Your ultimate guide for designing Facebook Ads
Ah… Facebook Ads!
In the good old days, back in 2014, I was a college student looking for a laptop for my day to day studies. So as any student would do, I headed to Amazon and started to browse through the laptop category. Even after spending a zillion hours, I couldn’t finalize a laptop that I wanted to buy! So, as usual, I opened FB, and to my surprise, something grabbed my attention when I was scrolling through the feed. It was an ad from Amazon with some amazing offers on laptops! Clicked on the ad, opened the Amazon website, and bought a laptop at a discounted price.
When in 2017, I was on the other side, I did not have any idea as to how Facebook ads ought to be designed.
Of course later on I did get an idea and well, fast-forward to 2020, designing a bazillion Facebook ads for Slice has taught me a lot. I’ve dug into Facebook ads, struggled to get a good conversion rate (sometimes!), did live testing with the users to get feedback to know what their likes and dislikes, A/B testing, and the list goes on!
Up next, you’ll find some valuable Facebook and Instagram ad design mantras (hacks) that I learned over the years.
Creating FB Ad :
To be honest, it is not so easy to show how and where exactly you want to start with Facebook ads design. However, I’ve tried to come up with a go-to list for an absolute starter. Remember, with the right tools and techniques at hand, this process gets a lot easier and more efficient!
1. Apps :
Well, to your surprise, you can use any app! If you are good at hand drawing or a doodler like Alicia Souza, you can create hand-drawn Facebook ads, or if you are good at photography, you can snap some beautiful photos and use it as Facebook ads too.
But, for digital designs, if you are an absolute newbie or a non-designer, you may wanna go with Canva. Canva has some great templates, free photos, amazing fonts & typefaces, and it is 100% web-based. That means you don’t have to install any apps on your device and can work across mobile, tablet, laptop, and even on Chromebooks. What’s more? It is free! You can explore more here:- https://www.canva.com/en_in/create/facebook-ads/
Wondering what if you are a seasoned designer? Well, in this case, you can use apps like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, CorelDRAW…. And this list goes on!
Coming from a UI background and want to expand your territory to Facebook ads? Then Figma is a perfect tool for you! Just like Canva, Figma is a web-based app that you can use on your laptop, tablet, and Chromebook and they have an app for your PC and for Mac. And again, it is free! Explore more about Figma here:- https://www.figma.com
2. Types of Ads, Ad dimensions, and file formats :
As you already know, Facebook has the most sophisticated ad system of all social networks and they offer a wide variety of ad types. From videos to carousels, from .mov to .png, the dimensions and file formats vary. You should make your ad in the given dimensions so it runs buttery smooth without any errors. Let’s explore a few of Facebook ad types and dimensions.
Facebook feed ads :
Have you ever noticed some images from some brands with “sponsored” written below them on your feeds? Well, these are Facebook feed ads. As the name suggests, they appear on a user’s feed and contain a single image or a video with a description.
Few things you need to keep in mind while making these ads are (for image and video ads) :
• Image dimension should be 1080px x 1080px (recommended) 600px x 600px (minimum) or with 1:1 aspect ratio.
• As of now, for image ads, there is no maximum size restrictions.
• Image file format should be either .jpg (or jpeg) or .png
• Video dimension should be 1080px x 1080px (recommended) 600px x 600px (minimum) or with 1:1 aspect ratio.
• Although, Facebook accepts multiple video formats, .mp4 or .mov files are recommended
• Unlike image ads, Facebook does have a maximum size restriction for video ads. Your video ads should be less than 4GB.
• Maximum duration is 240 minutes.
• To run ideally, the on-post content or the text on your ad, both image-based ad and video-based ad (a single frame) should occupy less than 20% of the total area of your ad. We will look into this down below.
• If you are using a .gif as your ad, Facebook will consider it as a video and will run as a video ad.
Back in 2017–2018, the go-to Facebook ad size used to be 1200px x 628px. But as time passed, people preferred more 1:1 size ads rather than horizontal ones. But still, even today you can publish horizontal ads and Facebook will run them without any glitches.
If you want to dive into horizontal ads, remember these key points while making :
• Image dimensions should be 1200px x 628px (recommended) 600px x 315px (minimum) or any image with 16:9 aspect ratio.
• As of now, for image ads, there is no maximum size restrictions.
• Image file format should be either .jpg (or jpeg) or .png
Facebook carousel ads :
Not willing to make a video but want to convey about your amazing product & feel single image-based ads aren’t sufficient? Then Facebook carousel ads are a perfect match for you. Facebook carousel ads allow brands to feature images or videos of multiple products in a single ad. Users can swipe through multiple slides of a carousel ad to see different items offered. The beauty of this is, one can publish both images and videos together in an ad.
But before you start making carousel ads, keep these design mantras in mind :
• Image dimensions should be 1080px x 1080px (recommended) 600px x 600px (minimum) or any image with 1:1 aspect ratio.
• Minimum 2 cards and maximum of 10 cards per carousel ad
• Image file format should be either .jpg (or jpeg) or .png and preferably .mov or .mp4 for video
• A single card video should be less than 4GB and the maximum duration is 240 minutes.
• A single card should contain less than 20% of on-post content or text
Well, there are other types of ads like Instant Experience Ads, Collection Ads, etc. You can read more about them on Facebook Business Help Center https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/help/1263626780415224?id=802745156580214
3. Use less text and more images
It was 2017. After getting the requirements from the marketing team, I made a few typographic Facebook ads. But, to my surprise, all of them were got rejected by Facebook. It was a bit strange at first as I had no idea about Facebook’s rejection of these ads. But as I started to look more into the rejection issues, I got to know about Facebook’s restriction on the content/text on the graphic. To summerise it, ideally, the on-post content or the text on your Facebook ad, both image-based ad and video-based ad (a single frame) should occupy less than 20% of the total area of your ad!
Well, I’m sure it sounds odd at first. But here is a catch! Facebook does provide you with a text calculation tool — Facebook Text Overlay (https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay). You can upload your ad and get verified by Facebook itself before shipping your ads to the marketing team. Not only does it let you know if it works or not, but it also helps you understand the reach of your ads.
But wondering how Facebook approves your ad?
Well, the magic lies in a simple 5-by-5 grid! Believe me — use a 5-by-5 grid template to design your ads. Curious? Let’s look more into it!
Above I’ve provided you with the Facebook ad grid. You only get 5 rectangles (20% of the 25 rectangles), so use them wisely. Remember, you can use less than 5 rectangles as well.
You’ll also need to make sure that your text doesn’t bleed over the grid lines because Facebook typically rejects it.
Here I am providing you with the free Facebook template in .psd, .ai and in .png formats which you can use while designing Facebook Ads.
Click here to download Facebook Ad Grid
Also, sharing a few sample Facebook 20% image grid templates that I use while designing a Facebook ad:
Places to get some inspirations
Pablo Picasso once said, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal”.
As a designer, you will be constantly looking for inspirations, content to keep your audience engaged, eye-catching designs, design trends, and whatnot. Although sometimes, ideas spark instantly, the other times, they can take hours or even days to develop. Right? When this happens, it’s useful to take a moment and look at others’ work to find inspiration.
Here I’m listing a few sites which I visit regularly to get inspiration.
1. FB Ads library
Well, this is probably one of the best sites to get inspiration for your ads. Launched in May 2018, Facebook Ad Library is a place where you can search for ads that are running across Facebook products. You can search for any brands, including your competitors, and get inspiration. Have a glance at the Facebook Ads library here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/library
2. Ads of the world
How about a site dedicated to showcasing just the most creative ads? Ads of the world is one of those sites. You get millions of creative ads, inspirations, and more! Also, you can publish your creative ad and will be viewed by millions. Explore Ads of the world here: https://www.adsoftheworld.com
3. Pinterest
You must have heard of this monstrous website called Pinterest? Pinterest is a center of the distributed content on the world wide web. From beautiful photos to design inspiration — Pinterest has it all! Many designers use Pinterest to create mood boards before diving into the design. Pin some designs here: https://in.pinterest.com/
4. Behance & Dribbble
Well, if you are a designer, I’m sure that you don’t need any introduction to Dribbble and Behance. Filled with millions of designers and design groups, you can get inspired and follow amazing designers. From print design to app UIs, from motion graphics to ads they have it all. Explore Dribbble here: https://dribbble.com/ and Behance here: https://www.behance.net/
Last but not least :
It’s been a while since you started reading this blog. As I said earlier, it is not so easy to explain how to start with Facebook ads. In this blog, I have included a few things which will give you a quick start to it. There are so many factors like A/B testing, some go-to design secrets, etc. which helps you in creating strong, high-performing Facebook ad designs and campaigns. I’ve published the separate blog for the same. Here’s the 2nd Part of this blog.
Meanwhile, If you design a few ads, don’t forget to share and tag me on Twitter @VananidhiKalkur and I will be happy to see!
Signing off for now! 👋
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