Amazing Facebook Video Ads Strategy Guide To Boost Conversions

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know how important video is to the internet experience. The explosion of YouTube has spawned endless content on countless subject areas. And it sure beats the hell out of reading.

Facebook isn’t the most omnipotent social media network for nothing, and they’re emphasizing video, which is a clear sign for advertisers. As a digital advertiser, it is imperative that you learn how to properly use video ads because they are taking over the internet – and your clients will be looking to you for direction.

1. Why Facebook Video Ads?

As we’ve alluded to, mobile video accounted for 55% of mobile traffic in 2015 and is expected to jump to 75% by 2020.

Facebook Ads are running out of placement space, or rather, the competitiveness of the ad space has increased. Video ads are an opportunity to show yourself more often at more reasonable prices. People see video ads as a hassle, and this creates competitive pricing for your ad placements.

Tens of millions of hours of video are showing each day, with billions of videos getting viewed per day.

About 84% of FB’s revenue is now from mobile. Facebook is one of the biggest revenue companies in the world, and most of that revenue is coming from video ads. What more is there to say?

There’s lots more to say in numbers if you can’t quite wrap your head around why video is not just the future, but THE future.

2. Optimize For Mobile

Optimizing for mobile is a smart way to increase the viewability of your ad before you even begin to worry about the messaging.

As we’ve said, most people are watching videos on their mobile phones, and that number of people is only going to continue to grow.

Everyone is still learning how to convert their messages to the mobile format, so some of these optimization methods can be nuanced.

You’ll have to do a lot of testing, and just looking up and researching examples of how other brands have succeeded with making the mobile experience better. There is no doubt that we will learn much more about what works with mobile – especially with video content – in the coming years.

Cutting the video shorter is an obvious optimization technique, if you can’t already tell. A simple, short video can increase brand recall and boost impressions.

3. Make Your Video Short

ADD is one of the most diagnosed ailments of our time, and the way our society is built, this disorder is only growing. The result is that it is harder than ever to grab people’s attention, and to keep them engaged.

When making video ads, it is your job to grab people’s attention, and you have to do it fast and early. You don’t have any time to spare, and with each passing second, users are dropping out like flies.

Via Ad Espresso

Not only do you need to grab your audience’s attention as soon as you can, but you also have to introduce your brand in those first few seconds. That is, if you want your brand to be remembered, anyway.

Via Falcon.io

Brand recall, as it is often referred, is the crucial effect from video ads that you’re seeking. If you ignore this goal, then you’re not exactly burning money, but you’re close.

Last year, Cheryl Sandberg said that videos of 6 seconds showed “higher brand metrics across the board”. This statistic highlights the importance of the ‘early and often’ mantra of video ads. You simply can’t dilly-dally when it comes to getting to the point and introducing your brand in today’s attention-deficit world.

While it is tempting to make a video as long as Facebook allows (up to 240 minutes), you also want your viewer to finish a video ad and come away with a complete thought (or message) on your brand.

You really only want to make your video 5-10 seconds long. Make your video as short as possible, and fight the urge to drag on your ideas. Users will appreciate your conciseness and reward you with possible post-video action.

However, if you do drag things on and start to lose their interest (we’ve seen how this works the longer you drag on a video, its simple science), then you risk alienating a potential customer – instead of winning one over.

Use colors, themes, and imagery of your brand right off the bat. Lifestyle and high quality product shots to instantly connect your product and brand to your audience’s life can be very effective.

4. Put The CTA In The Middle

Via Falcon.io

You’ll need to put a call-to-action somewhere in the video, and don’t forget about the character allotment that Facebook gives you to describe your video. You absolutely need to propose an action for your audience to perform. This action will be one of the biggest values you get from your ad, just like any CTA is to any ad; video ads are no different.

You get 25 characters for your headline and 30 characters for your link description. Your CTA better be housed within those character limits in order to get the most bang for your buck.

Your CTA relates to the audience bucket you’re targeting and what you think they will be interested in, based on their attributes. Either way, you need a CTA.

5. Focus On One Goal

Tell a meaningful story with one track. Tap into one particular emotion. Inspire your audience with a DIY video. You have almost no time at all, and the more you focus on one goal, the better your video will come off to your audience. Imagine the video ad just like a text ad with character limits, except the characters are seconds. And you only have less than eight seconds, remember?

Create ads that don’t seem like ads. These are the best at capturing your audience and leaving an impression.

6. Default Sound On

Even though the default sound is on, 85% of people listen to videos with the sound off. It is important to have your video be impactful whether the sound is on or off. Use subtitles or captions to help with sound-off comprehension. Text can highlight important parts to boost recall. It’s like bullet points for your video.

Use logos and images of your product to convey your brand without sound. Try some graphic overlays to help get your message across.

Also, use vibrant colors. If you can’t use sound to impact your audience, you can compensate with visually stunning, moving images that can engage your user’s sense. Take a look at the example below.

7. Title And Description

Use numbers to help describe what you are about to educate your audience on. The number “7” seems to work best, but always test. Users like to have an expectation of what they are about to learn, and the numbers set those expectations up front.

People also love ‘Top 10’ or ‘Top 5’ – or whatever number you use – for content. There’s a reason you see these phrases for various pieces of content throughout the internet: people love to click on ‘Top whatever-number’ lists. It is an easy way to filter down information, and for the audience, they walk away feeling like they got the most pertinent information about a particular topic.

Via Wochit

Another obvious takeaway from this data is that people want to learn. It is at the heart of the ego – the need to be right. The more information you know, the more likely you are to be right/correct, and no one wants to be wrong, so advertising information makes psychological sense. Provide something educational and of value to your audience and deliver it in a short and concise manner. You won’t be doing too many things wrong with video ads if you follow those simple rules.

8. In-Stream Video Ad Specs

You’ll want to produce the highest quality video possible, and make the video as visually stunning as you can. It is no surprise that the better the quality, the more pleasing the video watching experience.

Some businesses just throw up a video they have on file, but it pays to invest in the quality – within the Facebook limit on file size of up to 4GB. Facebook recommends 1080p, but 4K video is becoming the norm and keeping up with the highest of quality standards will keep you ahead of the game.

You can check out the full specifications of video ads here.

Videos of 5-15 seconds in length are recommended, although they allow you to go all the way up to 240 minutes – but you won’t have to worry about going anywhere close to that.

Facebook also recommends full landscape ratio between 9:16 and 16:9, but 16:9 is ideal.

Square videos take up 78% more space, which is a good thing when you’re trying to get people to view your video.

Mobile phones also use portrait mode 98% of the time, so it makes sense to cater to that orientation.

9. Create In-Stream Video Ads

Via Neil Patel

Creating video ads is pretty easy within the Facebook Ads platform, starting with the campaign objectives and going from there.

Via WordStream

10. Instagram Stories

These are 24-hour self-destructing videos or photo streams, similar to Snapchat stories.

Once a user decides to start watching IG stories, the videos will start to play one after another until there are no more stories or the user decides to stop.

These ads can be composed of single photos or 15 second (they recommend 15, but they can be 60 seconds long) videos that can be used for brand awareness or to drive website conversions.

This is the first time Instagram is allowing full screen ads to the global market of advertisers.

Captivating videos are a must here, as with other places, but especially with these since users can tap away if they don’t like what they see.

Users can’t rewatch your ad or go back, so there’s an increased urgency to capture their attention fast, but also in an impactful way.

Use only high quality visuals, clear branding, and simple messaging. Text overlays are allowed on these video ads, but they can distract from the moving picture so use judiciously

Here are the specifications. There is no sound for the video ads. Setting up Instagram ads is similar to setting up most Facebook ads. You’ll name your campaign, set up your campaign objectives, define your audience, define placements, select your ad format, upload video, upload relevant thumbnail (no more than 20% text or else there’s less of a chance it gets opened), tracking options, and CTA button.

Drive awareness, announce sales or special events, retarget users, promote accomplishments, or start a conversation. Think of a goal you want to accomplish with the ad, and stick to that goal.

Just like you don’t want landing pages to have outbound links and other CTAs to distract from the main goal, you also don’t want a video going in many directions. This will ultimately distract the user into doing nothing because they are inundated and confused with what they are supposed to do next.

11. Facebook Live

Live video ad requirements include:

• 50K+ followers with at least 300 viewers for a recent live stream
• You’ve been live in video format for at least 4 minutes
• You have a Facebook Page
• United States live streamers only right now

If you meet these qualifications, you can take ad breaks during your live video and monetize your live stream video.

Marketers get many benefits from a live stream audience of their ads, such as:

• Extremely engaged audience that is unlikely to skip the ad because they don’t want to miss what comes next
• Facebook reports better viewership and more comments

The downside is that you don’t know what kind of content your ads are showing up with because live streams could be of anything.

Opting into mid-roll ads is for in-stream and live view ads, and these usually get the best engagement because users are already interested in the video content.

12. Types Of Video Ads

Here are just a few of the types of video ads you can try:

• Product Demonstration
• Case Study/Testimonial
• Educational Content
• Behind the scenes content
• Teaser for product launch

Combining what you’ve already learned in the previous sections, try to envision and execute these ads in as short an amount of time as possible. And try different video types to see what works best for your audience.

For example, for a product demo ad, immediately cut to its use in a lifestyle setting in the first shot. You always want to be thinking about how to distill the essence of a video in the 6 second window that Cheryl Sandberg talks about.

Customer testimonials are great social proof, and if you choose an authentic testimonial, you can really make an impact through the sincerity of the message. Incentivize a satisfied customer to help you out and use your success to compound and create more success!

We’ve already gone over the benefits of educational videos. If Facebook audiences are interrupted, they’re usually open to learning something. Try to provide as much value as you can, and you’ll be rewarded with reciprocity.

Behind the scenes content is always great because audiences believe they are seeing secret stuff. People love secrets. Combine themes, such as teaching your users something using behind the scenes footage. Remember the magician that revealed all the secrets? He probably wasn’t popular with magicians, but he sure as hell got a huge viewership!

Finally, because short video ads work so well, why not pick a video type that encourages shortness? Enter the video teaser. If you’re about to launch a product or hold an exciting event, it makes sense to create a short video that builds anticipation.

13. Custom Audience Based On Percentage Of Video Viewed And Retargeting

Facebook has a really cool function where you can segment your audience based on the percentage of a video they’ve viewed. If you have any insight into how warm leads are after they’ve viewed a certain amount of video content you have, then you’re in an ideal position to better target these audiences with the right offer at the right time.

Intuitively, the more of a video that an audience has watched, the more likely they are to engage with your brand and interact with bottom-of-funnel offers and ads. Experiment with different segments. Understand why users would stop watching at various points of a video and test out these custom audiences to move users down your sales funnel better.

Via Neil Patel

14. Share Your Videos Natively

Video targeting is easier through Facebook manager when you post natively, which is to say, upload your videos directly, and DO NOT share your videos via YouTube. Facebook and Google are rivals. They are not into helping each other out, and this is one salient example that affects advertisers.

Playing videos uploaded elsewhere takes an extra step, and this matters when it comes to views. Indeed, Facebook video ads that are uploaded natively perform better, too. This isn’t too surprising as Facebook is incentivizing you not to use YouTube.

Via Social Bakers

15. Auto-Play Is Default

But many users turn off this default setting, so you’ll want to nail your thumbnail image to give users maximum incentive to display. Thumbnails with more than 20% text are less likely to be viewed.

You can use a custom image, and you’ll want to include a CTA that encourages a view.

Via Neil Patel

16. Track Relevant KPIs

Ad recall lift for brand awareness is a common metric for video ads, and you’ll want to track this to make sure your ads are doing their job.

If you are looking to drive website traffic with your video ads, then click-through-rate (CTR) will be the main metric you’ll want to track.

If the delivery of the video itself is the value, then you want to measure how long the video was viewed, and Facebook has ways to track with granularity where exactly every user stopped watching the video

If your goal is to drive sales or get form fills, conversions or conversion rate will be crucial metrics for you to monitor and the Facebook Pixel will be a must.

Like most ad campaigns, wait at least a few days – if not weeks – before measuring results to get statistically significant data. You don’t want to overreact to small sample sizes; give your ads a chance to perform. This can take a lot of time, work, and patience. You’ll want to be honest about your time commitment to the process and either employ a dedicated in-house team or outsource the work.

17. Placements

Think of video ads as another ad type in the rotation of your Facebook Ads. And just like other ad types, you can display your ads automatically or manually by specifying the placements: Facebook Newsfeed, Audience Network, and Instagram.

18. A/B Test Your Ads

This should go without saying, but since it is a video ad, there can be a tendency to throw up a video ad and let it do its thing. However, there are so many variables you can test. The length of the videos, the CTA, the thumbnail, the story or messaging, the headline or description length – the possibilities can seem endless. Just like any other ad or test, you’ll want to test one variable at a time to determine any specific lifts in performance from each aspect.

Via Neil Patel

You’ll also want statistically significant results, just like you would for any valid test. There are many tools out there to help you determine statistical significance, like the Kissmetrics/Neil Patel tool or VWO’s tool.

Via Ad Espresso

19. Performance

If your ads are generating views and clicks but no conversions, your ad and landing page may be asymmetrical in terms of what is promised and what is actually being delivered. Or, your landing page might just suck.

If your video has lots of views but no clicks, the video could suck. Analyzing the performance of your videos goes hand-in-hand with creating insights from data to come up creative to challenge and exceed the performance of your previous ads. Rinse and repeat.

Also, test video performance on other platforms, like YouTube, to determine how they do before you run them as ads. Use video content that has worked organically.

20. Fullscreen Canvas

Canvas ads by Facebook are a really unique format that capitalizes on the full screen experience with a focus on mobile. (I would just optimize my brain to perk up my ears anytime something is ‘optimized for mobile’ moving forward – it is that important!).

Canvas ads have specialty drag and drop templates that allow you to put your assets within the ad format to get conversions and other engagements from your audience without them having to click away to your website. This is mutually beneficial for you and Facebook, just like their lead ads can be.

For Ecommerce companies, you can promote products for shoppers to buy through a catalog and drive sales for your business.

21. Bidding

Use CPM bidding to maximize impressions and your ad will be optimized to show to users who have the best chance of watching at least 10 seconds of your video or most of it, whichever comes first. CPM videos also have a better shot of auto-playing, which is good for you when going up against attention-depleted audiences.

22. Targeting

Facebook video ad targeting is exactly the same as the targeting for all of their other ads, so you have the same powerful tools at your fingertips. If you know your buyer persona well, you should have no trouble targeting the right audience for your video ads. Using tools like Audience Insights is ideal, just like with all the other ad types available on Facebook.

Via Neil Patel

Buyer personas also inform the video content that will be most engaging to a particular audience. Indeed, targeting and content feed off each other to synergistically produce mutually beneficial outcomes.

23. Call-To-Action

You get a headline and link description – albeit short ones. Always use them try to fit in the CTA, even if you’re only advertising for awareness. We have mentioned before to include the CTA in the middle of the ad, but it’s always worth repeating: have a CTA and make sure you reiterate it throughout the elements of your video ad!

All ads need a CTA. You want to give your ad a chance to give you a return. If you don’t include a CTA, you definitely won’t get a return on your ad through an action.

24. Page Insights Graph

The Page Insights Graph can show the interest of users in various parts of the video so you can better measure what is working for you.

25. Video Editing Apps For Quality

Producing videos for Facebook – especially if you’re optimizing for mobile – requires consideration of dimension and scale. Play with zoom, crop and overall visual composition to make sure that your story is told well on a small screen.

There are various editing apps that can make even the most amateur video makers into seeming professionals these days. Have you not seen those ‘made on iPhone advertisements’?

A Final Word

As you can see, video advertising on Facebook is not too different than any other advertising on Facebook. Videos are just another ad type with various aspects that need to be optimized to maximize engagement. Focus on short and focused videos with clear objectives and a CTA, and continually test. Videos are a big investment, but worth it if you do it right so you can maximize your investment and grow your business.