Facebook’s New Ad Format: 3 Things You Need to Know
Social media marketers take heed: Facebook is rolling out a new design format for ads that appear in the right-hand column next to the News Feed. The key differences: they’re bigger and there will be fewer of them.
The Facebook for Business blog reports this updated look “will make the right-hand column ads more visually consistent with the ads that appear [directly] in the News Feed.” While there’s no word yet on how this will affect your Facebook budget, Techcrunch presumes this will allow Facebook to charge more for them.
What you need to know now:
1. Early Tests Reveal an Increase in Engagement. Facebook’s early testing of this new format indicated an increase in engagement. Given the increased size and the limited number of ads that will appear, this isn’t terribly surprising, and is also good news.
2. Separate Images No Longer Needed. Facebook is designing this format to mirror the ads that appear directly in the News Feed. As such, this eliminates the need to choose separate images for ads that appear in the News Feed versus that same ad that appears in the right-hand column. This potentially makes it all easier to manage for marketers.
3. The Old Formats Will Be Supported in the Transition. There’s no strict timeline on this rollout, and Facebook indicates that current ad formats will be supported during the transition period.
While companies still struggle to figure out the Facebook puzzle, it’s hard to ignore the sheer size of the Facebook audience and its primary age group. While the new ad formats boast the potential for greater engagement, you’re still going to need a fundamentally sound Facebook strategy—and that means doing many of the things we’ve iterated on this blog before (like having amazing, unique content and diversifying your efforts).
We’re here to help you solve this conundrum, of course—all you need to do is ask or leave a comment below. In the meantime, feel free to browse our social media capabilities.
