When business owners and marketers talk about PPC ads, a lot of the conversation is about conversions, clicks and driving revenue. These are not the goals that every campaign strives for. Sometimes, marketers take advantage of online advertising strategies because they want to build awareness for their brand.

One of the hardest challenges for advertising online is choosing which ad format is best. When your advertising goal is focused on building brand awareness, you need to think differently about the ads that you create.

It’s not about encouraging clicks and driving conversions. Instead, you just want to get the word out about your brand and generate that crucial familiarity that is needed to stand out from the competition.

• How to Find The Right Ad Format For your Business
• How can you Choose the Best Facebook Ads Format?
• Where do Google Ads Appear?
• How do you Format an Advertisement?
• What are the Different Types of Online Advertising?

How to Find The Right Ad Format For your Business

Ad formats that have worked in the past may not be as effective for this awareness-focused goal. So, which ad format is recommended for building brand awareness?

Image Ads

When it comes to brand awareness, you want to create ad content that is visually attractive and eye-catching. Remember, it’s about gaining attention and keeping your brand and products fresh in the minds of potential customers.

Read Also: How Does Bing Ads Make Money?

Image ads are the best ad format for building brand awareness. They have the visual aspect that search-based text ads, and many other formats, lack, without costing too much money. And, they come in many different shapes and sizes, from banners to large square image ads.

Through Google’s Display Network, you can target popular websites that your customers visit frequently. These customers may not be ready to purchase yet, but when the time comes, your products and services will be the first that they think of.

Video Ads

While video advertisements are more expensive than images, they are much more engaging. In-stream video ads are particularly powerful because viewers have to watch all or part of the ad (depending on if it is a skippable or non-skippable ad) before returning to their video. This guarantees engagement and strongly grows brand awareness.

There are, however, some drawbacks to video ads. For one, most video ad format types are limited by where and how they display. The majority are restricted to YouTube videos.

While YouTube is a mega-popular video platform, it’s far more popular with younger audiences than older ones. Thus, some customers may not see your video ad content. And, video ads disrupt a viewer’s normal video, which can create a negative brand experience.

Essentially, video ads are much more compelling and engaging, but they come with some risks.

Rich Text Ads

If you wanted to know which ad format is recommended for building brand awareness on a budget, then rich text ads are the answer. This format uses your existing text-based advertisements and enhances them with images, logos and other materials gathered right from your website.

There is no added cost to enable rich text ads and you don’t have to create visuals of your own. Google automatically gathers and displays them for you. It’s a perfect solution for marketers with low budgets or little time on their hands.

Stimulating brand awareness is about getting your messages and brand in front of the eyes of the target audience. For this reason, any ad format delivers some degree of brand awareness because these messages are designed to be visible.

That said, the ad formats that are recommended for building brand awareness are images and videos. The visual and highly engaging aspects of these format types are memorable and help customers quickly recall your products and services when the time for conversion comes.

How can you Choose the Best Facebook Ads Format?

According to Statista, Facebook has a staggering 2.41 billion active monthly users. It is comfortably the biggest social network in the world.

The Facebook ads platform is well renowned for the number of options you, as the advertiser, have. These include different types of Facebook ads, targeting, placements and more. To get the most out of your Facebook ads campaigns, selecting the right ad format(s) is imperative. 

This, however, is not often a straightforward decision to make. There are a number of factors to consider such as your objectives, resources, target audience, industry and much more. To help make your decision, this blog will take an in-depth look at some of the various Facebook ad formats available.

We now provide insight into the different types of ad formats available on facebook and when you should use them.

Single Image Ads

All ads on Facebook and Instagram require visual assets. Having an engaging and relevant image of your products/services is therefore crucial for this ad format to be successful. These ads allow you to have an image along with an ad description and headline and a clear call to action. 

One of the leading benefits of this ad type is that they can be incorporated with most ad placements, such as feeds, stories, instant articles, right column and more. 

Facebook’s algorithm is said to favour visual content. This means putting in the effort to create the perfect image is worth it.

When should you use Image Ads?

Image ads are beneficial if your primary set of ad objectives match the following:

• Increase brand awareness: An engaging photo showing off your product/service is a great way to raise awareness and capture a user’s attention.
• Lead generation and traffic: Image ads are a popular format for getting clicks to your website.

Image ads are also great when you may have time constraints or limited resources. The obvious limitation is that you will not be able to showcase everything about your product/service. Nevertheless, the higher clickthrough rates mean you will get this opportunity once the user is on your website.

Video Ads

Videos Ads on Facebook are a hugely popular ad format with advertisers. According to one study, they suggest that Facebook users watch close to 3 billion hours of video content every day. Furthermore, it says that people are 85% more likely to purchase after viewing a product video. 

Video ads give more freedom to use creativity to show off your offerings in a convincing way. They require more resources but can prove to be extremely successful when done right.

Video ads on Facebook can be used in a variety of ways depending on your objectives. They can be used in stories, in carousel ads, collection, canvas, in-stream and more.

When should you use Video Ads?

Videos are suitable for almost all businesses. Some of the objectives that they can help achieve are:

•         Building brand awareness
•         Drive conversions
•         Promote video views

Video ads can help achieve a host of other objectives as well, depending on the type of video content, how you use them, and where they are placed. Not all video ads require a professional set up. For many, all you need is a mobile phone, creative apps, editing software, and a few ideas.

Within the Facebook Ads Manager, you can also use the templates provided to create short 10-15 seconds slideshow videos where all you need are the images, as the music is provided by Facebook.

When creating your Facebook video ad, it is best to adhere to the following tips:

• Mobile focused approach – According to Statista in January 2019, 96% of active Facebook accounts were accessed via mobile. Taking this into account, your video ad should be optimised for mobile. This includes using a vertical format and avoiding horizontal.
• Design your video without sound – A Facebook study found that 80% of people reacted negatively towards unexpected sounds on videos, they prefer having the option of turning on sound. This means ads should be designed in a way where it is equally as effective without any sound on. It is also important to incorporate subtitles in your video ad, for those that view without the sound on if your videos feature a voice-over.
• Immediate engagement – The same study says that the first 3 seconds of any video is the most important. They say that 65% of people who watch the first 3 seconds of the video go on to watch for at least 10 seconds. This means that whenever possible, you should try to get your main message across within the first 3 seconds of the video.

Instagram ads also allow for video ads.

Carousel Ads

Carousel ads allow you to create a showcase of up to ten images or videos, each with its own link, within a single advert. Carousel ads are interactive and ideal for generating engagement. 

With this ad format, you have more creative freedom and space to get your message across. You can highlight different products/services or different aspects of your offerings, that develop with each passing image/video. Carousel ads are said to be 10 times more effective in getting traffic to a website than static posts.

When should you use Carousel Ads?

Some of the objectives Carousel ads help meet are:

•         User engagement
•         Brand awareness
•         Lead generation
•         App installs

Carousel ads have quickly become a favourite with advertisers. They can be a great addition to your existing campaigns to tell your story in an engaging way. The flexibility they bring allows you to meet multiple objectives at once.

Dynamic Ads

Facebook’s dynamic ads allow you to automatically promote your inventory to people who have expressed interest in your website, or to reach prospective customers. Instead of creating an ad for every product that you are promoting, you can create an ad template that automatically uses product data from your catalogue.

With these ads you can retarget people who may have acted on your website or app, or a broader audience. You can optimise your dynamic ads based on your goals such as conversions, and then Facebook will show products in ads that are expected to drive conversions.

These ads work best if you have installed the Facebook Pixel on your website and/or the Facebook SDK to your mobile app. These collect data and let Facebook know who to deliver ads to based on their actions.

When should you use Dynamic Ads?

Some of the objectives Dynamic ads help meet are:

•         Expanding reach
•         Drive conversions
•         Increasing website traffic

Collection Ads

Collection ads appear in Facebook mobile feeds and are ideal for retail, travel or ecommerce businesses. They make it easier for people to discover and purchase products and services from their smartphones. 

Collection ads feature a hero (main) image or video and four products under it. You will, however, need to ensure your product catalogue is integrated with Facebook to be able to use this function and add products.

With this ad format, the users who tap on your ad can browse products or learn about specific products without leaving the Facebook app. This full-screen experience helps drive interest and engagement.

When should you use Collection Ads?

Facebook suggests that Collections ads can help meet the following objectives:

•         Driving traffic to the website and physical store (if applicable)
•         Increasing conversions
•         Catalogue sales

This ad format is perfect to convert interest and demand into sales.

When using Collection ads, there are 4 templates to choose from:

• Instant storefront – Ideal for driving traffic to your website, this template is used when you have a catalogue of four or more products to showcase. This is also used when you want to display items to be viewed in one place.
• Instant lookbook – Ideal for telling your brand’s or product’s story. This is used when you want to show your products in use.
• Instant customer acquisition – Ideal for driving traffic to your website. This is used when you have high-quality videos and images showing off your products/services.
• Instant storytelling – Ideal for brand awareness. This is where you use images and videos to really show off your brand and get your brand story across. The goal is to make people aware of your brand and get them to click to learn more about you using engaging videos and images.

Collection ads on Facebook are a great way of meeting a variety of business objectives, whilst experimenting with different ways to showcase your items to your target audience.

Canvas Ads

Canvas ads, now known as Facebook Instant Experiences, are a mobile optimised ad format designed to capture the complete attention of the audience. This is solely hosted on the Facebook app. 

Once the user clicks on the ad on their feed, they are subject to a full-screen interactive experience. Users are shown engaging video and photos, can swipe through carousels, they can tilt the screen and zoom in, read reviews and click on call to action buttons to take them to your website, all in one ad.

This ad type can provide advertisers with a creative space to share their brand stories in engaging and interactive ways. Facebook canvas ads are also easy to create as you are able to use one of Facebook’s already optimised templates.

When should you use Canvas Ads?

One huge benefit of canvas ads is that due to the creative freedom you have, this ad format can be used for almost any marketing objectives you may have, at the same time. Some of these objectives are:

• Brand building and awareness
• Driving conversions and traffic·        
•  Video views
• Engagement
• App installs

Where do Google Ads Appear?

When people think about Google Ads (AdWords) they tend to visualise those nice little text ads that follow us around while we conduct searches on the Google search engine.

And yes, these are a key part of the Google Ads offer, but they are not the only real estate on offer for your ads. Read on if you’d like to understand the Google Ads available and where your ads can appear.

1. Google Search Network

Your ads can appear on the Google search engine results pages (SERPs), right when your prospective clients are in the process of searching for products or services that your business offers.

Search ads are always displayed above or underneath the organic search results returned by Google. Their positioning depends on the ranking a particular ad has when the search is conducted. What does this ranking depend on? Part of your ranking is due to what you are willing to pay, but this is not the whole picture.

For the moment, just know that configuration is very important, and for this reason, it’s important to understand Google’s rules and preferences.

For these search ads to be displayed, you must create a list of keywords that accurately represent your products, services, website or brand.

Keeping in mind that every day, Google registers billions of searches on the site, the benefit of search campaigns on the platform comes from the selection of keywords in your campaigns and how relevant your ads are to prospective buyers. You must be effective and convincing on this front.

The classic search ad has two titles, a display URL and a description. You can add multiple extensions to these ads, extensions that offer additional information like a telephone number, an address, additional links, text messages, promotions, etc.

2. Google Display Network (formerly Google Content Network)

Although most of us see these adverts on a daily basis, many people do not know that Google has an extensive inventory of over two million websites where your advertising can be featured.

According to Google, with this network, up to 90% of the world’s internet users can be impacted. This network is called the Google Display Network (GDN) or the display network.

Aside from these websites, the display network also includes mobile apps, YouTube, Gmail, Blogger and other well-known platforms.

Here segmentation is based more on the context of a website, and the type of users who visit it, rather than their search intention. For this reason, the impact on a potential client happens in a different moment than in search campaigns.

You can choose audiences based on habits, demographic slices, keywords, intentions, or a mix. There are many possibilities.

The most well-known ads on the display network are classic banners (still or animated) that feature an image. The main challenge for many folks when configuring these campaigns is that they need to design a wide set of banners in different sizes in order to ensure that their ads get proper coverage on different devices, such as mobile, desktop or tablet.

Recently, Google has simplified this process by creating adaptive or responsive ads that have a more simple configuration (logo + image + ad text), and these ads cover a lot of the display network inventory. The main disadvantage here is that we lose some control over our brand image but at the same time, we gain a great deal of coverage and ease of setup.

Besides these ads, there are also formats that are specific to mobile, video and even Gmail. So, while these options all form part of the Google Display Network, they are quite different.

In order to be efficient on the GDN, we must focus on finding the right audience, impacting relevant websites in the correct moment of the purchase funnel for our prospective client. In general, on the Display Network we are higher up in the customer journey or purchase funnel, where users are in an early consideration phase or still do not have clear their need for your product or service. For this reason, it’s important that ad copy and images be captivating and seductive.

3. Google Shopping

Google Shopping ads show an image of your product along with some basic information describing it and the item’s price. To create shopping network campaigns, you’ll need to open an account in the Google Merchant Center and upload your product list (feed) in one of the formats that Google accepts.

These shopping ads are shown on Google search results pages, both on the side and above organic results.
The success of your Google Shopping campaigns will be determined by how well configured your feed is and how good your product descriptions and images are.

Price is also a factor here, as users will make purchase choices based on how much your product and competitor products cost. Here it’s not about seduction, it’s about users comparing what’s on offer.

For this reason, Shopping Ads are not for everyone– if your prices are not competitive and your margin is low, it’s probably not worth it to advertising on Google Shopping. Shopping campaigns do increase visibility for your products, and they are a great way to boost sales.

As you can see, there are many possibilities for your campaigns on Google or one of it’s networks. The way you use and configure of each of these networks will determine if your sales increase or not.

How do you Format an Advertisement?

For an advertisement to be effective, it should be able to catch the readers’ attention, keep them curious for more, and lead them to buy the advertised product. You can write effective ads by following these five short tips.

1. Use Short Sentences

Long sentences will not sell your ad, let alone your product. People’s attention span tends to drift fast these days, so don’t bore your readers with long sentences.  Instead, be direct and to the point.

2. Use Different Sentence Structures

Do not be afraid to be creative in your writing. Employ different sentence structures within your ad to keep your readers interested. The more varied your presentation is, the less boring your ad becomes.

3. Keep Your Ad Short

You don’t have to cram all the information you have into your ad. On the other hand, your ad should make your readers curious and leave them wanting more.  Short ads will accomplish this for you.

4. Close With a Statement That Calls Your Reader to Action

If the opening statement needs to catch attention, the closing statement should call your readers to action. It should be written creatively enough so that the readers will be interested to know more about your product and buy it.

5. Re-Read and Rewrite as Necessary

After you have written your ad, read it again. Proofread your writing and rewrite as necessary. The proofreading stage is just as important as the writing stage because having errors in your ad easily destroys your credibility. Most people ignore ads that have grammatical errors. If you are not an expert in English proofreading and editing, then you can employ the help of English editing software.

What are the Different Types of Online Advertising?

There are many different types of online advertising, but which one(s) should your business use? From Display Ads to SEO to PPC, here is your complete guide to online advertising.

1. Display Advertising

Display advertising is a type of online paid advertising, typically using images and text. The most popular forms of display ads are banners, landing pages (LP’s) and popups. Display ads differ from other ads because they do not show up in search results.

Most commonly, display ads are found on websites and blogs to redirect the user’s attention to the company’s product. Working together with remarketing, display ads can have great success. According to Digital Information World, “website visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert on your website.”

2. Search Engine Marketing & Optimization (SEM) & (SEO)

SEM and SEO are two types of online advertising that promote content and increase visibility through searches.

• SEM: Instead of paying for the actual ad, advertising pay each time users click on the ad to their website. Businesses benefit by gaining specific information about their market.
• SEO: To gain a higher rank in search engine results, advertisers use various SEO tactics, such as linking, targeting keywords and meta descriptions and creating high level content that other sites will link to. While SEM is a paid strategy, SEO is organic, making it a sought out type of online advertising.

3. Social Media

There’s no doubt that social media advertising just keeps growing and growing each year. Consider these numbers: There are 1.65 billion active mobile social accounts globally with 1 million new active mobile social users added every day.

According to the Hootsuite social media advertising statistics, social media advertising budgets have doubled, worldwide, from $16 billion to $31 billion in the past 2 years alone.

The two types of social media online advertising are organic, an online word-of-mouth technique, and paid. Placing paid ads, promoted posts or sponsored stories are a popular way to reach more of the demographic of the company, without paying a bundle.

Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social media platforms for companies to reach potential new customers with LinkedIn a popular avenue for B2B sales.

4. Native Advertising

Have you ever noticed those sponsored ads at the bottom of blog or FB posts? They can be “other recommended readings” or “other people liked” with suggested examples for users to click on. This is native advertising.

5. Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay per click (PPC) ads explain their concept right in the name. These are ads that advertisers only pay for when a user clicks on them, which contributes to the strength of PPC as a tool.

Read Also: How Does Google Get Profit by Search Engine

If the ad was seen by 100 people and only 1 person clicked the ad, the cost of the ad revolves solely around the 1 who clicked. PPC ads are usually text, with a small image if at all. Keep in mind that 64.6% of people click on Google ads when they are looking to buy an item online.

6. Remarketing

Remarketing (or retargeting) is a type of online advertising that does exactly what it says it does. This cookie-based technology literally followers the user around the internet, in order to remarket him/her again. 

Statistics show that only 2% of web traffic converts on the first visit, which means 98% of users leave without converting right away. These users are targeted once they leave the website by then seeing subtle hints (ads), reminding them about their previous interest.

7. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is promoting a company’s product while earning a commission for each sale that was made. It’s essentially a 3-party advertising agreement between the advertiser, publisher and consumer. It’s widely adopted with bloggers who have large numbers of followers and are looking to gain passive income.

8. Video Ads

Video ads are growing in popularity, especially with the younger generation of consumers. BI Intelligence reported that digital video will reach nearly $5 billion in ad revenue and with the highest average click-through rate, 1.84%, of any digital format (2016). And the stats don’t lie. 55% of consumers view videos in their entirety while 43% want to see more video content from markets.