Which Facebook Ad
placements drive the highest return? We asked a few dozen paid marketers to
weigh in. Here’s what we learned.
It’s easy to get caught up in the ad
creative.
You’ve
got images to create, copy to write, and audiences to target.
But
one thing you might not be spending enough time on is the actual placement of
your ads––the location where your advertisement will appear on Facebook or
Instagram’s platform.
It’s
one of the most important things to consider as Cassandra Leite of New England Foundation Crack Repair explains:
“Ad placement is critically important to the outcome of the campaign.”
“Placement
and success will depend on factors such as the goal of the campaign (i.e. more
site traffic, more conversions, engagement, etc.). In order to reach your
target, you have to put the information here they will likely be.”
More
than 60% of experts agree with Leite:
The Best Facebook Ad Placements
You
can set the placements for your Facebook campaign when editing or creating your
Ad Set:
The
default setting is “recommended placements.” Facebook will run its own tests
and determine the best place to show your ads.
But
we wanted to find out if certain advertising placements generated a better ROI
than others from the off-set, rather than waiting for Facebook to find out.
So,
we asked 25 experts to share the placements that work best for their business:
1.
News Feed
6.
Sidebar Ads
*Editor’s
note: Before we dive in, it’s good to get a rough understanding of how your
Facebook campaigns are performing. Grab our Facebook Ads Campaign Performance, which will
pull data from your account and show your most important metrics on one screen:
1. News Feed
“The
News Feed placement is the best way to make sure your ad is getting in front of
a captive audience,” according to Andrew Schutt of Schutt
Media. “Other placements are frequently off to the side and are
easier to go unnoticed. With the news feed, you know your audience is actually
going to see it.”
James
Robinson of Iconic Genius thinks this placement is
the most effective because “it’s native, and the ad goes directly to their
feed. Which is where 90% of the user’s attention is.”
David
Denning of Jumpstart Go agrees: “While there are
many options now, we still find that the Facebook News Feed placement performs
best for the lowest cost per lead. The other ad placements (including other
channels such as Instagram) are improving and offer additional opportunities,
but still don’t beat out the Facebook News Feed.”
Beth
Cooper of KNB Communications explains why they’re
so effective: “If you create a 1:1 image (example 1000 pixels X 1000 pixels),
then it takes up a large amount of space in the newsfeed and is hard to
ignore.”
“Since
they are focusing more and scrolling through looking for interesting posts,
newsfeed ads tend to have more engagement. Most of the time we will not show
our ads in any other placement except the News Feed on both platforms.”
Plus, AlltimePower‘s
Aaron Luther adds that this works especially well for specific audience groups:
“We typically target an older demographic and these users are spending most of
their time scrolling their News Feed.”
But
even if this is your main advertising placement, TakeFunnels‘
Brendan Hal says: “The downside is that the Facebook News Feed is the most
expensive place to advertise and it continues to get more expensive. For this
reason, we’ve started to create ads optimized specifically for cheaper
placements like native, in-article and search.”
2. Mobile News Feed
“For
most businesses, the mobile newsfeed placement on Facebook outperforms nearly
all other ad placements every time,” says The
Digital Gal‘s Amanda Robinson.
“Occasionally
another placement such as Instant Articles will start to outperform the mobile
newsfeed, but the quality of the results coming from other placements are hard
to compete and compare to the success that comes from the mobile newsfeed.”
“One
thing to keep in mind is that the competition on the mobile newsfeed placement
can slightly increase your ad costs, but the ROAS (return on ad spend) is worth
it.”
You
can do this by changing the Device settings above the audience placement
breakdown:
Bodmek
Digitals‘ Omedaro Bodmek agrees: “In my experience running Facebook
Ad, mobile placement works best because it seems most people access their
Facebook account mostly via mobile especially with the advent of smartphones.”
Alistair
Dodds of Ever Increasing Circles adds that the
mobile News Feed “consistently performs better than any other placement. With
the right level of engaging, eye-catching content, you can drive significant
interest to your designated offer.”
3. Facebook and Instagram Placements
“In
the current trend, one of the most engaged ad placement is stories feed
placement in both Facebook and Instagram,” says Manny Fernandez of OurZones.com.
“The
reason is that approx. 85 users from 100 like to see or watch the stories in
their feed and this is the section that you can use most of for your business.
Another factor is the ratio of getting engaged from the stories is more likely
higher than the other placements.”
BarkleyREI‘s
Alan Gruntz agrees: “The placements I see the best results in are using
Facebook and Instagram together. Using Facebook and Instagram concurrently
allows the algorithm to deliver my ad to the right audience at the cheapest
cost.”
4. Instagram-Only Placements
“From
all Facebook Ad Placements (Instagram, Audience Network, Facebook, Messenger)
Instagram is the best choice for those who want to achieve a positive ROI,”
according to Bernadett Dioszegi of Bannersnack.
“Over
⅓ of Instagram users have used Instagram to purchase a product or service
online. Instagram is a visual platform, there are fewer distractions as on
Facebook are, so users will be more likely to remember your brand and offers
and also to engage with your content.”
“All
you need is a creative visual and a very concise, short and benefit-focused
text to go well with.”
Jamie-Lee
Kay adds that for The Other Straw, “Instagram Feed placements
provide the best results in terms of cost, ROI and engagement. It’s essential
to use visual content that is targeted towards your target audience.”
Sam
Lepak of Galactic Fed also says: “We find
[Instagram] Stories placements to be effective for mobile app installs and lead
generation / sign-ups — smaller commitments.”
5. In-Stream Video Ads
“Most
people don’t like ads so they tend to skip over them which is exactly why
in-stream ads are perfect,” says Stephanie Lane of Safe
Space Hub.
“Although
users may not like having their content interrupted, their attention is focused
on the video stream so you don’t need to compete with distractions and
scrolling away.”
“In
practice, in-stream video ads offer great conversions because they offer great
engagement and that’s what a good ad is all about. Nevertheless, this approach
only works if the user is committed to watching the video.”
Lane
adds: “Overall, many people watching videos on Facebook will watch the ad which
will inevitably lead to more conversions.”
6. Sidebar Ads
“In
my experience, sidebar placements work best because I try to make my ads super
targeted and relevant; so that the person reading feels guilty not to click as
if they’re depriving themselves of something good for them,” writes Nikola
Roza.
“I
think it varies between Facebook users. Some folks are more receptive to ads,
and some are almost disgusted to see commercials in places where they expect to
see updates from their close ones, their friends and family.
“Sidebar
ads have no such problems because people are trained to recognize ads in the
right sidebar. And then, if your ad is compelling and you target the right people.
then you can expect to get clicks.”
7. Boosted Posts
“Our
highest-performing Facebook Ads are simply boosted posts, which show in the
News Feed,” says Jeremy Cross of Team Building Texas.
“There
are many factors to consider when boosting posts effectively, like which
audience to target, duration and how much to spend. We’ve had the most success
by targeting “one niche deeper” which allows us to reach a very specific
audience, and using a 1:1 rule, which means we add $1 of boost spend for every
one organic share the post has.”
“These
guidelines produce results from boosted content that exceed regular ad spends,”
Cross adds.
*Editor’s
note: Boosted Posts are a great way to reach the audience you’ve already
worked hard to build. Our Audience Building and Brand
Awareness dashboard shows the engagement you’re getting on
these posts and your most popular ads, compared to the amount you’ve spent:
8. Automatic Placements
Earlier,
we mentioned that Facebook’s default setting is to run automatic
placements–where they choose the placements for you.
Christina
Hunt of Haus von Albe recommends to “always go
with automatic placement – it exists for a reason. Allow the Facebook Ad
algorithm to work for you. It’ll take the demographics of the ad and put them
into the most applicable and cost-effective placement for those demographics.”
“It’s
important to note that even if you don’t have an Instagram profile, your ads
can (and will if applicable) be shown on Instagram and link to your website or
Facebook profile.”
9. All Placements
We’ve
talked about the individual Facebook and Instagram advertising placements that
you can pick from.
But
you might be left with one question: Why not use them all?
It’s
something recommended by Gabe Solberg of EasyAutoTagging because
“the algorithm can
produce more conversions with all placements selected because having all
placements selected provides more data for the system to find the people (not
placements) most likely to convert.”
“To
do this correctly two things need to change:
1.
Stop trying to hack the system rather focus
on producing stellar creative, messaging and landing pages.
2.
Make sure you are tracking your key
conversion with standard or custom conversions and that you always use the
conversion objective for Facebook campaigns.”
Side
note: It’s worth mentioning that by setting All
Placements, you might be wasting money on placements that aren’t performing
well. However, it’s a good place to start.
How to find your best ad placement
Brian
Jensen of Congruent Digital argues that there is no
blanket ad placement you can label as the best because “it really depends on
the goal of your campaigns.”
“While
advertising across all of Facebook’s placement options may be a good option to
increase awareness or reach, in our experience, Facebook News Feed typically
performs best for Traffic, Engagement and Messages.”
“With
that being said, what works for one industry or client may not work for another
which makes testing imperative. Take time to review your charts and look at
what placements are driving results,” Jensen continues.
Dorian
Reeves of SH1FT agrees: “The number one rule of
Facebook ads is that you have to test all placements and then optimize based on
the results you observe.”
Sherrilynne
Starkie explains: “For example, if you are trying to raise
awareness of a public advocacy issue, placing video ads on audience network is
impactful and cost-effective. If the goal is to sell a fashion product, then
Instagram placements can really work well.”
Jackie
Kossoff also adds: “Placement choices depend on a few factors.
First, if your audience uses mobile exclusively, make sure you specify only
mobile devices/placements.”
“Second,
it’s important to understand that some placements have higher conversion rates
(this can also differ by business, industry, etc.). However, it can sometimes
be beneficial to keep these placements because your overall reach will be
higher. That means there are more people who may see your ad a second time, in
a different placement, and choose to click/convert at that time.”
Final Thoughts
The
Facebook and Instagram ad placements we’ve shared above are generally regarded
as the best. They position your ad where most people are looking.
However,
as our experts mentioned, the best way to find your perfect placement is
through testing.
Run
your campaigns as normal, then look at the breakdown of your ad performance.
Does a specific placement generate better results than the others?
Elise Dopson Elise Dopson is a
freelance B2B writer for SaaS and marketing companies. With a focus on
data-driven ideas that truly provide value, she helps brands to get noticed
online--and drive targeted website visitors that transform into raving fans.
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