04 Dec 4 Simple Ways to Use Facebook Carousel Ads Effectively
Since their introduction to Facebook Ads Manager last year, Facebook Carousel Ads have revolutionized the way B2B advertisers approach advertising on Facebook. Before, marketers were confined to a single image, forced to choose just one image of their product and hope it catches the eye.
Though some believe that only B2C advertisers can benefit from Carousel Ads, the truth is that B2B marketers can get a lot of use out of carousel ads, so long as you know how to use them. Here are four simple ways to use Facebook carousel ads effectively in your social advertising campaigns.
Choose Your Most Popular Items
One of the best ways to use the Carousel Ad is to show off your top-selling products. If you’re choosing to run a photo only ad, you can show several related products together to further entice your audience. Alternatively, since Carousel Ads can now contain videos, there’s also an opportunity to have an explanatory video as the first tab and let users scroll through to photos.
Before you start writing copy, chose a theme for the product images you want to display. If a financial firm wants to get new businesses to open accounts, it might display a successful line graph, a handshake or even an image of their logo. The goal is to get your followers thinking about what your company can achieve for them, and images help visualize this.
If your company sells physical products, select groups of products (carousel ads allow for five images) that appeal directly to one demographic. This strategy can be exceedingly useful if you have a group of followers who recently made a purchase from your company. Your carousel ad can display complementary items that will encourage another purchase.
Make Use of the Copy Limits
Your main text (displayed above the images) can be up to 90 characters. The headline under the photo can be 20 characters, and the description beneath the headline has a 30-character limit. All in all, it’s not a lot of space.
On the other hand, limiting the amount of copy you can write forces you to be concise and creative with your words and images. Both should be working together to tell a story or sell an idea to your readers.
Choose images that fill in the blanks where your text leaves off and weave together a narrative. In the case of the financial firm, your story might be about how switching to your financial firm can lead to higher profits, better investments and company growth.
In instances where your images appear a big generic or fail to convey an emotion, use your text to assign an emotion. Let’s say the image is of a handshake, assumingly two professionals making a business deal.
Overall, use the copy limits to stop yourself from getting too descriptive and wordy with your copy. Keep your copy simple, just like with your other Facebook advertisements.
Highlight Other Opportunities
Let’s say you run a property management company that works with business owners and commercial properties. You’ve just opened a new commercial property. How do you get big businesses (not your average mom-and-pop stores) to move in?
Facebook carousel ads don’t always have to sell an actual product or service. They can also be used to show the effects of a purchase. This is a great way to show your customers what they could have if they decide to work with your company.
In the above example, the images might display the benefits of the commercial property’s neighborhood: an expensive neighborhood, easy access to major transportation, heavy foot traffic. Highlighting these benefits illustrates what can be gained from purchasing property in this new commercial building
Be creative when showing off the benefits of your product or service, and don’t be afraid to use your own photographs. They can be more telling than your average stock photography.
Hyper Target Local Areas
Sometimes contextualizing an ad and putting it on familiar ground can make a world of difference for B2B marketers. Rather than focusing on abstract benefits and opportunities, demonstrate your company’s impact on the community and other businesses through Facebook carousel ads.
Even in large cities, you can still show off your impact through your photos. Show off your company’s charitable contributions by using pictures of charity benefits and any other projects you might have done throughout the year. This shows that your company is invested in the community as well as in the success of its clients.
Don’t be afraid to share your success stories either. When you show how you helped previous clients succeed, your potential customers will get a better idea of how they too will succeed with you. The property management company might show off some of its best buildings, letting the images basically speak for themselves.
The key to successful carousel ads is the perfect combination of understanding what your audience is looking for with the new opportunities available to more your Facebook advertising more creative. From there, it’s just a matter of testing metrics such as which combination of copy and creative is resulting in the highest click-through rate.
Have you tried Facebook’s carousel ads? Let us know your tips in the comments below!
Mike Bird is a co-founder of digital marketing agency, Social Garden, which specializes in data-driven lead generation & marketing automation to grow companies’ revenue in the finance, property and education verticals in Australia. Mike is also an influencer in the social media marketing & Facebook advertising space and contributes to Social Media Examiner, Social Media Today, Yahoo! Business Advisor and most importantly, the Social Garden blog.
