What’s the deal with Facebook carousel ads? Why is this format so special, and more importantly, why should you test this type of advertising for your own brands and products too?
Facebook ads are powerful.
You can use this amazing tool to reach your ideal audience with different messages. You can invite people to like your page, engage with your latest blog post, hop over to your website to register for a webinar, or grab a free eBook. The possibilities are endless.
However, running Facebook ads the right way isn’t easy. Many advertisers start their journey on Facebook and get disappointed when their campaigns aren’t performing the way they expected.
Just because it’s easy to setup Facebook campaigns doesn’t mean Facebook ads are easy. If it were so easy, we’d have a lot more people and businesses advertising on Facebook, don’t you think?
There are more than 50 million Facebook pages but only 2 million active advertisers on Facebook.
Now, I’m not saying there’s something magical about Facebook ads. That’s not my point here.
While not magical, there are still a lot of different facets to running successful ads on Facebook, or any other platform for that matter: targeting the right people, click-worthy images, good copywriting, strong call-to-action, proper placement, choosing the best ad type, great product / service, appealing landing page / sales page and the willingness to test, test, test.
Don’t rely on the general assumptions. Test your assumptions.
To help you enhance your ad performance with Facebook ads, I decided to introduce you to the carousel format which lets brands and advertisers showcase up to 5 images and links in one ad.
So, let’s see how you can use Facebook carousel ads to drive targeted traffic to your website, increase your click-through rate and reduce your cost per acquisition.
How Does the Carousel Format for Facebook Ads Work?
The process is the same.
You start by setting up your campaign and ad set. Once you reach the creative part AKA the ad, instead of selecting “Ad with an image or video”, you pick “Ad with multiple images in a carousel”.
The cool thing about Facebook carousel ads is that it allows you to showcase more images and links in a single ad for the same price!
Here are some of the crazy things you can do with carousel ads:
- You can link your ad to one landing page or if you use 5 images, up to 5 different landing pages.
- You can do multiple promotions on different products and link to the appropriate page.
- You can use 5 awesome images and link off to one cohesive landing page.
Sounds great?
Before we dig deeper, let’s have a look at the following six minute carousel ad documentary provided by Facebook for Business. Watch the video to see how the three world-renown brands Hewlett-Packard, Toyota and Capital One use carousel ads to get people hocked with inspiring creatives.
Although you’ll see the teams discuss Instagram carousel ads in this film, the strategies and tactics apply to Facebook carousel ads as well.
How to Optimize Your Facebook Carousel Ads
Ready to enchant your audience with a robust and dynamic ad experience?
Here are a few tips to optimize the next Facebook carousel ads you run:
- Showcase 3-5 different images.
- Choose a different URL and copy for each image.
- Test different CTAs with a URL description.
- Let Facebook optimize the performance of your ad by selecting “Automatically show the best performing images and links first”. By ticking this box, you allow Facebook to show your best-performing images and links first.
- If you’re telling a story and you need your images to appear in a specific order, simply uncheck the option to automatically optimize your images and links.
Wondering where to get quality photo shoots without wrecking your marketing budget?
No problem.
You can now create your Facebook carousel ads using free stock images. Facebook gives you access to a comprehensive library of high-quality photos via Shutterstock, at no additional cost. Shutterstock’s images are available for use in all Facebook ad formats — they are not exclusive to carousel ads.
What Are the Benefits of Facebook Carousel Ads?
In a nutshell, you can use carousel link ads to:
- Lower your cost per acquisition (cost per conversion, cost per website click, cost per click)
- Increase your click-through rate
- Let Facebook automatically show your best performing creative
- Drive results across campaign objectives — promote your fanpage, send people to your website, or a webinar registration page etc.
Ultimately, all this leads to you maximizing the outcomes of your marketing campaign and getting more bang for your money!
CASE STUDIES
According to Facebook, advertisers who use carousel ads have seen a 30-50% decrease in cost per acquisition and a 20-30% decrease in cost per click as compared to standard, single-image link ads.
Clearly, these type of ads are highly appreciated in the e-commerce field. It’s a great deal to be able to include several products in one ad, while targeting the same audience. This again proves that imagery remains a primary focus for running appealing Facebook ads.
Here are some of the results achieved by leading e-commerce companies and brands:
1. Wayfair, one of the world’s largest retailers of home furnishings and decor uses carousel ads to showcase their product categories. The results speak for themselves: 88% higher click-through rate and 20% lower cost per acquisition as compared to standard links ads.
2. Lamundi, an online real estate marketplace that offers flats, apartments and houses for sale or rent uses carousel ads to improve ad performance and generate new leads. The results so far: 63% higher click-through rate and 24% lower cost per acquisition compared to single-image ads.
3. Foodpanda, uses the Facebook carousel ads to promote its app. The results are phenomenal: 180% higher click-through rate and 39% lower cost per install.
4. My results: The latest carousel ad that I ran on Facebook included my top 5 blog posts. I picked the five blog posts that got most shares on social media and on top of that, triggered great feedback from my ideal customers.
Here’s a screenshot of the bespoken Facebook carousel ad…
The carousel ad report I received from Facebook for Business straight into my inbox revealed the following:
- 7x higher click-through rate compared to my average link ads
- 3.8x lower cost per click — the campaign objective was “clicks to website”
Isn’t this insane?
Absolutely.
All I can say is I LOVE FACEBOOK CAROUSEL ADS!
Wrapping It Up
Facebook carousel ads allow advertisers to test multiple creatives in a single ad thus giving you additional ways to tweak components such as image, copywriting, and CTA a lot faster.
You now have the opportunity to convey your powerful message through inspiring and concept-driven pictures, allowing your ideal audience to grasp the full meaning of your story.
And finally, let’s not forget the crucial metrics such as conversion rates and click-through rates that you can improve dramatically while keeping your target audience engaged and entertained.
Have you tried Facebook carousel ads? How did your ads perform?
Image: LMoonlight / Pixabay.com
