Facebook released a game-changing set of new placement options for advertising this week that will help businesses gain even more non-traditional exposure to their audiences.
Particularly noteworthy are ad placements in Instagram Explore and Facebook Stories.
Here is the complete list of new placement options:
Run Dynamic and Collection Ads in Instagram Explore
Now when you create dynamic ads or collection ads, you can select Instagram Explore as a placement. Instagram Explore is where people go to discover, shop, and connect with people, businesses, and creators they don’t already follow. Ads will run in the feed that appears after people tap a photo or video in Explore.
Customize Placements for Event Ads
When you create a traffic or conversions campaign to sell event tickets, you can change how your ad looks in each placement. Select a placement to customize to change the media, edit text and more.
Placement for Store Traffic Ads
When you run a store traffic campaign optimized for store sales or daily unique reach, you can now show ads in Facebook Stories. Select Stories under Facebook when you choose placements, or use automatic placements.
Introducing Ads in Facebook Search Results
Now you can reach people with relevant ads in the moment when they search for products or services similar to yours. Ads in Facebook search results can appear in both general search and Marketplace search.
The new Instagram Explore Feature will be particularly impactful for businesses looking to connect with a certain interest group. For example, in the explore feature if your target audience are tennis fans, you might program your dynamic or collection ad sets to appear in an explore feed triggered by interest in Maria Sharapova or Roger Federer.
The Explore option offers advertisers far greater exposure to new audiences who are looking for new connections. Whereas regular sponsored ads appear in a user's feed, Explore ads appear in a feed that is already showing posts from unfollowed fellow users. Users in this scenario are accustomed to seeing posts and finding new organizations to follow.
Facebook story ads are also a new and effective option for businesses. Savvy users are making creative and innovative usage of the story feature on both Instagram and Facebook.
According to WordStream, story ads are poised to generate greater returns on ad spend as well as more creative designs with video and other elements:
There are a few things that might make a placement coveted. A strong user base. Strong targeting options. A wide range of creative capabilities. The ability to work with multiple ad types. If Facebook Story ads are like their Instagram Stories counterparts – and they will be – advertisers can expect their clients to soon be clamoring to get in on the action.
The prospect of being able to repurpose creative to use on both platforms – and split test them to see which is more effective – is, first and foremost, a big draw. It also gives advertisers more incentive to devote time to creating Story ad content for one placement, if it means they can potentially leverage both.
And, as
WordStream describes, if you're looking to get in on the story action, you should be prepared to start using better video visuals to be competitive:
As far as the creative itself, the shift to Stories means three things: more video, better video, and in general, more stylish and costly visuals. There is nowhere to hide grainy pixels in a full-screen ad, especially when the organic posts coming before and after it are filled with majestic boomerangs, colorful stickers, and high-res #brunch pics.
If you're ready to start advertising on Facebook and Instagram or if you are looking to revamp your strategy, now is the time to start doing so.
With the new placement features, it's more important than ever to be investing in better video quality for your advertising ad to be working with an advertising agency that is adept at engineering campaigns for these new options.
