebook ads pricing low, you can:

• Improve your value proposition.
• Ensure you’re targeting the right audience.
• Start targeting advanced Facebook audiences.
• Exclude past converters from your audience.
• Create highly converting ad images.
• Test adding videos to your marketing mix.
• Write stronger ad copy that converts.
• Prevent Facebook ad fatigue.

Are your average CPCs similar to the ones mentioned in this article? Let us know in the comments!

The post How Much Do Facebook Ads Cost – [2021 New Data] appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

All those campaign objectives, tens of targeting options, A/B testing features…

So what is the best way to structure your Facebook ad campaigns? What is the approach used by the top agencies and Facebook ad experts?

To be honest, some people who like to create tens of campaigns… And then there are the advertisers who believe that the opposite – having max 3 campaigns globally – works. 🤷

Personally, I am somewhere in between. I like to have campaigns split by countries, but I don’t like to set up a different campaign for every single niche audience.

As I figured this might be relevant to many advertisers, big and small, running Facebook ads, I’m going to share my approach.

You’ll find answers to the following questions:

• What is the best Meta ad campaign structure?
• How to select the right Campaign Objective for your campaign?
• On which events should you optimize your campaigns?
• Which target audiences to get started with and to experiment with?
• How to name your campaigns, ad sets, and ads for fast reporting?

So let’s take a look at how to set up your Facebook ad campaigns up for success.

What is a good Facebook ad campaign structure?

After working on Facebook ad campaign audits for 20+ brands while having weekly calls with Facebook reps, here are Facebook campaign structure best practices that deliver good results.

• Have fewer campaigns with broader audiences.
• Trust Facebook’s algorithms to do the targeting and optimization for you.
• Put a lot of emphasis on having good ad creatives.

One more thing that many PPC advertisers forget: You should not use the same campaign structure as you’ve used for Google ads on Facebook. It doesn’t work.

When it comes to Facebook ads, having fewer ad campaigns is not lazy, it’s smart.

Here’s the high-level Facebook ad campaign structure that I always use:

• Set up campaigns per country or region
• Create separate campaigns for prospecting and remarketing

You can also add brand awareness and re-engagement campaigns on top of prospecting and remarketing. The below chart by KlientBoost explains the 4 stages really well.

Create campaigns for multiple funnel stages. – Source: KlientBoost

Take a quick crash course in Facebook analytics by learning about these 15 Facebook ad metrics and KPIs.

Create a separate set of ad campaigns for each market

Why do I like splitting Facebook ad campaigns per country or region? There are a few reasons for that:

1. Countries have different ad costs. 

A click in the US might cost 5x as much as in say Lithuania. If you put these countries into the same campaign, Facebook is likely to spend 80% of ad budget in Lithuania as it seems like the cost-per-result is cheaper there.

2. The reporting and budgeting will be easier

Having separate campaigns per country will also make the reporting a lot easier – you can immediately see in which markets there’s a good product-market fit.

Also, you can easily define on campaign level how much money you want to spend on advertising in each country.

3. Your campaigns won’t get messy

If you add a lot of different countries to the same campaign, you can end up with a lot of different ad sets or ad designs. 

Especially if you want to use ads in local languages, it’s better to create a separate campaign for each market.

So how will the high-level campaign structure look like?

For each country, you should have the following Facebook ad campaigns:

• Prospecting campaigns
• Remarketing campaigns
• Brand awareness campaigns (optional, I don’t usually use them)
• Re-engagement campaigns (optional, I usually use them)

When it comes to the budget split, I usually go for:

• Prospecting campaigns: 60-80%
• Remarketing campaigns: 20-30%
• Brand awareness campaigns (optional, I don’t usually use them): 0-10%
• Re-engagement campaigns (optional, I usually use them): 0-10%

Let’s take a closer look at each of the campaign types and a few different ideas for setting them up.

Facebook prospecting campaigns’ structure

The prospecting campaign is a Facebook ad campaign that reaches a wide audience and attracts people who are potentially interested in your product. 

These people have not yet heard of your brand, so you’re trying to convert a cold audience into customers.

Usually, the prospecting-level ad creatives introduce your product’s benefits or show how great it looks. Like these two ads examples…

Prospecting-level Facebook ad examples.

If your product’s entry barrier is low, e.g. you’re promoting a free mobile app or run ads for your online store, prospecting campaigns will already bring a lot of new customers.

If your product has a longer sales cycle, e.g. software and B2B products, you can use prospecting ads to lead people to your website and convert them with remarketing campaigns.

Facebook campaign structure for prospecting ads

Here’s the general prospecting campaign structure that I always use.

• There are two ad sets: one with a broad audience and another with (1% or 5%) Lookalike audience.
• Both broad and lookalike ad sets have the exact same ad creatives inside them.

Sometimes, I add ad sets with special interest-based audiences (if I want to show these audiences special ad creatives that are more relevant to them).

And by “broad audience” I really mean BROAD. 🌍

For example, if I’m advertising a consumer-facing mobile app, I would target everyone aged from 18-55 in a specific country, optimize the campaign on in-app events, and let Facebook algorithms find the most relevant target audience for the ads.

The best ad campaign objective for prospecting campaigns is one that best reflects what you want to achieve:

• If you want to lead people to your website, use “Traffic” objective
• If you want people to complete an action, e.g. a purchase or mobile app install, use the “Conversions” objective

Suggested reading: Learn more about Facebook mobile app install ads.

Case study: Scheduled vs 24/7 ad delivery

Here’s one more proof that less optimization = better results.

We did a test with a client and the results were pretty staggering: a 300% difference in ROAS. 

💸 The country was the US, the product was SaaS, the test period was Mon-Thu of 2 consecutive test weeks.

WEEK 1: We used a Daily budget and didn’t use a custom ad delivery schedule.

WEEK 2: We used a Lifetime budget and scheduled ad delivery for Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm. (The total spent budget is higher as we spent more during the reported Mon-Thu period)

As you can see from the table below, the ads that were running daily with no restrictions delivered a higher ROI.

Key takeaways:

➟ Sometimes, high-ROAS conversions happen during non-business hours.

➟ It is better to keep Facebook ad campaigns targeting as broad and the ad delivery as unlimited as possible (use all placements, target entire countries + optimize on conversions)

We also ran the same test in other markets, the results were similar.

Keep your Facebook prospecting campaigns broad and don’t overdo with all the special optimization hacks you read in blogs. 😉

Facebook remarketing campaigns’ structure

The remarketing campaigns target people who have already visited your website or showed interest in some other way (e.g. watched a brand awareness video or downloaded an e-book). 

The goal of this campaign is to convert those lukewarm audiences into customers.

The ad creatives in your remarketing campaigns can be different from prospecting campaigns. Here, you should give people an extra incentive to complete the signup or purchase.

For example, Restream is offering a 20% discount from the subscription.

The most fool-proof remarketing audience that you can create for your Facebook ad campaigns is past 30 days website visitors.

Here are some other Facebook Custom Audiences you could include in remarketing campaigns:

• People who have watched 50% or more of your video ads
• People who have visited your Pricing page
• People who have started the signup process, but didn’t complete it
• People who have visited specific landing pages or blog articles (so that you can show them ads with a custom message around specific topics)

Personally, I like to create 1 remarketing campaign per country with a separate ad for every retargeting audience. This way, I can get a quick overview of how each audience performs.

Facebook campaign structure for remarketing ads

Here’s the general remarketing campaign structure I like to use:

Example Facebook remarketing campaign structure.

• There is one campaign per country: as I like to track per-country results from all campaigns (prospecting, remarketing, etc.) together
• All ad sets include the same ads or if you target special landing page visitors, that ad set’s creatives could be different

When setting up remarketing Facebook campaign, I usually go for “Conversions” campaign objective. Other options I sometimes use are “Traffic” and “Reach.”

Tip: The “Reach” objective is useful if you have a big remarketing or re-engagement audience and most people there would convert anyway.

In this case, there’s no point to optimize on conversions as Facebook would show your ads to people who would take action also without seeing the ad. To reach every target audience member, you can optimize the ad-set-level ad delivery to “Daily Unique Reach” – to that each audience member will see your ad once a day, regardless of how likely they are to convert. 💡

Remarketing ad campaigns’ frequency

Remarketing ad sets tend to be the most profitable ones. The ROI of a remarketing campaign can be 10x than that of a prospecting campaign.

So of course, you’d like to add more budget to remarketing campaigns. 🔥

Thing is, you only have a limited number of people in the remarketing audiences. And if you add too much budget to the campaign, the same people will see your ads over and over and over and over again.

At some point, you may reach the ad frequency of 10 points in a 14-day period. This means that on average, people in your remarketing audiences have seen your ads for 10 or more times.

And you know what? – This is fine.

When running Facebook remarketing campaigns for my clients, I usually see that a 14-day frequency of up to 15 points keeps delivering results at a positive ROI. It won’t drive up your Facebook ads cost.

You may bother some people, but in the end, showing more ads to your remarketing audiences pays off. There’s also more research to prove this point:

Meta ad campaign structure for brand awareness and re-engagement campaigns

I won’t stop on these two for long, as they’re both very similar to one of the campaign setups that we already covered.

Facebook brand awareness campaigns have a similar setup to prospecting campaigns. 

The main difference is the event that you optimize your campaign on + the results that you’ll measure.

For brand awareness campaigns, you could use the obvious “Brand Awareness” campaign objective, although options like “Traffic” and “Video Views” may deliver even better results, depending on your product and ad creatives.

Quite often, Facebook brand awareness ad creatives are videos. And you can target both a broad audience or your existing user base to remind them of your product.

For example, this Facebook ad by Oreo could be considered a brand awareness ad: It reminds you how much you love the 🍪 without directly leading you to an online store to buy it. (Although you may go to the grocery store to get it very soon) 🏃

When it comes to Facebook re-engagement campaigns, they’re targeted at your existing user base: to deliver a positive brand experience, educate them, or advertise special offers.

The campaign structure is very similar to remarketing campaigns: you will have one campaign per country and one ad set per each custom audience.

Potential target audiences for re-engagement campaigns:

• People who used your product/service/app, but haven’t done it for the past 30 days
• Past purchasers of your online store that haven’t made an order in the past 60 days
• People who were talking to your sales team 60+ days ago and didn’t make a purchase back them

For example, this Cos SALE ad could be shown to people who have bought during SALE in the past, but haven’t made a purchase in the previous 90 days.

5 best practices for improved Facebook ad campaign structure

Now that you’re aware of the basics, let’s cover 5 additional suggestions that help you improve your current Facebook ad structure or set up new campaigns from scratch.

1. Run the same campaigns and ad sets over a long period of time.

Instead of setting up a new Facebook ad campaign or adding new ad sets every time you want to add a new audience or ad creatives, edit the existing ones.

Using a single campaign over a long period of time is critical for Facebook’s algorithms to learn from the data. If you’re creating new campaigns every few weeks, you will lose out on this.

2. Less is more

Even if you have 20 amazing ideas for different target audiences or visuals, you will probably get better results if you keep the amount of assets lower.

The way I like to work with ad creatives is to always have 5-8 different ad creatives per ad set. And every time I add new ones, I pause some older ones that don’t perform as well.

3. Let Facebook’s algorithms do the work for you

There are 100+ Facebook ad hacks out there, some suggesting you to set a custom schedule, others showing how to leave out some ad placements.

More often than not, such hacks will actually decrease your results. That’s because you’ll be limiting your ads’ delivery without knowing if it actually helps. You’ll be better off using automated ad placements and 24/7 ad delivery and letting Facebook algorithms do the work for you.

However, for example, if I know that 80% of a company’s customers have a certain age or gender, I usually narrow down the target audience to reach a lower CPA.

4. Review your Facebook ad attribution window

Facebook attributes an action to your ad if someone viewed or clicked your ad and then took an action. 

By default, your Facebook ad account’s attribution window is set to 1-day view and 28-day click, which means that you see attributed actions that happened 1 day after someone viewed your ad and 28 days after someone clicked your ad.

To get a more accurate view of Facebook’s real contribution to your marketing results, change the attribution window smaller, to 1-day view and 7-day click.

Here’s how to do it: 

• Go to Facebook Ads Manager
• Navigate to Settings from the main menu
• Click “Edit” under Attribution
• Select your preferred Attribution Window

5. Name your Facebook campaigns in a systematic way

When your Facebook ad account has a complex international campaign structure, it will make your life a lot easier if all the campaigns and ad sets (and ads) are named by the same convention.

Here’s the framework I like to use:

Campaign level: Country-code_Campaign-type_Campaign-objective_Attribution-window. Example: US_Prospecting_Conversions_7days

Ad set level: Country-code_Audience_Delivery-optimization. Example1: US_20-55_Broad_Landing-page-views. Example 2: US_2%-Lookalike_Purchases

Ad set level: AD-number_Format_Content. Example: AD3_Static-image_20%-Discount-pink

Later on, you’ll be able to quickly filter out your Facebook campaigns based on the country, campaign objective, and edit the ads with the same number or content across ad sets on one go.

—

Hope that you got some inspiration for improving your Facebook campaigns. 🙌 If you want to learn about more best practices, check out the Facebook ad size guide with all the top formats covered.

If you have more questions regarding Facebook ad campaign structure, reach out on LinkedIn.

The post Facebook Ad Campaign Structure – Complete Guide appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

As there were so many great questions and a surprising variety of topics, it felt like a good idea to also document ‘em in this blog. I also reviewed the answers and added bits and pieces to give more context + suggest further reading.

Up next, you’ll find a mix of marketing advice, career confessions, and opinions on a range of marketing-related subjects, from how to get published in TOP marketing blogs to the “agencies vs in-house team” debate.

The Q&A is categorized under a few headlines, so feel free to navigate to the sections that interest you the most.

• Growth hacking
• Learning as a marketer
• Online advertising
• Reporting and measurement
• Rebranding (from Taxify) to Bolt
• Content marketing
• Career and work-life

P.S. if you have any additional questions, you can still submit these on the GrowthHackers AMA page.

One last thing… I’ve had a few people reach out to me and ask how did I get picked out by GrowthHackers for the AMA. I just wrote to them saying I’d like to do one. They said yes.

🚀 On growth hacking

Q1: Can you talk about an experiment that was a really big win or led to some breakthrough insights at Bolt? – Taavi Kalvi

When I joined Bolt in 2017, one of my first tasks was to come up with better creatives for our Facebook ad campaigns. So I figured what people care about most when ordering a ride… Duh, the cost of the ride, of course!

I created a new type of Facebook carousel ad that no other app in the industry was using yet. The carousel ad included 5 cards with popular routes in a city and showed the average cost of the specific ride (which was much lower than with regular taxis).

These ads picked up super well and are still one of our top performers. We even see some competitors using the same ad format now. 😄

Q2: What has been your number one learning/lesson from your entire marketing career? – Liis Laisaar

One of the things I learned early on is that you should always try to go a bit wild and test things that others haven’t tried yet. A lot of the best-performing marketing hacks/projects are not shared in marketing blogs.

So, you should make up your own.

For example, when working on content marketing and SEO in the project management software startup Scoro, I had an idea to compile a list of 50+ project management tools, include Scoro as #3, and thereby be listed as the first Google search result for the “best project management tools” keyword.

First, my manager was strongly against the idea: why would we promote our competitors?

However, I kept pushing to test out the idea and it worked: our listicle soon ranked as #1 result on Google and we got thousands of website visits and tens of new leads from there every month.

Today, Scoro has published more than ten similar list articles and these make up a huge part of their website’s organic traffic.

A good starting point for coming up with original ideas is to first define the goal you want to achieve. As you know the outcome, it’s much easier to figure out how to get there.

I also like browsing Facebook ad examples or graphic design galleries such as Behance, thinking how I would use some ideas I see on the brand I’m working for.

Q3: If you were giving a lecture at university to a group of MSc. students in a marketing/entrepreneurial class, what philosophies, tools or books would you share with them? – Taavi Kalvi

I recently wrote a blog article on how to learn marketing where I shared all the advice I wish someone had given me when finishing high school.

I’d say that the most crucial skills for every marketer are creative problem-solving and critical thinking, as well as writing skills and understanding the basic foundation on how human psychology works.

You can find the list of my all-time favorite marketing and branding books here: 49 Best Marketing Books – New and Classics

Q4: Have you ever a situation where you had been skeptical about some idea, but as a result, it proved a great move? What was that? – Maksymilian Plociennik

My manager at Bolt who taught me to be a lot more critical and always question the ROI of different projects. Whenever my team proposes something that I don’t think is a good idea, we talk it through and see if we can run a small-scale test to check the ROI.

For example, we tested animated Facebook ads some time ago and they performed worse than static ads. So we paused the ads and didn’t waste any more time scaling the video ads to additional Facebook campaigns.

Fast forward 6 months, we tried different a type of video ads (longer ones, another design) and they performed much better. So it’s always worth to test all ideas you think may bring results and even revisit some tests multiple times.

On the other hand, there have also been many cases where I’m skeptical about an idea but still agree with the team to run a test. Even if the test fails, it’s still a success in the sense that we’ll know it in the future and won’t do the same mistake twice.

NB, make sure to document your tests!

Read more: Facebook Ads A/B Testing – Why, What and How to Split Test

Q5: What do you recommend for someone getting started from scratch on building their personal brand? – Saura Johnston

Based on my experience, a good way to get started is by creating a blog and writing about the topic you want to be known for. This can also be some other channel, e.g. Instagram. Also, guest blogging and interacting with people on LinkedIn or closed Facebook groups doesn’t hurt.

For the past few years, I’ve received all my job offers via this blog or LinkedIn as people have read my blog or know me via a network of mutual marketer friends.

I recently started an Instagram account project about our houseplant hobby with a friend.

The key takeaway from this Instagram project is that it’s HARD to grow followership.

It takes a lot of persistence and continuity to build up an extensive following on the platform. To push through, you must be truly passionate about the topic you’re building your personal brand around.

Another good starting point is to look at the websites or social media profiles of people who have already made it. Scroll down to their very first posts and see how they got started and which parts of their content gained traction.

 ⭐ On building a marketing team

Q6: What has proven to be the key deciding factor when recruiting new people to your team? (Which qualities make the best team members and employees in marketing (e.g. experience, willingness to learn <– how to validate this, etc.?) – Liis Laisaar

Having interviewed tens and tens of people while growing the team in Bolt, I realized at some point that you will get the right feeling during the interview if a person is a good match to the team. There’s a kind of special connection and understanding that you get when meeting the right candidate to a position. Things like speaking at the same terms, understanding each others’ questions, having similar opinions on specific topics…

I always look for the proactive “let’s get things done” attitude and evaluate the candidate’s home task and previous work experience. I never look at a marketing candidate’s educational profile as this is not what matters (at least not in Bolt and most other successful tech companies).

I also like to hire people with good copywriting skills and a creative problem-solving-oriented mindset.

Additionally, I follow the rule of “If it’s not a YES!! it’s a no” when hiring. If a candidate doesn’t seem to be the perfect fit for the role, we’ll just keep looking rather than making the wrong hire.

Once you’ve hired someone, you’ll spend tens of hours onboarding and training that person. So you should only hire people if you think they are the very best person to fill the role.

Q7: How do you set up your team KPIs? Do you work with some framework, e.g. OKR? – Karolina Krolicka

The global marketing team at Bolt is currently using a quarterly OKRs approach. We make sure that all OKRs are measurable and directly linked to the projects that a particular team member is working on.

Which leads me to a book that everyone in a high-level management position I know recommends (so do I): High Output Management by A. Grove.

Q8: What is the ideal marketing team structure? – Vasyl Sergienko

There isn’t one single ideal marketing team structure that would fit all companies. But all marketing teams benefit from having clear ownership of projects, clear reporting structure, and team leads not having more than 8 direct reports.

Example team structure by CoSchedule– Image source

I personally like to keep the global marketing team functions centralized in the HQ rather than, for example, having a separate Facebook marketing function in every market.

Also, I would rather build a central marketing team with clear ownership for every function. And only then start to split their resources per region as the company expands to more markets. Instead of building a fully functional marketing team for every different region.

Q9: I saw on Bolt’s website that you are currently hiring for marketing roles in 4 different countries. I’d love to hear more about your experience leading an internationally distributed team. What are some challenges you have faced? How do you handle communication and deliverables among many locations? – Hale Schneider

I’d say that the main challenge is always finding the best people, no matter where they’re located. Also, as our HQ marketing team is based in Tallinn, Estonia, it’s a bit harder to find people with international experience than, say, in London.

However, note my answer to the previous question: We still prefer to hire to the centralized team over building out regional marketing teams with all functions.

The good thing is that Bolt is a very international company and we have teams in 30+ countries around the world. So we have built up a strong information-sharing system that involves internal wikis, Slack channels, and regular all-hands meetings where the information is shared between everyone globally.

Markets where Bolt operates

I’ve gotten used to discussing things with people on Slack or via a call that having a team that’s based across multiple locations is a natural way of working.

We always set quarterly OKRs and focus for each team and give them relatively much freedom on achieving those results.

Q10: How to balance between creativity and data-driven culture? – Vasyl Sergienko

First of all, you can also be creative around the ways of interpreting the data.

Different people can look at the same data and come up with different takeaways. Also, you need to be creative to come up with new ideas to improve the results reflected through data. So I’d say that the data-driven and creative approaches go very much hand in hand in today’s marketing.

Q11: Agency or in-house? Why? – Liis Laisaar

I always prefer in-house marketing teams to agencies as the people’s motivation to grow the business, test new things and get results is times higher.

In-house people genuinely care about the company and go the extra mile to make things work. Having worked in and with agencies, I have seen projects often handed over to interns which can lead to low-quality work and poor results. It also takes a ton of time to onboard agency people and to keep communicating with them on a daily basis to approve ideas and changes.

In Bolt, we’re growing so fast and changing things up all the time, so we need to be able to get new campaigns live in less than 1-2h sometimes. This would never be possible when working with an advertising agency.

I do see a benefit to using local agencies if there’s a need for local contacts to execute a one-time marketing/PR campaign.

Agree with the PROs in this chart – Image source

💸 On online advertising

Q12: What’s the number one mistake people make when trying to improve the performance of their PPC campaigns? – Taavi Kalvi

This really depends on the campaign… But that’s not the answer you were hoping for. 😀

Usually, the biggest PPC mistake is looking at the wrong metrics and KPIs in the first place.

Let’s say your goal is to get new B2B clients for a SaaS tool. So you optimize your campaign on getting new leads. When trying to improve your campaign results, you want to increase the number of leads or lower the CPA (cost per acquisition) of leads. While optimizing on this, you may forget to look at the quality of the leads, so you may end up with more leads with lower quality. So always try to optimize your PPC campaign performance towards more revenue, not mid-funnel or vanity metrics.

Another mistake is always optimizing your PPC campaigns around the same thing.

For example, you want to optimize your Google Search PPC campaigns, so you add new keywords + negative keywords. Maybe, instead of working on this, you should test another channel (like Facebook/Instagram) or another campaign type instead. Or another target audience.

As I’m already ranting on the topic, I also often see Facebook marketers A/B testing small changes. It’s generally more efficient to run tests with variations that are clearly different (e.g. not the color of a CTA button but an entirely different creative vs the current one).

A/B test with visible changes in variations

Q13: Which do you prefer when entering a new market: a) start wide and get maximum exposure OR b) start with as specific targeting as possible and expand later based on already collected data? Why? – Liis Laisaar

It depends on the product and your marketing budget.

In Bolt, we’re marketing a consumer product relevant to most people, so we can use wide targeting in our online ads and let Facebook and Google algorithms to optimize our campaigns based on results.

If you’re marketing a niche product, I’d recommend starting narrower. If you already have a user base, I recommend using Facebook Lookalike audiences.

Q14: What is your approach to influencer marketing? How do you measure its success? – Ane Voje

We have a very data-driven approach to all marketing activities and influencer marketing is no different. We measure the CPA of new users acquired through our influencer marketing activities by counting the referrals made with each influencer’s unique referral code. We also check the reach and CPM of the influencers’ posts and compare it to our other online channels’ metrics.

Q15: What needs to be done to perfectly grow your business throughout the social channels? – Soner Alemdar

A: I’d say that the key thing to succeed in social channels is to constantly create value to your audience. This can mean sharing useful advice, giving away free stuff, informing people about special offers – whatever people can benefit from.

For example, Bolt shares relevant blog articles for drivers

Also, as the organic reach on Facebook is very low (as low as 2% of your page likes), you should always put some boosting budget behind each post.

You can find more social media marketing best practices here: 28 Facebook Ad Hacks for Social Media Growth

Q16: What would you do, if you have to lead a business in the grey market? You know, in a situation, where you can’t promote your brand on Facebook, Reddit, etc. – Maksymilian Plociennik

Tricky… And truth be told, I haven’t marketed such a product before. My first approach would be to find industry influencers and try working with them. Also, building virality to the product so it will pass from person to person. And testing out affiliate marketing.

Q17: Should a new company first focus on client acquisition only or should branding also start from the get-go? – Andreas Velling

You need to understand your brand’s mission and key value proposition from the get-go. But especially with new brands, earning some revenue and getting to the first 1000 paying users should be the priority, so I’d focus on acquisition campaigns first.

You don’t necessarily need to run brand-only marketing campaigns, but can integrate the branded message in acquisition ads.

🤓 On reporting and measurement

Q18: What do you think about marketing automation and who is responsible for that in the team? – Vasyl Sergienko

Marketing automation is a highly relevant project when working with a large scale of users. In Bolt, we have multiple teams working on automation, for example, our Lifecycle marketing team.

Q19: This is a very open-ended and more of a process question and how you go about things but with Bolt being in different markets, how are you able to work and adjust as best you can in creating and executing marketing plans for the different product offerings in each market? I can imagine what “success” or “failure” in one market can be totally different for another. You may have already covered a little bit of this with Mr. Hale Schneider’s question. – Kian Paras

We’re able to use quite a global approach when it comes to marketing in specific countries. Our product offering is not that different from market to market and we focus on promoting our main service above others.

However, we work with local teams to understand each market’s specifics. If you compare Bolt’s social media or blog to some of our competitors, we’re still much more local in our approach.

Q20: How do you approach branding/awareness? Is this just a “side-product” of having the right messages or do you have separate branding campaigns? – Andreas Velling

We do not run a lot of branding-only marketing campaigns as we’re a highly performance-driven company and like to work on things that we can measure.

However, we’ve set the key brand messages and all our performance marketing campaigns and most social media posts also revolve around those messages.

Recently, we launched a green initiative to make all Bolt rides in Europe carbon neutral. It’s a good combination of branding mixed with digital communication channels.

Social media post on the Green Plan

There’s another reason we don’t focus on branding campaigns: as our main brand asset is our product. As long as we’re providing the best ride-hailing experience in a city, we’ll get new users through word-of-mouth and keep the existing ones happy as well.

⚡ On rebranding (from Taxify) to Bolt

Q21: What was your approach for the launch campaign – which channels and assets did you find most valuable and why? – Kati Kuustik

As I set out to work on the first rebranding campaign I’d ever done, I was surprised by how little information about rebranding you can find online. There were literally no articles sharing usable know-how on how to rebrand a company. Only stuff on “how to pick your brand’s name” = useless.

During rebranding, our most valuable channels were those that helped us reach the highest number of our app users: PR, in-app messages, and emails.

We also used other marketing channels like online ads to communicate about the brand name change from Taxify to Bolt. Also, Google Search ads were very helpful in making sure that people will find our website and app store listing with both the old and new brand name.

I’ve found that there are quite many articles on how to do the rebranding / decide if you should rebrand, but very little information mostly on how to approach the launch of the new rebrand.

Q22: What goals did you set for the rebranding launch? – Kati Kuustik

Our main goal was not to lose users and the volume of rides not to drop. There were, of course, a set of lower-level goals that every involved team monitored.

Q23: If you had to do it again, what would you do differently? Or what were your biggest learnings? – Kati Kuustik

The thing with rebranding is that you probably (and hopefully) only get to do it once. 😅

If I had to help a company go through a rebranding again, I would focus on planning early on, having clear timelines, and making sure that all teams follow it. Which is what exactly happened in Bolt and why our rebranding went (almost) smoothly. Although there are always some last-minute surprises…

I’d also start preparing the new brand’s marketing assets and CVI (in case you want to change it) earlier and upload all new ad campaigns in advance. It took our 2-person advertising team weeks to replace all of our 5000+ online ad creatives.

🎡 On content marketing

Q24: What’s the biggest challenge for a B2C company related to content marketing strategy? – Eduarda Lemos

In my opinion, the biggest challenge for all brand blogs is understanding how to create extra value for your users that they can’t find elsewhere.

For example, at Bolt we focus on blog articles that share useful information to our drivers. This information is much harder to find compared to lifestyle-related advice for riders (as there are so many blogs and magazines already creating this type of content).

Q25: How do you manage the content production process understanding that each country has different personas/language, etc.? – Eduarda Lemos

We try to keep our blog content as evergreen and universal as possible and localize it to many languages. Sometimes, our local teams also write additional blog content targeted at their market specifically.

At some point I started to write English copy while thinking how it would sound in Estonian or French, to make sure everything is easy to localize to our 20+ languages.

Q26: Aside from your blog, I’ve read a lot of your guest posts in different blogs and platforms. I am a little biased towards the Copy Hackers one and KlientBoost as my favorites among your written guest posts but the Adespresso ones and Entrepreneur piece are up there too. What was your mindset like early on in figuring out which blog/publication/platform to pitch and how did you pitch to guest post or wrote for them? – Kian Paras

I started out pitching to 10+ marketing blogs, and it was very hard to get in initially. Once you already have a few strong articles in good blogs (in my case, HubSpot and AdEspresso) you can pitch to the next ones and will have proof of your writing quality to present.

You can read more about my guest blogging journey here: After Guest Blogging 50+ Articles, Here’s What I Learned

However, note that you won’t get much extra traffic to your blog from guest posting. For example, when I published an article in Entrepreneur, only nine readers looked up my profile and website.

The main value you’ll get from guest publishing is:

• additional blogging and podcast invitations
• job offers and help requests
• high-quality backlinks

🎢 On career and work-life

Q27: What’s an average workday look like for you? – Mary Green

My regular workday is always full of surprises, project managing some marketing campaigns, attending meetings & job interviews, discussing ideas with the team, and sharing information between teams.

But my favorite days are the ones where I disconnect from Slack and email for 4h or longer and focus on macro-level planning and improving the current team/reporting structure.

Q28: What is your biggest struggle currently? – Karolina Krolicka

When growing as fast as Bolt, you run into a lot of struggles.

I’d say the biggest challenge is understanding the business impact and ROI of all the different online and offline marketing activities that we’re doing.

We’re testing and learning something new every month, adding layers of data analytics to our campaign reporting and improving the attribution between different marketing channels.

Q29: How much of your life is dedicated to learning your craft and improvement? I love hearing how others invest in their craft. – Rob Fulton

I feel that I can learn the fastest through my work. Also, running a blog around Facebook advertising helps me stay aware of all the best practices and latest hacks.

I like to research what other top brands are doing and do a monthly review of their social media channels and blogs. Another great way to learn about new best practices is to talk to other marketers. You can even reach out on LinkedIn and propose to have a call and share your key learnings.

Also, whenever I’ve got time, I follow some industry newsletters and listen to podcasts.

I shared a long list of blogs, books, podcasts, and newsletters I like in this article, might be helpful: https://karolakarlson.com/2018-key-learnings-facebook-ads-marketing/

Q30: I remember reading your work and learning a little bit about your career profile while I was doing college internships and I only graduated in 2017. From the outside, it makes it seem like you “Bolt(ed)” upwards so quickly (jk, bad pun) or rose up relatively quickly but you may see it differently.

What is your work-life balance/integration prioritization or however you call it like, especially when you were just getting started!? Because you have Bolt, the blog, possibly other side hustles, and clients although you did mention you do not have the capacity at the moment, and possibly other hobbies and personal pursuits. You may have alluded to it with Ma’am Mary Green’s question but gosh it makes it look like you worked 24/7 to get where you are at. I personally think it’s super cool with all you’ve done so far and I can imagine some of your best work is yet to come. 🙂 – Kian Paras

About the work-life balance… I guess that early in my career I was so into marketing, looking at it as my job, hobby, relationship… (kidding about the last one :p)… But seriously, I think I easily worked at least 60h per week, also spending the Sundays working on either planning for Botl or writing to my blog.

By now, I’ve taken a step back and try to limit my workweek to 50h max. It’s become more about managing my time and focusing on the high-impact items only, removing meetings from my schedule, and learning to say “no” to more low-efficiency projects.

However, I believe that if you find a career you’re really passionate about, working the extra 20h per week doesn’t feel like a burden. Instead, you’ll be thrilled to learn by doing.

I would also say that I was very lucky to have the right opportunities to enter my life at the right time. E.g. I got an email from the CEO of Klientboost inviting me to freelance for their blog and Bolt reached out to me just as I was about to leave my past company. So it’s all about doing good work and noticing the good opportunities as they arise. You’ll be offered cool jobs only if you put yourself out there.

The post AMA with GrowthHackers – 30 Questions and Answers appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

Well, how about googling it?

Search “how to learn marketing,” and you’ll find lists of online courses and a Quora thread on the topic suggesting that you “read marketing blogs.”

Um… That’s way too broad and not very helpful. 🤷

So what are the actual first steps to start learning about marketing?

Let’s turn the tables and start with a few things you should not start with:

• You should not start to read tens of marketing books without having a clear goal.
• You should not pay $2000 for an online marketing course or attend a conference.
• You should not necessarily acquire a university degree in marketing.

There is a time and place for all of the above, but none of those are essential to growing into a marketer.

There’s a bunch of other stuff you should be doing tho.

But first things first.

Like with all long-term projects in life, it’s important to have a solid high-level understanding of what you want to achieve.

So, you want to be a marketer?

But what does it even mean to be a marketer? Can you define what a marketer does?

A good place to kick off this article is by apprehending what learning marketing means in 2019.

What does it mean to be a marketer?

Well… There are many different marketing careers you can choose between (and you can’t have it all).

Arielle Jackson, a Marketing Expert in Residence in the VC firm First Round Capital broke down the four main skill sets for marketers today:

• Product Marketing
• Performance Marketing
• Communications
• Brand Marketing

Take a close look at the chart below and you will realise that there are plenty of different paths you can follow as a marketer.

It’s one of the best charts I’ve seen explaining what marketers in modern companies are working on.

Being a marketer can mean different things – Source: firstround.com

With the understanding of all the possibilities to learn marketing also comes another revelation:

There is no way you can achieve top-level expertise in each of these fields.

Which means that you’ll need to specialize.

Let’s complicate things even further. 😈

Each of the four directions listed in the chart can be broken down further. E.g. a performance marketer can learn digital marketing, and get highly specialised in various fields such as paid advertising, social media marketing, CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation)…

This means that you’ll need to decide on the level of specialization you want to reach.

That’s also what Arielle from First Round is saying:

“Most marketers who aren’t new to the field specialize in either the so-called “soft” or “hard” sides of marketing, focusing more on brand and communications or growth, analytics, and channel optimization. “Even CMO-level candidates typically tilt more heavily in one direction… You wouldn’t expect an engineer to be amazing at front-end and back-end, but unfortunately this expectation exists for marketers.”

You just can’t have it all.

But you do have a choice.

Here are a few questions to steer you in the right direction and see whether you want to learn digital marketing, PR, or product marketing.

1. Do you want to be a specialist, a manager, or a CMO?

The intuitive answer to this question is “Of course I want to be the CMO of a well-known brand one day.”

But do you, really?

Take a look at the chart below. With fancy job positions also comes responsibility.

Understand what is the best job seniority for you

CMO (Chief Marketing Officer)

Being a CMO means taking a tremendous responsibility for other people’s work performance, and very likely sacrificing many nights and weekends of fun social activities in exchange for advancing your career. Not only will you have to work hard and be proactive in driving the entire Marketing team’s performance, you will also need to develop mid-level knowhow of every marketing skill your individual team members have. How else can you be an empowering teamlead to them?

If you still feel you want to become a CMO with a team of 10+ people one day, make a conscious decision to build up a strong skill set in as many fields of marketing as possible.

A good entry-level job for you will be in a startup where you can get your hands on many various projects. More on landing the first marketing job later.

P.S. being a CMO in a 5-people startup is rather a Manager- or Specialist-level job, don’t get confused with the terms but think about the content of the role.

Manager / team lead

Manager is a mid-level marketing team member in charge of one specific field. To bring some examples, in Bolt we have roles such as Social Media Marketing Manager, Paid Advertising Lead, Local Marketing Manager (in charge of marketing in a specific country).

Being a Manager requires a high degree of knowledge in one particular field. Also, you may have to learn to work with and lead a small team which takes a considerable amount of your time.

Consider whether you want to spend your days fully focused on hands-on work or pass 20% or more of your time at meetings, working on reports, and coming up with improvements to your team’s work.

Being a Manager can be rewarding and you can make a higher impact. However, you will need to constantly invest in improving your skills and keeping up with the latest trends.

To sum this up, being a Manager requires that you’re highly passionate about your field.

Specialist

Often, Managers grow out of Specialists.

As you start off learning about marketing, you will first have a few Specialist-level jobs before stepping up to the Manager role. As a specialist, you will have the choice whether to invest your time and effort in reaching the level of knowhow where you can manage a team. Or you can decide to keep working on the Specialist level and enjoy a lower level of responsibilities and, oftentimes, stress.

The decision whether to reach the Specialist, Manager, or CMO level is essentially a lifestyle question: how much of your time are you willing to devote on your career vs social life and other hobbies.

2. Are you more of a creative or numbers person?

Do you rather enjoy working on ideas and conceptualize things or to crunch the numbers and work on highly measurable marketing projects?

I personally enjoy both. But even while I like to zoom in on behavioral economics and branding, I am more inclined towards the numbers-based Performance Marketing.

Let’s take a look at the chart once again.

Some marketing tracks require more creativity, others more logic

The projects listed under Product Marketing and Performance Marketing are more suitable to the people comfortable with numbers and spreadsheets.

Communications and Brand Marketing require a higher level of ideation and creative skills such as writing.

❗ This is not to say that Communications and Brand Marketing should not be measured!!

Whatever kind of marketer you want to become, you can’t do it without a basic understanding of tracking and measurement.

Also, Performance Marketing requires creativity when it comes to writing the ad copy, coming up with social media post ideas, and even building tracking spreadsheets requires an open mind.

It’s all about realizing where in between creativity and math you feel the most affluent.

Summing up Part 1

To help you summarize the above and take the next step towards your marketing career, here’s a brief summary:

• Define what kind of marketer you want to be: Product Marketing vs Branding, creativity vs numbers
• Consider what level of seniority you’d enjoy working in: how much of your overall time do you want to invest specifically in your career

If you are unsure what’s the right marketing job for you, test several fields. 💁

• I started out as an assistant in a PR agency, mainly working on writing content.
• Next up, I moved to a Content Marketing role in a startup, working on writing and SEO.
• I moved up the ladder to the role of Digital Marketing Manager, working on blog, SEO, CRO, social media, paid advertising, and some product marketing.
• I took some time off from the full-time job and consulted startups, being a full-stack marketer, working on the same things as in my previous role + learned graphic design to create ad visuals.
• I joined the Bolt team full-time in the Performance Marketing Manager role, working on paid advertising, social media, graphic design, and occasional copywriting projects.
• I grew into the team lead for Bolt Marketing team, working with and consulting many specialised teams, and being in charge of hiring and the high-level marketing strategy and reporting.

For me, the growth into marketer was rather organic, with the right things happening at the right time.

It also took more than three years and several turns to realize what field of marketing I like the most.

For example, I found a book about digital marketing on the bookshelf of the PR agency I was working in. In a few weeks, all I wanted to do was to work on content marketing, SEO and paid ads. Thanks to this lucky chance, I took the jump and landed in Scoro, which opened the door to many other projects.

At some point I decided to start a marketing blog. That’s how many of my freelance customers and also Bolt found me.

This blog turned out to be a very good idea

Note that cool jobs and promotions won’t come knocking on your door. You need to work hard before an opportunity opens up, and be curious enough to notice it and follow up.

Not to get too off-track, let’s resume to the assumption that you have a vague notion of the field of marketing you want to learn about.

Say you want to become a Facebook advertising expert or a partner in a media agency.

What’s next?

Where to get started with learning marketing?

You have no idea where to get started? 😓

That’s OK.

I didn’t know that either.

Not when being 18y old. Not when being 20y old. I am still not sure where I want to be in 5 years time.

However, looking back at how I got here, there are a few patterns that emerge. I will try to break them down for you.

Start from learning the essential “marketer” skills

There are a few skills that will give your marketing career a strong foundation, whatever direction you want to move in.

And, surprise-surprise, you don’t need to get a university degree in marketing to learn them. 🤭

Every good marketer I’ve met is characterised by the following: they can take on challenges and find solutions fast, they understand how people’s brains work, and they are excellent writers.

Start by training yourself in both creative problem-solving and critical thinking as well as learn to write and get a basic foundation on how the human psychology works.

Especially in the early years after high school graduation when you’re unsure what exactly you want to do, sharpening these three skills is a good way to grow as a marketer without an immediate pressure to specialize.

The reason I placed the word “marketer” between quotation marks in the headline is that these skills are relevant to plenty more career paths.

Even better so. By honing your creativity, empathy, and problem-solving capacity, you are not limiting yourself to a marketing career only. You’ll have the opportunity to switch to many other fields if you later find that another career path interests you more.

How to learn to write?

I could write an entire article on the topic. So in the general interest of keeping this article on track, I will share a few quick suggestions.

First of all, you will not learn to write by reading a few online articles, no matter how good, on “how to write a good marketing copy.”

Writing is a skill acquired through years of reading, learning, and writing. It’s a muscle you will need to train.

Or try to place a new book under your pillow every night

OK, so you want to learn to write, but need some guidance?

Read. Read a lot.

Be generally curious and read plenty of books, magazines, blogs and newspapers. Make yourself a goal to read 1 newspaper daily and finish at least 1 book per week. To give you some suggestions, I posted a list of things I’ve been recently reading in this article.

When it comes to picking the books for mastering the art of writing, I personally prefer literature to business books, due to the rich use of language.

There are also a few great books about writing I recommend that you check out:

• • Everybody Writes by Ann Handley – link 

• • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King – link

Write something every day.

What on earth would you write about every day? Well, it’s up to you. Either create a blog or start a personal diary. The point here is not to produce publishing-ready literature every time you set your fingers on the keyboard. The goal is to train yourself to write.

Find yourself an editor.

I give the most credit for learning to decently write to my high school teacher and the editors from various marketing blogs. Every time they jotted down an irrelevant sentence, meaningless adjective, or asked for a point of proof to back up my out-of-the-blue statements, I learned to avoid a rookie mistake the next time.

You can find an editor by offering to intern for a blog/magazine, finding a first job where your manager has strong writing skills and is willing to teach you, or by asking someone to become your mentor and edit your first writings.

How to learn about psychology?

As with writing, your empathy and knowhow on consumer behavior will develop in time.

Generally, it helps to read literature and to listen attentively what people are saying to you, trying to understand things from many different viewpoints.

There are also a few amazing books on behavioral economics that I consider a must-read for every marketer, no matter their chosen field:

• • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman – link

• • Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini – link

• • Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely – link

Learn to understand what people really want – Image source

Here are a few examples of how understanding consumer psychology will help you be a better marketer across all the possible roles.

• Product Marketing: you will understand that $59 is a better price for your product than $60 as people perceive this as a significantly lower sum.
• Performance Marketing: you will understand which message drives people to click on your online ad and write highly converting copy using the triggers like urgency or scarcity.
• Communications: you will understand why a journalist should/should not care about the news you’re trying to get covered and can package it in the most appealing way.
• Brand Marketing: you will understand what makes people choose your product over the competitors’ and can double down on that value proposition in all your marketing channels.

How to train your critical thinking skills?

Being a marketer in 1950s was very different from being a marketer in 2020s.

With everything being digitalized, we’re able to measure a significant amount of marketing activities. Basically, all the online marketing activities can be tracked, measured, and improved upon.

As a marketer, you will need to compile strategies, figure out how to track and measure campaign results and find efficient solutions to ongoing challenges.

For me, logical thinking is a derivative of math skills mostly learned in high school + everything I have learned from my incredibly smart managers and colleagues at various jobs.

Learn to measure and evaluate marketing results – Image source

So where to get started?

If you’re still in university, take a few math courses.

If you’ve already graduated, take a course in Excel spreadsheet management – it sounds old-school, but you’ll need the spreadsheet and automation skills throughout your career.

Or pass a coding course in Codeacademy – learning a coding language, e.g. Python, will give you a better grasp of how to apply a systematic framework to various projects.

Summing up Part 2

Most people unfamiliar to hands-on marketing jobs tend to think that marketing is a specific skill set that can be acquired through online courses, business books, and a university degree.

That’s not true.

The best way to start learning marketing is to acquire a few basic “life” skills: writing, listening and understanding other people, and logical thinking.

Also, learn to google stuff. If you don’t know anything, don’t shrug and leave it be. Just check out what’s written about it online. Be curious, c’mon!

After you have obtained some of the basic knowledge, it’s time to dive in to specific marketing studies.

Learning marketing skills

There are a few options to learn specific, e.g. digital marketing skills:

• By taking university courses or paid trainings on marketing
• By reading marketing books, blogs, and newsletters
• By passing some online courses or watching Youtube videos
• By researching and analysing how successful brands do marketing

Which one of those is the most efficient way to learn marketing?

It depends on your level of motivation and the current place in your career.

Should you enroll in a university degree in marketing?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but I’d like to emphasize that a university degree in marketing is not a must-have for becoming a successful marketer.

If you haven’t gone to university yet, it could be a good idea to enroll in a marketing track or take some courses on the subject. If you’ve already been working on another job and plan to turn a new page in your career, getting a university degree is not the most efficient way to learn about marketing.

You could use that time to acquire some specific skill set, e.g. learn to create Facebook ad designs or go through thousands of ad creatives to learn what’s working.

See the 162 best Facebook ad examples in this post.

I think I’ve browsed more than 10 000 Facebook ads in my life 🤭

When hiring people to Bolt marketing team, I never evaluate the candidates based on their educational track. I look at their previous work experience, motivation letter and later the home task. However, some companies do still require job candidates to have a relevant Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.

Do not expect the Marketing university degree to teach you everything you need to know.

University degrees that guide you towards becoming a marketer well versed in the digital world are a needle in a haystack. Generally, you will learn the theory and get very little practical know-how.

However, a huge benefit of going to university is that you will have time to learn, also outside of the curriculum.

If you’re fresh out of the high school and unsure what to do, my recommendation is to go to university rather than find a low-level job (it does not necessarily have to be a Marketing degree) and earn yourself three or five extra years to grow both personally and professionally. Also, companies prefer the interns who are attending a university vs candidates with no higher education.

What about paid marketing courses and trainings?

Next question: Should you take any paid online or offline marketing courses?

You can, but it is not a requirement for learning marketing.

If you decide to take any courses, I suggest that you only pay for world-class courses such as CXL’s Online Marketing Training. Unless you live in the UK or the US, you are likely to find high-quality stuff online rather than when attending some local offline trainings.

Should you go to marketing conferences?

The short answer is no.

Conferences are great for networking and boosting motivation, but not for learning detailed skills. If your goal is to learn marketing, conferences are not the most efficient way to go.

👉 Marketing books, blogs, and newsletters 👈

The above three resources are where I learned most of what I know about marketing.

When it comes to marketing blogs, be careful not to fall for basic advice written by freelance copywriters with no marketing background. The best stuff is put out by the agencies and a few marketing tools.

The marketing blogs I dare to suggest are:

• Holini
• CXL
• Moz
• Buffer
• Content Marketing Institute
• Copy Hackers
• Jon Loomer
• Backlinko

To keep up with your favourite marketing blogs, sign up to their email newsletters and bookmark them with the goal to check out the new articles at least once a week.

Here’s the list of the best books on marketing I’ve read:

• Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy – link + my review to the book
• Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves – link
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott – link
• Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday – link
• Contagious by Jonah Berger – link 
• The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry – link

• The behavioral economics books mentioned above

A page from The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry

P.S. The two above lists are not the holy grails of all you will need to read to become a good marketer. There is a lot more good stuff out there.

And I also suggest that you read online (and offline) magazines + newspapers, and browse around in the online design galleries such as Dribbble and Behance to increase your general know-how and writing skills.

Summing up Part 3

There are many ways to educate yourself about marketing.

If you’re fresh out of high school, enrolling in a university curriculum (not necessarily a marketing degree) may be a good idea.

Either way, complement the highly theoretical knowledge with information about the latest best practices by reading blogs and newsletters. (Even if you’re already working in marketing, you should keep up the reading to stay on top of your game).

Now, now… let’s assume you’ve acquired some basic theoretical knowledge about the field of marketing you want to proceed with.

The best thing to do next is to get some practical experience.

Which leads us to… 🥁🥁🥁

Landing your first marketing job

If you have never worked in a marketing role before, why would a company hire you?

• You have no certificate to validate your skills
• You have no tangible results, nor job experience to present
• You have no references from previous managers

Moreover, you’ll be competing with people older and more experienced than you.

Sorry, that’s harsh.

But it has not stopped many people before you from succeeding.

So how can you get your foot in the door?

Start with internships

Instead of applying to a marketing job fresh out of university or after finishing a marketing course, try to land a few internships.

In fact, you can already pass a few summer internships during the university, and maybe even have a part-time marketing job by the end of the third year.

Also, apply to volunteer in marketing-related roles, helping to organize small events or work for an NPO (Non-profit Organization).

Find yourself an internship

Internships are beneficial on many levels:

• You are not expected to know everything but learn.
• You will have an experienced mentor who will guide your learning progress.
• You will see the kitchen side of various marketing projects and get a feel of the job.
• An internship is non-binding and only lasts for a month (low-risk commitment).
• You can do several internships to check out multiple career paths.

Not all internships are equally useful, and there are companies that only hire interns for the “dirty work.”

Which leads us to the next question…

How to land a good internship?

There are a few basic rules to follow:

• Do your research: ask around to identify the agencies/companies that do very good marketing.
• Send your motivation letter and CV to 10+ places and expect only around 20%-50% of them to answer.
• Write an exceptionally strong motivational letter as this is the main thing you’ll be evaluated upon.
• If you get no answer in two weeks, don’t let the opportunity fade away. Follow up.

Pro tip: You can create a CV that looks better than 95% of other people’s by using the free Canva templates.

Use Canva templates for your CV

P.S. I am thinking to publish an article on how to land your first marketing internship. Let me know in the comments if it’s a topic you’d be interested in.

❗One more thing!

Most companies accept the interns that come to them, and won’t even look for them publicly. If you only apply to the companies that have an intern job opening on the website, you’re missing out on 90% of the opportunities.

Reach out to all info@company emails where you’d like to do the internship.

Getting your first entry-level marketing job

In my experience, the best entry-level marketing job types are in agencies and startups – they’re fast-paced, have a wide variety of projects, and keep up to date with the latest marketing trends.

I suggest that you join a marketing team with at least one more experienced team member. If you become the only marketer in a tiny company, you’ll have nobody to learn from.

How to find your first marketing job?

Most people only search for a job on job sites like Indeed.com, etc.

However, a lot of marketing roles are filled in through headhunting and referrals.

If you’re just starting out and don’t know many people in the industry, simply send your CV and motivation letter to all agencies and brands you’d like to work for. If you have a few internships under your belt and sound hyper-motivated, there’s a high chance someone will hire you, even if they’re not publicly looking to grow the team.

Use LinkedIn to research the companies you’d like to work for, google lists of marketing agencies and startups or simply ask around.

Also, it often happens that the companies you intern for will end up making you a job offer. So make sure not to slack through the internship, but do your best work, occasionally exceeding the expectations.

Summing up Part 4

The fastest way to getting your first marketing job is by completing a few internships and building up your CV.

Also, starting your own small project or helping out a non-profit or friends’ company will be a nice springboard to a “real” job.

Be prepared to work for free or a low salary at first, developing your skills, and give your best at every job, paid or not. Eventually, you’ll have amassed the critical level of experience, references, and performance record to apply for a full-time marketing role and land the job.

Remember that your first jobs and internships will not define what you’ll be doing for the rest of your career. You will have tens of years ahead of you to learn new skills and make complete U-turns, wherever life may take you

Now go and learn to be a marketer!

Helpful Resources

Here’s a list of helpful articles, online courses, and resources that help you learn digital marketing.

List of 26 Free Online Marketing courses – by WordStream

The 30 Best Websites to Learn Marketing for Free – by Sitepoint

25 Best Resources that Help You Learn Marketing for Free – by Creative Boom

21 Resources For Mastering Online Marketing – by Neil Patel

37 Free Social Media and Marketing Courses to Elevate Your Skills Today – by Buffer

The post How to Learn Marketing? With 100+ Resources appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.

In 2018, Instagram Stories exceeded Snapchat in DAU. Facebook had the toughest year ever. (But nonetheless remains the foremost destination for marketers looking to reach a wide audience at arguably low cost)

For me, 2018 was the most eventful year ever. A year ago, I was freelancing for several startups while growing this blog. 12 months forward, my focus has shifted 110% to working with Taxify’s marketing team. (We’ve grown from 10 people to 30 in just one year, and we’re hiring 🤭) From attending for the first time Cannes Lions festival to last-minute panic-troubleshooting a large-scale marketing operation with Taxify’s French team, 2018 presented plenty of opportunities for learning and growth.

This said…

I took a look back at all the marketing projects I contributed to in 2018 and realised there were some interesting key learnings, potentially useful for other marketers.

Heads-up: a lot of what I thought to be efficient in marketing turned out to work the opposite way. And there’s a surprising amount of obvious best practices that no marketing blogs write about. Go figure…

So, without further ado, here are some of my key insights from 2018 that might be useful to you as well:

1. Facebook ads get over-optimized all the time. You’ll get better results when you let them run in peace.
2. Run more-more-more A/B tests about every aspect of your marketing activities. 90% of them fail, 10% will improve your results signifcantly.
3. Measure everything you do. Yes, even things you think will obviously work. Because sometimes, they don’t.
4. Facebook video ads don’t work (a shocker!). It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Read point 4 of the article for further explanation.
5. If you spend your time on marketing campaigns, also spend your 💸 on promoting them. + Focus on one big campaign rather than ten small ones.
6. Create all marketing campaigns, ads, emails, web assets, etc. first for mobile. Get over your desktop-skewed views.

If this list just sounded a bit click-bait-ish, you will find a more in-depth explanation on each of the learnings below.

+ I also did some digging in my notebooks and bookmarks, resulting in a list of the nice stuff I’ve been listening, watching, and reading in 2018. Scroll to the very end of the article for that.

1. Leave ad optimisation to the algorithms

If you’re using online ad channels to promote your product, you likely spend most of your 💸 with Facebook and Google.

Both Facebook and Google have increased their ad placement inventory significantly in 2018. Facebook recently added Facebook Stories ads on top of its existing placements while Google is expanding its Youtube video ad inventory.

Just take a look at all the Facebook ad placement options available in December 2018. A year ago, there were so much fewer ad placements to choose from…

On one hand, advertising on Facebook and Google is getting increasingly difficult.

You need quite a specialised marketing experience to play around with all the targeting, optimization, and placement options of main online ad platforms.

But there’s also good news – 2018 also brought about a wider use of AI and Machine Learning.

So…

Should you build an AI bot to do the Facebook advertising for you? – No.

Should you use third-party online tools that claim to optimise your ad campaigns for you. – No.

Just let Google and Facebook algorithms do their magic.

One of the articles I wrote in 2018 and like most is the one explaining that you don’t need to over-optimise your Facebook campaigns. Just let Facebook’s algorithms do it for you.

What happens if you optimise your Facebook ad campaign’s delivery schedule, placements, narrow down the targeting to 10k people or less?

I’ve mostly seen this happening:

So how can you set up Google and Facebook ad campaigns that will reach a wide audience interested in your product?

Try these best practices:

1. Spend at least $20/daily per every new ad set – algorithms need a lot of conversions to optimise your campaigns.
2. Optimise ad delivery on the right events – if you’re working with low budgets, optimise on landing page views. If you get at least 10 down-the funnel conversions daily per ad set, optimise on signups, etc.
3. Set up a single ad campaign with a single ad set and 1-3 ads while resisting the urge to fragment your campaigns into scattered low-budget ad sets. This applies to low-budget Facebook ad campaigns.
4. Don’t A/B test too many elements at once – you won’t have enough results to conclude the test. Here’s my take on Facebook ad A/B testing.
5. Don’t worry too much about the ad placements, custom delivery schedule, and manual bidding. Use Facebook’s default settings for all these things.
6. Set up Facebook Pixel to track your campaign’s results and optimise your ad campaigns on conversions. (So that algorithms can learn which type of audience converts on your offer and deliver it to more similar people)
7. Don’t make changes to your online ad campaigns too often. Adjust your campaigns 24h after setting them up (in case they’re not delivering yet), then let them run for 7 days minimum before making any further edits.

So, to wrap this up: don’t panic when your Facebook ad campaigns are not delivering amazing results 2h after publishing the campaign. Let them run for a while so that algorithms can start working their magic.

2. Run more A/B tests – 90% will fail, 10% will be game-changers

As someone lately explained to me, having 10 x 0.7% incremental improvements in your ad campaigns’ conversion rates results in 2x total improvement.

If you want to improve your marketing results, keep A/B testing new approaches.

However, be prepared to get demotivated once your tests show no significant improvement.

I ran 50+ A/B tests in 2018 and most of them showed either no improvement or negative results.

Quite disappointing, huh?

But that’s just fine.

The remaining 10% of A/B tests brought learnings that improved our marketing results big-time.

There’s an almost infinite pool of things to A/B test. And if you’re working with considerably low marketing budgets, you’re limited to a small number of tests.

So. What should you and what shouldn’t you test?

In my experience, the biggest improvements will come from optimising your online ad visuals. That kind of makes sense – your ad image is the first thing to catch people’s attention. (Also, the first thing that can cause ad fatigue is when people see the same visual over and over again for 10+ times.)

So, start by testing your ad visuals.

At Taxify, testing new ad visuals goes hand-in-hand with updating our branding.

This nonetheless means that you should ONLY test the visual side.

Think about your online ad campaigns as a collection of many different aspects, each contributing to the conversion – your ad image and copy, but also the landing page and later user experience of your product… And the emails you send out. Be on the lookout for ways to improve each step of the conversion funnel.

And don’t just assume that all the best practices shared across marketing blogs work in your case! We’ve discovered many best practices to be either useless or damaging to campaign performance.

Read more: 10 Best Practices for Facebook Ads A/B Testing

3. Measure EVERYTHING, especially the obvious stuff

“I know this is going to work!”

Of course every marketer thinks that, especially after reading some article about best practices.

Next thing you know, you’ve paused some of your old ads or implemented a big change on your website, without setting up any measurement test to confirm if it really works.

Not good.

Every time you change your email layout, add some new ad visuals or rewrite copy on your website, add to your to-do list a task to come back and check if it improved the results.

E.g. when I set up an A/B test on Facebook Ads Manager, I add to my calendar a note 2+ weeks ahead to return to the campaign and check the outcome.

Same goes about social media posts, emails, website changes, etc. – if you think a change will improve the results, make sure that it actually does.

Most of the time, you won’t probably see an improvement. What should you do in this case?

1. If the old and new version work on the same level (or there’s less than 2% difference) and you think the latest one better reflects your branding and messaging, keep it.
2. If there’s no big difference between the two options, keep the old version and start another A/B test to find another way to improve your results.

Another thing I’ve noticed: the bigger the difference between two tested A/B test variations, the more you will learn. Best to avoid A/B tests with very tiny variations in tested elements.

4. Key Learnings on 2018 about Facebook Ads

All the brands I worked with in 2018 run some Facebook Ad campaigns. It’s the easiest channel to get started with.

Also, having my Instagram and Facebook feeds flooded with ads by both local and global brands has been a perfect chance to learn what’s working.

Seriously – don’t underestimate scrolling your Instagram feed just to learn what other brands are doing.

Try this for 1 week, daily: Scroll through your Instagram feed. Take screenshots of all the ads you see. Put these to a G Drive folder or wherever you store your information. After 1 week, take a look at all the examples and write down the best practices you can use to improve your own ad visuals and copy.

You will end up with a personal gallery of Facebook ad ideas.

PS: If you’re interested, here are 142 Facebook ad examples I collected some time ago.

As this blog’s already full of Facebook ads best practices, I didn’t want to spend too much space listing new hacks & tips. Here’s a quick list of my new observations from 2018:

1. Facebook video ads don’t work – Yes, it’s an exaggeration. But with all the blogs and Facebook itself promoting the video ads to be the golden nugget of online advertising, I have yet to see video ads outperforming static ads. For sure, you should test if video ads work for you. Just make sure to measure their performance against single-image ads.
2. Prefer broad audiences – When setting up Facebook ad campaigns, leave your audience targeting as broad as possible. If you’re selling a consumer-focused product, you can even test targeting entire countries at a time – algorithms will deliver your ads to the most relevant audience.

3. Optimise your Facebook ad sets on right conversions – Whether you optimise your ad delivery on link clicks, signups, or purchases will have a huge impact on your results. If you have a high volume of down-the-funnel events, optimise your ad delivery on those instead of link clicks.

4. Use automatic placements – Yes, there’s an option to exclude some ad placement from your Facebook campaigns. However, it’s much more efficient to use auto-placements and, once again, let the algorithms decide what’s the best channel for showing your ads.

4. Use both illustrations and stock images – When it comes to ad visuals, it’s a good practice to use a mix of illustrations and stock images as different people relate to different images. Pro tip: using numbers in your ads will also help to improve results.

6. Create Lookalike Audiences – If you’re starting to advertise in a new country, it’s a very good idea to create a Custom Audience of your existing TOP customers all over the world, then create a local 5%-10% Lookalike Audience based on that. Simultaneously, set up a broad targeting ad set as it will at some point likely overperform the Lookalikes’ ad set (once you’ve reached all the people in the audience).

5. Value your time more and put 💸 into promoting each campaign

At Taxify, we do lots of fun marketing campaigns to engage with our riders and drivers.

Some of the most recent marketing campaigns include a Halloween giveaway, TOP drivers’ event in France, social media Advent Calendar, and more.

As you might imagine, a lot of time goes into planning and executing some of those campaigns.

But no matter how awesome those campaigns are, you’ll be missing out on a lot of potential if you just execute them without proper promotion.

What I mean by this is that when you’re doing a cool marketing campaign, e.g. a social media post in partnership with another brand, don’t stop by posting to your Facebook page. Make sure that you make enough noise for people to actually notice you campaign. You could do that by informing all your users via email, boosting your social media post for a higher budget, running online ads campaign to support the campaign, or use all of the aforementioned tactics combined. (And that’s so not the definitive list of things you can do to amplify your campaigns’ reach)

On a similar subject, don’t spend your time doing small marketing activities that have a very low reach and ROI.

Rather than execute 10 tiny social media campaigns or partnerships, focus on one bigger campaign that will truly engage your audience and will have a higher reach than all those 10 small marketing activities combined.

6. Create everything mobile first

How much of your work do you do on desktop? Around 100%, right?

This means that you view all the marketing campaigns, emails, websites, etc. that you’re working on from the desktop perspective.

Now, guess where your potential audience spends their time?

Mostly on mobile.

People read your emails on mobile, view your Facebook ads on mobile, browse your website on mobile…

Even this blog has a significant share of mobile traffic.

And you really need to remember the mobile-first approach every time you’re working on a marketing campaign. If you forget about it, here’s what happens:

• Your email visuals that looked amazing in your desktop inbox are unreadable on mobile
• Your website that was built looking at the desktop version is not fully mobile-responsive
• Your online ads with copy in the image look overcrowded on mobile devices, resulting in low CTR and conversions

So really… 📍📍📍 Create for mobile first, and then make sure it also looks nice on desktop.

Cool articles, websites, blogs, books, podcasts and whatever

While it’s difficult to remember all the good stuff I’ve read in 2018, here are some of the nice books, articles, websites, blogs, books, podcasts I discovered.

Books:

• How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know by Byron Sharp – this was recommended by a team member at Facebook’s Marketing Partners team as “the one book that all brand marketers have read.” I’m halfway through it, but it has been really informative this far
• Sprint by Jake Knapp – I read it earlier, but the brainstorming sessions we did in 2018 based on the book’s suggestions all turned out to be amazingly productive
• Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy – written in 1985, still highly relevant. Definitely worth your time more than any of the 2018 books on buyer personas and other random stuff

Most business books are similar in that they take 1-2 really good ideas that could be explained in a couple of pages… And turn those into a 200+ page book.

So what’s the point of reading these at all?

For me at least, the point of business books is not as much in learning a particular best practice. It’s more about the brainstorming that runs on the background while reading a well-written book. It kind of makes your mind wander and makes new ideas on how to improve your teamwork, marketing campaigns, etc. pop up – completely independently of what the book is teaching you.

• Art Is Work by Milton Glaser – As explained by Amazon: “A lavishly illustrated, oversized retrospective of one of history’s most influential figures in international design evaluates the role of art in business today… documenting the creative processes of several of his works.” – note the part about “documenting the creative processes” – the book gives you a nice perspective on how to approach design work – any work for that matter
• Joan Didion & Tom Wolfe – two writers who popularised the literary journalism movement throughout 60s and 80s. My favourite kind of fiction to read.

If you want to grow into a better marketer, reading just business books is not going to cut it. Differentiate your reading list with good fiction and art/design books to build your creative ideation and copywriting skills.

Newsletters & podcasts:

• Benedict Evans, Andrew Chen, Next Draft (newsletters) – three main newsletters I actually open and read. I’m sure there are plenty of other good ones I’m not aware of tho. Please share!
• Tim Ferriss (podcast) – not all of it is worth a listen, but check out the conversations with Seth Godin (another one), Nick Kokonas, and Naval Ravikant
• The Design Better podcast by DesignBetter.co – I just got started with this one and while it’s about UX and UI design, a lot of the principles used in design are applicable to marketing and teamwork in general
• Overtime Design podcast by Dribbble – If you feel like you’ve already heard everything discussed in marketing podcasts, switch to design podcasts

Online marketing resources and design galleries:

• Facebook Active Ads (Facebook ads run by any brand) – In case you missed the train, Facebook added an option to see all the ads run by any advertiser in any country. Just go to your competitors’ Facebook pages and check out what ads they’re running. 👀
• Really Good Emails (online email design gallery) – a super informative overview of the marketing emails sent by well-known brands
• Land-book (online web design gallery) – I worked on two website design projects in 2018. Both times I returned to Land-Book for inspiration and latest UI hacks
• Good Web Design (online web design gallery) – Another amazing gallery for anyone working on website design, This one’s more focused specific UI elements, e.g. CTA buttons, Pricing pages, and so on
• Dribbble, Designspiration, Behance (online design galleries) – for fresh ideas whenever u run out of them

Blogs & magazines:

• First Round Review (blog) – one of my favourite blogs featuring interview-style articles by managers and CEOs from top companies
• The New Yorker, The Atlantic, (magazines) – if reading amazing reportages and essays from some of the best writers in the world is not a good enough reason for you, consider it an investment in perfecting your English copywriting skills. Best read on paper. 👌
• The Purple Magazine, Frieze (magazines) – artsy magazines for great interviews (The Purple) and art inspiration (Frieze)
• IdN Magazine – I spotted an issue of the magazine in a Paris museum bookstore, ordered a bunch of these when back at home, and found some nice design and campaign ideas. These magazines look sooo beautiful.
• Trendhunter – I check this site way too rarely, but it’s a great go-to place for the latest cool stuff happening in branding

As you might have noticed, I didn’t read much marketing blogs. I’ve come to a conclusion it’s best to learn by doing.

Which is the perfect note to wrap up this year and this article.

But before that… the “I’d like to thank my mom” moment… To the marketing team at Taxify and guys at MeetFrank and MindTitan – I’ve had a truly great year together with you! 🙌

The post 2018 In Review – Key Learnings on Facebook Ads & Marketing in General appeared first on Marketing Fix blog.