How to Design Facebook Ads: The Detailed Guide

We’ve repeatedly witnessed it. When you log into Ads Manager, you don’t see the views, clicks, or conversions you anticipated despite spending countless hours and dollars creating the ideal Facebook ad campaigns.

How come? It might be your Facebook ad design, then. When developing a Facebook advertisement, numerous factors exist, including your ad positions and ad kind. The truth is that your creative designs and Facebook ad formats may make or break your ad holds despite all the developments, trends, and technologies that have emerged over the years.

A 2017 Nielsen study that examined over 500 ad campaigns across all media found that creativity was the main factor in driving sales (47%). However, only 22% and 15% of other advertising components, such as reach and brand, were measured.

This viewpoint is supported by Facebook’s Creativity Research team, which wrote in a 2020 article that “strong creative can considerably help achieve even greater campaign performance.”

In conclusion, if Facebook ads are a component of your team’s marketing mix, improving your ad design can significantly increase your campaigns’ overall efficacy and reach. Even if you schedule your post with a Facebook post scheduler, it will definitely gonna help you to increase your ads reach.

How to Design Compelling Facebook Ads

Promoting a company on the Facebook news feed might be difficult. There are several ad platforms, numerous target markets, and different ad types. Additionally, ads may grow more expensive over time and fail to deliver the high-quality results advertisers desire. Any form of advertising has a range in quality depending on its format and objectives, but Facebook ads stand out from many other platforms because of the focus on discovery.

When using a platform like Google AdWords, your goal is to attract new clients. With Facebook advertising, you aim to attract new clients to your business. Their desire to learn new things when utilizing their feed reflects how Facebook advertising is created. Adopting this marketing tactic can enable you to get more from your advertising.

You must become familiar with social proof if you want to be successful with Facebook ads. The word “social proof” in psychology relates to a notion known as normative social influence. The premise is that if a brand or product looks to follow accepted social norms or well-known ideas, people are far more likely to interact and engage with them. Likewise, a person is more likely to engage with an advertisement if the ad appears more natural and compelling to them (the target audience). Facebook ads design’s secret ingredient mainly relies on the idea of social proof.

Elements of a Quality Facebook Ad

The following components must be included in each Facebook ad design you create to support the concept of social proof via credentials, user reviews, or endorsements from a professional or well-known figure:

Primary Text

The description is the moneymaker; it should contain your main message and your most persuasive ad copy. Describe the product’s features, functions, and the value it brings to the consumer. Keep your ad inside an operating range of 125 characters, depending on the ad type. Make every character count because anything longer than that will be clipped.

Headline

The headline is most crucial in other ad formats. However, the headline of a Facebook ad isn’t the first thing a user sees because it comes after the main text and below the image. Therefore, you should write something obvious and concise because of the ad placement, but the description should serve as the text’s hook. Here, a brief testimonial can be compelling.

Images, Photos, and Videos

To draw people who are your potential audience, you may need some eye-catching artwork or video (GIFs can also work), depending on the type of ad placement you select.

Business Information

Any ad should contain pertinent company and social media data. Your ads should clearly state what you’re offering and your company’s goals. Allow clients access to your social media profiles and other engagement options, which is vital.

It also helps to think about your A/B testing plan. For example, to determine which version of an ad performs better for your products or your target audience, try developing two versions, each somewhat different. Additionally, decide on the conversion rate you’d like to observe as a success statistic (the rate at which customers complete an ad goal). This will enable you to monitor the success of your ads.

Call to Action (CTA)

Facebook only offers a small selection of CTA button options, such as “Shop Now.” Your audience will click on these to visit your store. Pick the option that best fits your ad. Check out some tips for designing a Facebook ad.

Types and Format for Facebook Ads

User feeds, streaming videos and Stories are the three places where Facebook ads can be found on social media. To make sure your ads stand out and convert, be aware of the design limitations and considerations. The Facebook ad that best serves your company’s goals and value proposition is the ideal one to use. Therefore, Facebook ad designs should be appropriately chosen.

Facebook Image Ads

Making a Facebook image ad is not that difficult. You don’t have to spend much money on a fancy photo shoot. You only require an image that:

1. Clearly explains what your company does
2. Draw attention to the value your company offers.

Even though it might seem obvious, you should aim to include original images of your company, such as photographs of your products, original illustrations, or photographs of your services. If you must utilize stock photos, stay away from the most visible or well-known ones and adjust them to fit your brand. You could, for instance, add more design elements to the image to make it more distinctive or even a filter that matches your brand’s aesthetic.

Additionally, check that the design or image you chose is well-lit, artfully placed, and has little background clutter.

The single-image post is the most well-known and frequently utilized kind of Facebook and Instagram ad. A few added features, like a call-to-action button, are similar to a status update.

Ensure your image is clean, high-resolution, and adequately expresses what you’re selling for this advertisement. The Facebook image ad specs page lists the acceptable formats as PNG and JPG, along with the necessary dimensional specifications.

Facebook Video Ads

Similar to an image ad, great Facebook video ads can be made without a complete production team, but there are several essential considerations. Here are some of our top recommendations:

• How you shoot or create your video ad should be influenced by where you intend to use it.
• Horizontal videos are more suited for desktop ad placements like the Facebook News Feed or the Video Feed, whereas vertical videos are fantastic for mobile placements like Instagram stories.
• Add motion design to differentiate your brand further (such as moving illustrations)

Additionally, Facebook advises that you keep your video under 15 seconds in length and that it functions appropriately without sound. You’ve probably seen that videos are usually muted when you go through the feed on Facebook or Instagram, so you can’t assume visitors will tap the clip to hear the audio. Add subtitles to your videos if there is any dialogue or voiceover to consider.

Instagram and Facebook users’ news feeds come to life with video ads. They can be a potent tool for product advertising because they break up the monotony of scrolling.

However, creating video ads might take a lot longer. You may need to create several video ad sizes since different aspect ratios are needed for viewing on mobile devices versus desktops. Find the proper settings for a video ad here – so you may need to output different video ads size. Make sure to develop a comprehensive video campaign plan as well. It may be beneficial to divide a lengthy single video into manageable portions for more excellent ad coverage.

Facebook Carousel Ads

Do you recall the commercials with the sliding images? You can use this format to showcase up to 7 images or videos, each with its own link, in a single ad. These are referred to as carousel ads.

Carousel ads are excellent for emphasizing various products and showing technical information about a given product, service, or campaign because they have more creative real estate. Additionally, you may utilize them to convey a narrative about your business that grows throughout each carousel card or even melds from one to the next.

The same guidelines apply here because carousel ads combine image and video ads. Always select illustrations that are:

• Impactful
• True to your brand
• And specify what makes your proposition unique.

Additionally, there is no assurance that users will go all the way to the end of the ad, so be sure the initial image you select will immediately pique the interest of your specific audience.

Facebook Collection Ads

Both Facebook and Instagram have mobile advertising features called collections. The user is presented with a massive cover image or video and a slideshow underneath. Users that tap it will be taken to an Instant Experience, a customizable landing page for a storefront integrated with a Facebook Business account. Examine the precise image sizes and formatting criteria of establishing a collection because they are somewhat involved.

Facebooks Stories Ads

Both Facebook and Instagram Stories are built for the display of stories ads. Because consumers quickly switch between Stories, this format is effective for brief, compelling advertising. So make sure your Stories ads are brief and direct.

Facebook Ad Design Tips to Create a Successful Ad

Ad creative is likely the simplest element to test when developing or fixing publicity campaigns. And to be completely honest, anyone can make captivating advertising that forces the scroll to halt.

An excellent Facebook ad will go a long way toward increasing traffic, brand exposure, and making more sales. But occasionally, making a Facebook ad might be difficult.

When creating an advertisement, there are numerous factors to take into account, including the location of the advertisement as well as its size, composition, style, images, and fonts. So how would you determine what is effective and what is not? Or what will distinguish your company or your product?

Look at our most excellent Facebook ad design tips to get the most out of your ads if you’re new to Facebook advertising or want to improve your ads.

Keep Text to a Minimum

Keep your ad copy brief, considering people want to spend as little time viewing ads as possible.

It is essential to keep your message under 280 characters to convey it as swiftly and clearly as possible. It’s preferable to be upfront and transparent when you have their attention because many users will ignore your post as soon as they learn it’s an ad. Also, if you have too much text in your ad, Facebook will reduce your ad’s reach.

Don’t try to jam a bunch of offers or value propositions into the same ad; instead, keep your attention on just one message. Ideally, the message should present an offer (such as “50% off T-shirts this weekend”), a promotional event (such as “now launching a new location”), or a specific value proposition (such as “free shipping on all orders”).

Save any more information once they have clicked the call to action. Then, the user can get all that additional information on your website, app, or landing page, depending on where your ad directs them.

Iron gummies are how designer Maryia Dziadziulia summarized BeLive’s product strategy. The message they are sending to their viewers is concise and straightforward. All someone needs to attract attention to your product is that it comes in candy form and is an iron supplement. Find the Facebook cover ideas from top brands.

Simple Fonts that are Easy to Read

You want your writing to be brief and to the point, but you also want it to be easy on the eyes. Make your ad copy easy to read by using straightforward typography. Flamboyant, ornamental typefaces may grab people’s attention, but they will likely detract from your main point and make it harder for the reader to understand.

It is advisable to use bold, sans-serif fonts. In addition, to ensure that text overlaid on top of any visual content or ad images is still readable, it should be thick and stand out from the background with a distinct color.

The bold and prominent text in Maryia Dziadziulia’s design of Launchpeer’s Facebook advertisement. Reading is made even simpler by the color contrast with the background, especially when each critical word or phrase has its frame.

Contrast to Grab Attention

Social media is a chaotic circus of craziness with a constant stream of current events and wholesome, feel-good stories. That is who or what your Facebook ads are up against in the attention stakes.

Use visual tricks like a contrast to draw viewers’ attention to get your ads read, much alone viewed. Using two colors next to each other on the color wheel is one of the most fundamental contrast strategies anyone may employ. Contrasting colors, such as black/white, blue/yellow, or red/green, naturally bring out the best and increase the text’s, color’s, and image’s visibility.

This Facebook ad design is highlighted by the purple and orange color contrast used by designer Arthean. Take note of the fact that secondary text frequently appears in white as another contrast option. It’s crucial to remember that color contrast only functions when the text and images are simple to read.

Test Different Ads

The initial stages of Facebook ads, or digital advertising in general, involve a lot of “shooting in the dark.” There are no assurances in ad campaigns until you can see them in action, even with reliable user data.

The best course of action is to adjust your strategy as you go along, enhancing and updating your ads based on how the prior ones performed. In addition, you can test multiple ads simultaneously to discover what works and what doesn’t to cast a wider net.

You have a variety of options for creating A/B testing on Facebook. The variable you want to test will determine this.

Fortunately, the Facebook Ads Manager Toolbar allows you to set up an A/B test. In addition, you can start your new test using a previously established ad campaign thanks to the Toolbar.

You can evaluate your brand’s performance in a new market in addition to testing the effectiveness to know the right Facebook ad design. With a targeted Facebook ad, you can test the waters before spending more money if you’re considering expanding into a new market or trying out a new product line.

Artcher produced several distinct gif ad variations for Make-a-Wish New Jersey, each with its own visuals and ad copy.

Sync Up Your Landing Page Style and Ad Creative

The easiest method to ensure that your color scheme, typefaces, and logo designs are consistent throughout all your marketing platforms is to create clear and identifiable branding that can increase brand awareness and trust with your prospective audience for advertisements. For instance, when the Facebook ad style was changed to match the landing page, the digital marketing firm SHIFT noticed a 23% boost in engagement.

Let’s examine the proper approach. First, this Wix ad promotes its website builder, which makes it simple to launch an online business.

The design components shared by the landing page and the advertisement are the colors, typefaces, and image placement. These parallels give readers the impression that the landing page is an extension of the advertisement they clicked on rather than a brand-new document. For example, the CTA “Start Selling Now” remained the same, and the landing page included the content promised in the advertisement.

Use consistent design language when creating your landing page and advertisement so that readers can quickly go from Facebook to your website and other resources. Getting viewers to click on your ad is difficult enough. When you’re so close to success, don’t allow your landing page let you down.

Design for Ad Placement

The three significant places where Facebook ads can be seen are the right column, mobile feed, and desktop feed, each with its size and advantages. While creating and modifying one ad to fit different spaces may be tempting, doing so will ultimately harm the advertisement’s performance.

Study the Facebook usage patterns of your target market first. Do they use it on their phones or desktops? Do they utilize Marketplace or Stories? This enables you to plan which ad designs to create and optimize your ad spending. You can optimize your advertising for mobile, for instance, if the majority of your prospective audience uses Facebook on a mobile device. Facebook ad mainly benefits from this practical simplification because it allows you to make the most of your advertising budget.

A different option is to select “Automatic Placements” and let Facebook decide for you. Just keep in mind that every placement needs designs.

Knowing your alternatives can help you select the optimal Facebook ad placement for your goals. Standard ad placements are desktop newsfeed, desktop right column, mobile newsfeed, marketplace, stories, in-stream video, and audience network.

Observe how the ad versions’ designer, GayanMH, keeps the same elements while rearranging them to get the ideal composition at each size. Each advertisement upholds the order of information while emphasizing the product.

Microtargeting

The pinpoint accuracy of customer targeting in Facebook ads is one of their best qualities. You may manually build advertising campaigns to appeal to incredibly narrow audiences using a technique called microtargeting because Facebook is essentially a database of people’s interests, jobs, locations, and life events.

For instance, you may modify your Facebook ad design to target users in San Francisco.

One of our top recommendations for Facebook ad design is making the most of micro-targeting. In contrast to more generic advertising in mainstream media, Facebook ads can be custom-made for even the most minor niche, taking advantage of their distinct tastes. So for the demographic, you want to attract, customize the picture, copy, tone, color scheme, and even the things you’re promoting.

This tactic is based on user data and becomes much more effective. You can optimize your Facebook ads for all the factors, especially with split tests. Instead of using the same generic advertisement for both market sectors, you can build unique adverts for each.

The prospective audience for Hawnit Studio’s advertisement for the nonprofit Warrior Rising is those who support or are veterans. By running their advertisement on Facebook, they can strategically, precisely, and effectively target their target market.

Choose the Best Formats

The format of your Facebook advertisement, such as a video, static image, carousel, etc., should be optimized. Additionally, some businesses can employ specific formats more effectively than others. The various formats appeal to various customer groups. A great example is a merchant, rather than a SaaS provider, who can use Collection Ads to highlight their product selection.

Having explained these formats earlier, let’s do a quick recap

• Image ads consist of single static images with no animation.
• Video ads are brief videos with audio.
• Collection ads are a set of identical thumbnail images that can promote the qualities of one particular product, display several products at once, or walk the viewer through a procedure.
• Carousel ads are single ad that contains several different images.
• Stories ads are in a full-screen vertical style and can be either video or image-based.

Use the Right Images

The photos you use in your Facebook ads represent your company; therefore, you must utilize well-chosen (or specially created) images that pique readers’ interest and convey information about your company or product.

Facebook’s resource center is one of the most significant locations to discover what makes an excellent image for a Facebook ad.

The Crate & Barrel home decor products are sharply displayed in this photograph. However, it doesn’t mix up the foreground and background elements or make it hard to identify the item for sale.

Watch out for images that don’t demand attribution and are free for commercial use. The licenses are prominently shown on Pexels.com, a beautiful source for stock photos, making it clear whether or not you can use a particular image.

Iconfinder.com is a fantastic resource if you’re looking for illustrations. The same rules that apply to photos also apply to illustrations, so make sure the license permits you to use the image in your advertisement.

Design for Mobile

79% of Facebook users only used mobile devices to visit the site in 2020. Your Facebook ad design strategy must prioritize mobile devices for the best results.

Making your movies and graphics vertical can help them display better on mobile gadgets and is one of the simplest ways to think mobile-first.

In its mobile ads, Qantas uses vertical films to make the most of a standard phone screen. However, to let the videos speak for themselves, they keep the text to a minimum.

When shot on a mobile device, they are a fantastic method to produce an authentic and genuine advertisement. Facebook has stated that “mobile-shot Stories ads have a 63% likelihood of surpassing studio ads for buy, app install, and checkout items.”

Brand Association

Your Facebook ads should appear and feel like they represent your brand’s personality.

To begin with, your Facebook ad design should always incorporate the fundamentals of branding:

• Branded fonts and typography
• Color scheme
• Key products or services
• Logo
• Mascots or spokespeople

However, Facebook ad designs should use all aspects of visual identity in branding, just like the rest of your visual material. These details, such as the fonts to use and the colors that evoke the feelings you want viewers to connect with your brand, should be worked out early in developing your business model.

Just take a look at how the video’s designer, arnhival, introduced the Abrazo emblem before beginning to use dynamic images. This gives context to the subsequent images and guarantees that the viewer will connect those images with the brand.

Share Emotions as a Language

Most people don’t go further than notifying folks about a sizable discount campaign or featuring their goods or services in a Facebook carousel ad.

Brands like Coca-Cola and Apple have emphasized spreading positive emotions in their advertising for years. So it’s safe to say that it was successful if we consider the success of such businesses.

There are thousands of different emotions you can try to convince your audience with. It could be happiness, sorrow, surprise, enthusiasm, wonder, etc.

Making sure your advertising’s emotion corresponds with your offer is one piece of advice. Sad marketing cannot compete with a significant Black Friday sales drive.

Design With All Time Design

You may draw attention and convey a story with the aid of a great Facebook ad design. Each of these suggestions can assist you in achieving that, but it is up to you to combine them most effectively for your good or service.

It’s crucial to remember that an advertisement’s effectiveness depends on more than appearance. For great advertisements to be effective, the copy must be compelling, and the overall advertising plan must be sound.

This implies that there is more to it than we think, so it’s best to let professionals handle your design or project.

Professionals like All Time Design are the best option to go. You may quickly make an excellent Facebook ad using any free online templates and drag-and-drop design tools by designing websites, but they always tend to lack some aspects of quality finish.

Now it’s time to create your next ad with All Time Design! You won’t need to use random freelance designers to make your Facebook or Instagram ads. Therefore, click here to get your 21-day trial demo.