Facebook Ads can reach over 2.14 billion users, and the average user clicks on 12 different ads per month (which is about a click every two and a half days). It’s no surprise that small businesses and large corporations alike are taking advantage of the ad platform to reach their audience and drive leads, customer acquisitions, and sales.
It’s important to note, though, that while Facebook’s self-serve ad system is accessible and relatively easy to learn, knowing how to create high-performing campaigns may take a bit of time and practice.
To help you jumpstart the potential for high-value ad campaigns, in this post, we’re going to break down the anatomy of a Facebook Ad and go over tips for each component to help you get the results you want.
The 4 essential components that make up the anatomy of a Facebook Ad
There are ultimately four different parts of a Facebook Ad that make up the basic anatomy of a Facebook Ad: the visual, the copy, the CTA, and the ad type.
Let’s take a look at the core parts of a Facebook Ad and go over a few tips for how to create strong components across the board.
1. The Visuals
Visuals on Facebook Ads are essential, and they can either be videos, images, or both. They’re the first thing that users notice, which makes them one of the most important parts of a Facebook Ad.
Single-media ads let you upload a single video or image.
Carousel ads, Story ads, and Collection ads all allow you to upload multiple images and/or videos, depending on the format.
Visuals are ultimately what’s going to grab the user’s attention first, so they matter a great deal. You want visuals that highlight your brand’s, service’s, or product’s best features in their best light.
These tips can help you create a strong visual:
- Test mobile-shot video; this is a standard best practice right now, uploading video that looks like it was created by a customer on an iPhone, and it can be successful at driving clicks.
- Keep mobile formatting in mind for your visuals; mobile-friendliness is essential because more Facebook user activity is happening on mobile than desktop.
- Skip out on model’s faces unless it’s a crucial part of the ad; ads without faces often perform better than those with faces in them.
2. The copy
The copy is the ad text that explains your product, offer, and call to action. It includes your headline, ad description, and micro-copy that can appear in the CTA or overlay on images or videos.
You want your ad copy to really sell your USP and explain why users should take the action you want them to, whether to make a purchase, sign up for a free class or trial, or complete a lead form.
These are some great Facebook Ad body copy examples that do exactly that, explaining the benefits of the product or service and why you should purchase now while using a strong brand voice:
3. The Clickable Facebook Call to Action Buttons
Facebook call to action buttons are a seemingly small component of your Facebook Ad anatomy that can still carry a lot of weight. It shows up at the bottom of your ad next to the headline. There are plenty of different Facebook call to action button options like “Shop Now,” “Download,” “Message,” and “Learn More.”
You want to choose your Facebook call to action buttons options wisely, because it can directly impact how users perceive your ad and whether or not they click.
Someone towards the beginning of the funnel might be more likely to click on a “learn more” CTA than a “Sign Up” or “Shop Now” CTA, which seemingly requires more commitment. Consider testing different Facebook call to action buttons for your ads to see what works best.
4. The ad type
There are multiple different ad formats you can choose, including the following
Examples of Facebook canvas ads
Canvas format features full-screen mobile ads that help highlight brands and products through attractive aesthetics. They are also native ads, which means users can engage with them right on the platform. Find some examples of Facebook canvas ads below.
This is Wendy’s first Canva campaign, using this format to present their target audience on Facebook with a dismantled cheeseburger.
Mr. Porter is a men’s clothing brand that uses Canvas format to enable their fans to scroll through product categories and click on CTA.
Facebook ad video examples
Facebook claims 30% of online video ad revenue worldwide in 2022, marking video ads as a crucial element in your social media marketing strategy. Additionally, Facebook algorithms offer ads to different audiences based on the user’s journey. So if you want to reach the people who are likely to engage with your video ads, great video creatives are your best bet.
Let’s look at some Facebook ad video examples:
Source: Facebook
As you can see, these Facebook ad video examples are classified as Poll Only, Poll + Watch & Browse, Poll + Watch & Install, each offering different features to help increase engagement.
Slideshow Facebook ad example
If you don’t have the means to create an eye-catching video, slideshow Facebook ads are your next best option. This format lets you combine images and sound to design video-like ads that tell a story. Besides, they are incredibly affordable for marketers and load well at every connection speed. You can see a slideshow Facebook ad example here:
Source: Mund Mund Media
Facebook collection ad examples
Facebook collection ads are designed to help make purchase decisions and improve the user’s experience while doing so. They drive high shopping intent clicks by showcasing a large number of your products at once, increasing the odds of someone seeing something they like.
Source: Instapage
Once users tap on a collection, they are redirected to a full-screen page to find out more. Check out this popular Facebook collection ad example above.
Facebook carousel ads examples
Facebook introduced the carousel ad to replace the single image ads to add creativity and increase engagement. Instead, it allows sharing up to 10 images or videos in a single unit that users can scroll through. Additionally, carousel ads have higher-than-average CTR rates, as do Collection Ads. Here are some popular Facebook carousel ad examples:
Source: creatopy
Source: creatopy
In these Facebook carousel ad examples, you can use this format to highlight various products in a single ad unit, or provide more information.
Single image ads example
Not every ad needs a video or outstanding creatives to sell. In some cases, static images and the right ad copy will do just fine. This format presents a single visual for users to focus on. Instead of using stock photos, branded imagery is the best choice when it comes to single-image ads. You can use models holding your product or just flat images of your product.
Here is how a brand uses Facebook single image ads to run successful campaigns.
Source: Dusk
Side column ad example
Ads in the right-hand column that were previously shown by a small thumbnail (100×72 image), are now displayed in the sidebar with much bigger images (up to 3x). Side column ads often cost less and can work well for retargeting when users are already familiar with you, but often see fewer CTR than other ad placements. Let’s take a look at the new side column ad example:
Facebook Lead Ads example
Facebook Lead Ads are one of the most practical ways to generate leads. It allows marketers to connect to people who may be interested in their products or services while collecting information from them.
Once selected, lead ads open to an in-app or on-site lead form that Facebook automatically fills out. In this article, you can find the most effective examples of Facebook Lead Ads along with a couple of case studies.
Considering the amount of marketing competition on the world’s most popular social network, automating your Facebook advertising can help you stand out. LeadsBridge integrations help sync your lead data into your marketing stack in real-time, streamline your campaigns and create instant follow-ups to maximize conversions. Check out two of our favorite integrations for Facebook marketing.
Facebook Lead Ads integration with HubSpot
Facebook Lead Ads integration with Mailchimp
Facebook Lead Ads integration with Email Notification
Facebook Lead Ads integration with Pipedrive CRM
Messenger ad example
Messenger ads show up in Messenger and work when you’re retargeting users who have recently been in touch and who are most likely to want to hear from you. These ads are generally added as placement by default on all available objectives with the current interface. You can see these features in the example below.
Source: Hootsuite
Instagram Story Lead ad example
Instagram Story Lead ads are a great choice for approachable content and brand awareness-focused campaigns. Advertisers can request email addresses or contact details from users who click on their ads with story ads. This information is collected without taking the users off the platform, and can be used to build Newsletter sign-up lists or strategize follow-up calls.
Source: zammo
If instagram lead ads are your area of interest, then these LeadsBridge integrations can improve your marketing efforts significantly.
Instagram lead ads integration with Mailchimp
Instagram lead ads integration with Salesforce®
Most ad formats are automatically enabled when you’re creating new ads. Make sure that you’re previewing how both your copy and media look in each ad format and on both mobile and desktop.
5 Tips for creating a strong Facebook Ad
There are so many ways you can create a strong Facebook Ad, but these are our five best tips to get started in the right direction:
- Start with your strategy first. You always want to know what you want a specific ad campaign to accomplish—whether that’s lead, traffic, sales, or reach— before you start. This will impact your entire campaign, including who you target and what copy you use.
- Choose your objective carefully. You may be running a video ad and ultimately want both video views and sales, but which do you want to prioritize for this particular campaign? For many, it might be video views so they can create retargeting campaigns on a warmer audience.
- Use a full-funnel ad approach. A Facebook Ad funnel accounts for users at all stages of the digital sales funnel, and works to actually nurture users from one stage to the next. Someone who has never heard of your brand won’t respond to the same ad as someone who has purchased three times already.
- Use integrations to get the most out of your ads. You can use integrations for custom audience targeting syncing, lead data syncing, and even pushing data to your CRM for lightning-fast follow ups. LeadsBridge offers all of these integrations and more. Here are some of our popular integrations:
Hubspot integration with Facebook Custom Audiences
GetResponse integration with Facebook Custom Audiences
Facebook Marketplace Ads integration with Mailchimp CRM
Facebook Dynamic Ads integration with ActiveCampaign
- Consider letting Facebook do the heavy lifting. One of the best parts about Facebook’s ad system (even after iOS 14.5) is that they have incredible machine learning and automation. You can set up Facebook dynamic ads or even keep using manually-created ads with different split test versions and let Facebook determine who to show the ads to for the best results.
And as always— don’t forget to split test! That’s the best path forward for true optimization.
Final thoughts
The anatomy of a Facebook Ad is relatively simple, even if there are so many different options to choose from (and even though the strategy could be complex). Using the right tools can keep your ad management much more streamlined and efficient.
LeadsBridge’s integrations can help you get the most out of the results you get from your campaigns, funneling lead and custom audience information back and forth between Facebook, your CRM, your email marketing software, and more. As a result, you can create stronger, full-funnel experiences on Facebook and off of it, making it more powerful of a platform.
Want to learn more about how to get the most out of your Facebook Ads? Check out our Facebook integrations here.
