Imagine you have to select an ideal location in your area for a billboard promoting a fitness products company. You would definitely think about a variety of things, such as traffic, visibility, and probable demographics of individuals who would view the billboard.
Keeping these points in mind, you would put your billboard in a busy area that will probably attract the correct kind of people, such as on the way to a well-known gym.
When selecting locations for your Facebook advertising, the same rule applies. You may choose which Facebook platforms your advertisements will display on when you design your Facebook advertising campaign in Ads Manager.
The ideal places for your adverts to appear will depend on where on social media your target clients are interacting the most.
Prior to going over the many ad placement options available to you, it’s crucial to remember that placements work in tandem with other elements of your Facebook campaign. Depending on the Facebook campaign aim you select, several placement options may be available.
Be sure to tailor your ad creative for the Facebook mobile app as 96% of Facebook users visit the app using a mobile device. Your ad’s creative elements will also shine more or less depending on where they are placed.
Facebook ad placements
Let’s now see what are all the ad placements available in Facebook ads manager one by one.
Facebook News Feed
Because it is the first page a user sees after logging into their account, the placement of Facebook advertising in the news feed is a popular choice. Compared to other Facebook ad kinds the Facebook news feed advertisements often have higher cost-per-click (CPC) and click-through rates (CTR).
Mobile news stream advertising often has a higher CTR than desktop news feed ads, although their CPCs are typically cheaper.
They are very crowded due to the enormous saturation of adverts on Facebook news feeds. However, because they receive a lot of traffic, they are an excellent choice if you are beginning at the top of your sales funnel.
Facebook Right Column
The right-hand column of your Facebook’s desktop news feed contains right column advertisements. The architecture of Facebook’s platform is still evolving, therefore there is now a little window of time for consumers to view these adverts (to view these ads right now, you must be logged on Facebook, on desktop, and on your news feed).
Since news feed advertisements are displayed twice as large as right column ads on the screen, they generate greater cost per mile, or cost per thousand views (CPMs) as compared to right column ads.
But keep in mind what we discussed previously about picking different spots.
Right column advertising may increase interaction by up to three times when used in conjunction with news feed advertisements since they help people remember your brand. When aiming to increase brand exposure among new audiences or when retargeting previous audiences, these ad kinds might be especially helpful.
Instant Articles on Facebook
A native platform for publishing immersive, full-screen stories on Facebook, Facebook Instant Articles is designed for media publishers. Publishers can choose to integrate adverts from Facebook’s Audience Network or direct-sold advertisements to monetize their Instant Articles. Through Facebook’s Audience Network, your advertisements would be included in Facebook Instant Articles.
Given that Facebook users open articles 52% more frequently when they are published as Instant Content conventional web links, you should utilize Instant Articles as an ad placement if you want to embed your advertisements on mobile sites that already carry journalistic articles.
However, because Instant Articles are a mobile-only ad format, make sure your ads are mobile-optimized.
Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace advertisements that are displayed inside Facebook Marketplace can be seen on the marketplace’s home page or integrated within listings.
For e-commerce businesses who sell goods that fit within Facebook’s Marketplace categories, these ad placements are great.
Since Marketplace items are often bought and sold locally, this ad placement may not generate as many impressions as other selling platforms like eBay or Amazon, but it may still be the best option for local companies.
Video feeds on Facebook
Your advertisements are displayed with the video feed placement between the news feed and organic content on Facebook Watch.
The possibility that viewers will already have their sound on and their eyes fixed on the screen makes this ad location an excellent choice for video ad formats that highlight your product or service. Use this location in conjunction with the in-stream video placement for increased video views.
Facebook In-Stream Videos
Facebook In-stream video advertisements are shown during some partner live broadcasts and Video on Demand. Similar to commercial breaks, they might occur before, during, or after a video programming.
Although these advertisements often have poor conversion rates, they have an additional 10% higher reach than just employing mobile news feed placements. When combined with other ad placements, in-stream video commercials are a fantastic alternative for video ad content placement.
Facebook Stories
Your advertising can be displayed in Facebook Stories when users navigate between story updates thanks to the placement in those stories.
Moving pictures or short-form video advertising (under 15 seconds) work well in stories because consumers are more likely to notice them when scrolling through their story feed. They are beneficial for brand exposure and reaching objectives since they also provide high early engagement rates.
Facebook search results
Your ads will appear on Facebook’s search results pages, which include the Marketplace and standard Facebook search engines. Advertisements in this location display exactly as they would in the Facebook news feed and can take the shape of video, photos, carousels, or collection ads, among other ad formats.
You should be aware that this ad location is only presently accessible through the Facebook app, so any advertising you post here should be mobile-friendly.
If you want to target clients who are already looking for the things you’re offering, using this ad placement might result in greater conversion rates.
However, keep in mind that visitors frequently see an abundance of alternatives from official merchants and independent sellers on Facebook’s search results pages, and your advertisement may get buried in the mix.
How to choose the best placement?
Automatic placements
Automatic placements enable Facebook’s delivery system to distribute your ad set budget in accordance with the effectiveness of those placements across all of Facebook’s platforms.
The objective of the Facebook algorithm is to provide you with the greatest audience optimization and lowest CPC across all accessible placements. As a consequence, Facebook will allocate more of your money toward advertisements that are succeeding in a certain placement.
When you initially begin running Facebook advertisements, we advise using automated placements because the Facebook algorithm is centered on ad optimization. From there, you may get information on the performance of your advertising by platform, device, and placement.
Using the Breakdown filter on your Ads Manager dashboard, you can access these stats.
Manual placements
You may pick the ad placements you want across all of Facebook’s platforms using manual placements.
After you have a handle on Facebook ad campaigns and have evaluated data on prior ad performances utilizing automatic placements, we advise starting with manual placements.
You should select a variety of placements to maximize your money and your chances of reaching your target demographics.
You may choose to only display desktop or only display mobile advertisements in your custom placement options. If you don’t modify it, Facebook will choose “All Devices,” which means that your advertising will appear on both the Facebook app and desktop site.
Make sure your ads are optimized for both mobile and desktop if you decide to run them on both platforms. Allocate more of your campaign’s budget for mobile advertisements.
The takeaway
Let analytics be your guide as different placements work differently for various businesses depending on the sector, creativity, and target audience. Try using Facebook’s automated placements to get some work done first, then evaluate how your advertising did to get an idea of how to approach it manually later on.