4.2 Ad Types, Targeting, Copy and Creative.

In the last episode, we touched upon the different types of ad campaigns you can run on Facebook and Instagram's ad platforms.

This time around we want to focus on the ads themselves. To start, let’s go over the different types of ads you can run on these two platforms.‍

First we have the single-image ad. 

Well, this is your standard Facebook or Instagram ad. It usually contains an image and some text on the top and bottom of the ad. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen this plenty of times. These ads are what most businesses naturally resort to, since they’re pretty easy to create.‍

Then you have video ads. As the name suggests, these types of ads replace a typical image with a video where the business can showcase its products or services. Video, by the way, is the most consumed form of content on the internet and most ads in the future are going to move to video.‍

Carousel ads - These are ads where you can put up to 10 images on the same ad, allowing users to swipe left or right to check out the different images. These ads are usually used by e-commerce stores to show a variety of their products. People swipe on the carousel and then click on whichever image speaks to them the most.‍

Collection ads - Again, used commonly by e-commerce stores, this kind of ad showcases a whole bunch of different items like a catalogue so that users can see a range of products. That’s pretty cool, right?

‍Lead Generation Ads - Now, we talked about lead generation in the last episode. Well, Facebook has this feature that allows you to collect leads without sending them to a website. These types of ads will literally pop open a form on Facebook itself and collect all the information you need.

And then you have Post Engagement ads - that are just trying to get more comments and shares.  There are even ads that are run specifically to get more followers on your Facebook page.

Now you should have a fair idea of the different kinds of ads you could run on Facebook. As you get into Facebook Advertising, you'll get a deeper understanding of which ads work best based on your needs.

But now let's take a look at what comprises an ad itself. There are 3 core aspects to any ad on Facebook - targeting, copy and creative. Let's break these down one by one.

Targeting‍

Remember the episode where we talked about all the data Facebook has of everyone on its platform, and how they use that to target ads?

Well, that's precisely what targeting is all about. Through the Facebook ad platform, you are able to target people based on a few key attributes that you can pick on the platform.

For example, you can tell Facebook to send your ads only to people in a particular location. In fact, for some countries you can target people based on a specific pin code. You can also target a specific age group or gender.

Oh and you can target based on interests. Basically, that means you can tell Facebook to show your ads to people who might have interests in a particular topic or those that follow specific pages.

Selling fitness wear?! Ask Facebook to target ads to anyone who follows Nike or Adidas and you probably got yourself a solid audience. We'll show you just how crazy Facebook's ad targeting options are in the next episode but let's move on for now.

‍Copy‍

Copy is basically what you say. The text that goes on to any ad. This and this text here are called ad copy. Well technically, the text on the image itself is also called copy but let's keep things simple for now and call just the ad text 'copy'. Each of the different pieces of text play a specific role in getting the ad to work.

For example - This is called the headline, this is called primary text and this is the news description. How you approach writing each of these pieces of copy will decide whether your ad works or not.‍

Creative‍

And then you have the creative. This would be the image or video you use on the ad itself. This is an area that a lot of ad specialists get wrong. It's not as simple as just finding a good image.

There's a lot of thinking that goes into picking the right image, creating an effective video, the placement of the text and a whole bunch of other best practices that you need to learn to build effective ads.

Creatives are responsible for getting users to actually stop and take notice of your ad. It's the first thing that catches the user's eye and plays an essential role in the success of your campaign, so you HAVE to get this right.

And, that’s a crash course in the different types of ads and what goes into them. We’re going to go into more detail with targeting, copy and creative in the coming episodes so I’ll see you there.