The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Ad Creative

We can understand for people who are just starting out on Facebook Ads Manager it can be a bit overwhelming when deciding on what type of creative format to use across your ads.

You will find that depending on your campaign objective some creative formats are better suited and will allow you to use your ad spend more cost-effectively.

However, if you’ve nailed what type of creative you want to use in your campaigns and understand their individual design specifications, then you might find this blog useful which will help you to make scroll-stopping content.

Creative types and specifications

Single Image

With the rise in popularity of the app, TikTok, video has had a massive push, both from advertisers and the general public, for their own personal channels/profiles. However, single-image ads still make up a large portion of Facebook ads.

It’s good to note that Facebook has scrapped the 20% maximum text limit on images, which saw ads getting directly penalised by Facebook as they reduced the potential reach in ad delivery. However, the tool has now been made redundant so advertisers are able to put as much text as they would like on their imagery without running the risk of reducing their reach and impressions.

Design Specifications

• Pixel resolution: minimum 1080 x 1080 px.
• Picture ratio: this can be 1:1 (square), 4:5 (portrait), or 1.91:1 (landscape).
• Image file size: maximum 30 MB.
• Facebook recommends that the image be either a JPG or a PNG.

Carousel

Similar to the single image, the pixel resolution and 1:1 image file ratio are the same. However, this creative type allows you to add videos as well as photos.

An additional feature of this type of creative is that Facebook gives you the option to add a profile card at the end of your carousel, which does not eat into your maximum card allowance. Again, what’s great about this profile card is that it can remind the user who is offering them products or services at the end of the carousel. You can even decide, right down to the last detail what landing page you want to send your traffic to. For example, if you have a collection of homeware, you can get granular and send them to just view beds in your category pages.

Design Specifications

• Maximum carousel cards: up to 10 images or videos for a single ad.
• Minimum carousel cards: 2.
• Pixel resolution: minimum 1080 x 1080 px.
• Ratio: 1:1 (square).
• File types: image (JPG or PNG), video (MP4, MOV, or GIF).
• Maximum file sizes: images (30 MB), video (4 GB).

Dynamic Carousel

You can expect to see the same design specifications for a manual carousel applied to a dynamic carousel. What distinguishes this type of creative is that it can automatically pull products from your website if you have created a catalogue set to select at the ad level.

For example, if an e-commerce brand had a 40% off promotion on a particular range of products, you would then create a catalogue set with those specific products, and when you go into Facebook Ads Manager to build out the campaign, at the ad level, you can optimise the images. This allows you to add frames to each carousel card, and Facebook will pull through both the old and new prices, or you can highlight the percentage difference.

Again, you can customise the frame by changing the font, colour, and positioning on the carousel card. Or if you do not like the templates provided by Facebook, you can create custom frames for your business and apply these instead.

Video

We touched on the rise of video before, what’s great about this type of creative is that you have the ability to convey your whole message without the need for ad copy. It’s advisable to use captions and overlay this text on top of your video so you’re still able to capture a large part of the audience who may watch with the sound off.

Another reason to start using video is that you can simply show off your product or service instantly, and customers are able to view the product from their point of view before purchasing it.

So it’s no wonder why most platforms are pushing for this type of creative to advertisers.

Design Specifications

• Pixel resolution: minimum 1080 x 1080 px.
• File type: MP4, MOV, or GIF.
• Ratio: if you’re wanting to target both desktop and mobile 1:1 is recommended, however, if you are only wanting to go after mobile users a 4:5 is recommended by Facebook.
• Facebook recommends audio and text overlay however this isn’t essential.
• Minimum video length: 1 minute.
• Maximum video length: 241 minutes.
• Maximum video size: 4 GB.

Collection

This type of creative format is different from the rest, but it shares similar values to instant shopping on Instagram and Facebook in terms of appearance and also allows you to select both videos and pictures, like carousels.

When building a collection ad, you need to consider the image or video you will use for the cover, as this will become the first asset when a customer enters your instant experience.

E-commerce brands will be able to choose three product images to appear after the cover image, so consider whether you want people to see your best sellers or segment out your different instant experiences by product category depending on your goal.

You can also create different instant experiences by using the various templates provided by Facebook, such as storefront, lookbook, and customer acquisition, or create a custom one for your business.

Design Specifications

• Maximum file sizes: images (30 MB), video (4 GB).
• Ratio: 1:1 (square), or 1.91:1 (landscape).
• File types: image (JPG or PNG), video (MP4, MOV, or GIF).
• Minimum file resolution: 1080 x 1080 px.
• Landing page URL – you will not be able to create a collection ad without this.
• You will need to build an instant experience.

Boosted Post

This type of creative is useful for brands looking to raise brand awareness or gain more engagement beyond their current followers or page likers. Essentially, when you go to build out your campaign at the ad level, you can select a current post to use, and from there, you can see all your posts from both Facebook and Instagram.

If you wanted to use the post to drive people to your website or use it as a conversion ad, you could do this by selecting ‘add CTA’ which will allow you to add your landing page URLs but also customise which CTA you would like to use, such as “learn more”, “buy now”, and “contact us”…

Get In Touch With Our Social Team!

If you’re still unsure what type of creatives to use in your Facebook strategy, our social team is happy to discuss your options and what opportunities there are for your ad account to elevate your business.

Get in touch with our team today!