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The Definitive Guide to Facebook Advertising

Jun 11, 2013 | by James Willians | Advertising News, Media Buying

In recent news, Facebook is revamping their advertising options. The proposed plan includes cutting the 27 different ad units in half within the next six months. Targeted cuts include Facebook Questions and Offers products from pages advertising arsenal. Facebook’s goal here is to simplify the advertising creation process and make a more consistent ad options across the entire user experience. Below is an explanation of the overarching Facebook ad options.

Market place ads
Ads placed on the right hand side of the Facebook news feed.  These ads only appear on the desktop version of Facebook. There’s a lot of competition on the Facebook newsfeed: friend’s posts, promoted posts and sponsored stories. The goal is to grab a users attention as they gaze off of the news feed. An attention grabbing headline and provocative image are a must. Facebook allows 25 characters for a headline, 90 characters for the body and a 100×72 pixel image. Ads can be targeted by region, interest, age, gender, or connections. The ads are best used for overall brand awareness and promoting pages and apps.

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Facebook FBX
This is Facebook’s retargeting option available only through third party partners. Similar to other retargeting, Facebook FBX tracks users online activity outside of Facebook and serves ads based on that activity. Facebook FBX was initially launched for marketplace ads only, however, newsfeed ads are slowly being rolled out.

Facebook Video Ads
Facebook video ads coming to a newsfeed near you is a recent blog that explains the latest rumors of the new Facebook ad options. Supposedly for select advertisers willing to spend upwards of $1,000,000 for a “slot.”

Sponsored Stories
Ads that display within a users Facebook newsfeed after a friend likes a page, engages with a post, downloads an app, joins an event or likes or shares a website. This style of ad helps deliver the most page likes than any other ad.

 

Facebook Sponsored Story

Promoted Posts
These are the most organic looking ad units. An advertiser has the option to promote any recent post directly from their Facebook page. The promoted post can target current fans and/or friends of fans. This helps target current audiences who may have had difficulty seeing your page’s posts due to Facebook’s Edgeran algorithm. Promoted post help deliver increased reach and awareness.

However, it’s important to note Facebook has a 20% text rule on all images within a promoted post. This means your image’s text cannot exceed 20% of the image. Facebook came out with a grid tool to determine if your ad will exceed the text limitation. Click here to test the Facebook grid tool

Facebook Promoted Post

James Williams
Media Coordinator
Mood: Refreshed

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