It may seem like you see Facebook ads everywhere, and that’s because – you are! Facebook ads have advanced far past the occasional post on your feed. Now, marketers have the options to place their Facebook ads in a variety of places both on, and off, the platform. This gives advertisers even more options for placement depending on the overall goal of their campaign. But what placement will convert best for you and your company? We’ve put together a comprehensive guide to all of Facebook’s ad placement options, and where you should be advertising when.
Newsfeed
Newsfeed ads are proven to be one of the most successful places Facebook advertisers place their ads because it is the most organic. These posts are displayed as “suggested posts” on a user’s feed and look so similar to normal organic posts that it can be difficult for many people to tell the difference. If you are running a video ad to a cold audience or boosting a post from your page, always start with Newsfeed placement. We suggest running all campaigns on the newsfeed to reach the largest number of people and to see the best results.
Sidebar
Facebook provides the option to run your ad on the sidebar of a user’s Facebook feed. This looks like a traditional ad, so many marketers steer clear of this option when they are looking to take a more organic approach. However, if you are retargeting users who have already expressed interest in your product or e-commerce item, the sidebar ad placement option can be one of the most valuable spaces to market. The user already recognizes your post as an ad because of the placement, but they are more accepting of it because they are familiar with the product and have proved they are interested in it.
Messenger
One of the newer ad placement options is messenger ads. These ads will run exclusively on mobile and will be served to users when they are active on Facebook’s messenger app. Since this is a newer space for advertising, there is less data on the best practices of advertising here. However, many people are seeing success running the same ads they use in the Newsfeed space in the messenger slot as well.
Instant Articles
Facebook instant articles are a publishing medium that allows publications to post their articles straight to Facebook. When a user clicks on the article, instead of being taken off of Facebook to the publisher’s website, they are able to read the article on the platform. Regardless, they are still taken out of the realm of Facebook and into the new headspace of the article they are reading. This makes for the perfect place to advertise with website traffic as the goal in mind. When your aim to have the user click to your site, using the Instant Article ad space option takes advantage of the fact that the user has already switched from scrolling through Facebook to clicking on an article. Now they are more susceptible to clicking on your ad and continuing down the rabbit hole.
Audience Network
For marketers using Facebook exclusively for their advertising efforts, audience network is for you. Similar to Google ads, the audience network placement option allows you to take your Facebook ad, and display your content on different websites your target audience may be looking at. This can be great for brands looking to diversify their ads and reach people in a new way that is different for the user. While they might not have stopped what they were doing to click on your ad on Facebook, they could potentially be persuaded while doing another task online.
As Facebook continues to grow, so will their advertising options. While there are 5 placement options now, there’s no telling how many options there will be in the future. These constant changes can be overwhelming, but we’re here to help. If you are interested in learning more about our advertising services, visit our services page here.
