Your Introduction to Facebook Collection Ads

There’s more than one way to advertise on Facebook.

With more than 1 billion users to reach, Facebook wants to ensure that brands can connect with clients in the way that’s right for them.

Sometimes, that means investing in carousel ads that give your customers a better view of your top-selling products.

Other times, you’ll find that video and targeted Messenger ads will work best for you.

Today, we’re going to look at one of the Facebook ad types that has the biggest impact on mobile users. Collection ads are similar to carousel ads because they showcase various products at once. The biggest difference is that the collection ad is tailored to mobile users.

Defining the Facebook Collection Ad

Collection ads are one of the few ad types from Facebook with a mobile-only format. These advertisements appear on your customer’s screen when they’re scrolling through Facebook on a smartphone. As soon as someone taps on a collection ad, they visit an optimized full-screen experience supported by Facebook Instant Experience.

Facebook Instant Experience is a service offered by Google to help you engage with your audience through full-screen ads, without asking them to click away from Facebook.

Your collection ad will usually include a cover image or video, as well as a collection of product images. You can use this kind of ad to generate intent by pairing pictures with relevant messages that engage your audience.

Alternatively, collection ads can be a great way to nurture intent by showing customers the products they might like based on previous searches. You can even send people straight to a landing page from a collection ad.

Facebook Collection Ad Specs

Most collection ads on Facebook feature a video or cover image, and four product images. You can feature only 3 product images on Instagram. Here are the guidelines you need to know:

• Ad copy: Maximum of 25 characters (appears above the product images)
• Body text: 90 characters (appears above the main collection)
• Video aspect ratio: 1:1
• Video compression: H.264
• Image aspect radio: 1:9:1
• Image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
• Slideshow aspect radio: 16:9 OR 1:1

Facebook also has templates to get you started. You can use things like Instant Storefront to create something similar to a product page on your store.

On the other hand, a LookBook template is a more engaging template where you show off your products in action. This is a good choice for brand storytelling. Instant customer acquisition templates work like a mini landing page on Facebook:

Alternatively, Instant storytelling ads have a heavier focus on video.

Benefits of Facebook Collection Ads

So, why use collection ads as your go-to for Facebook promotion?

The obvious answer is that people are more active on mobile today than ever before. Mobile accounts for the largest share of online traffic (53% of internet usage).

The trouble is most companies have struggled to take advantage of mobile as an advertising platform. People usually want more information than you can deliver through a basic Facebook ad when they’re looking for products to purchase.

A collection ad is an opportunity for you to give your customers access to all the information they need to buy something, without leaving Facebook.

Facebook ads are particularly valuable for Beauty and Fashion companies. Just check out this case study for Sephora.

Using collection ads, Sephora managed to drive a 32% higher ROAS than any other previous digital campaign. The beauty brand also got a 41% higher clickthrough rate and a 30% increase in reach.

Best Practices for Facebook Collection Ads

Facebook collection ads are an excellent choice for any company with a visual brand. If you want to spread brand awareness, earn more conversion opportunities, and generate intent, a collection ad can help. While beauty and fashion brands are better suited to these kinds of visual ads, almost any company can see benefits with the right strategy.

Fortunately, we have some tips to help you set up your campaign.

Create Themed Ads

A good theme is a great way to make your ads seem more professional.

For instance, if you decide to launch a Facebook collection ad as a growing fashion company, it makes sense to focus on one thing at a time.

Rather than just posting a collection of your top-selling items in ad-format, think about making a collection ad for your boots, t-shirts, and accessories separately.

Themed ads that focus on specific products and services are also a great way to target more specific audiences on Facebook.

Look at this collection ad from Zales, for instance. The company has a wide selection of jewelry pieces to sell, but in this ad, they focus on styles that come from Disney live-action movies. By focusing on a smaller niche, Zales can create more engaging ads for relevant customers.

Look at the user personas and target audiences you’re trying to appeal to right now. You can create a new collection ad for every one of your personas.

Choose the Right Products to Promote

You can only promote a handful of your products in each collection ad. At the same time, you should only really be running a few collection ads at once. Too many advertisements can end up driving customers away from your Facebook profile.

With that in mind, it’s worth thinking carefully about which products you’re going to promote. Seasonal choices might make a lot of sense for some companies. For instance, in the case of a fashion brand, it would make sense to advertise swimsuits and sandals around the summer months.

If the seasons don’t affect your brand much, think about other things that might influence what you need to share. For instance, what are your top-selling products right now? Do you have any sales or discounts that you want to promote?

Keep an eye on where the buzz is happening in your industry too. For instance, Williams Sonoma promoted their Star Wars-themed collection as people awaited the last movie in the franchise:

Make the Most of Video

There are about 8 billion videos on Facebook.

Your social media followers on Facebook like seeing visual content. However, they also want access to plenty of information about your products and services. While a picture can convey some detail, you can get a lot more of a message across with video.

Fortunately, Collection ads give you the option to use video as your featured media. This means that a video shows instead of a “cover image” for your collection. Video covers, like this one from Lunya, give your customers an insight into what your brand can offer:

Remember, the best videos on Facebook are the ones that don’t rely too heavily on audio. Many of your customers won’t have their sound switched on when they’re scrolling through Facebook.

Videos also need to capture audience attention immediately. Try using color and visual interest to pull your audience straight to your video while they’re scrolling.

Add UGC for Social Proof

Collection ads are great for businesses interested in Facebook ads. One of the reasons that these ads are so effective, is that they let you share a lot more information than a standard Facebook advertisement. However, you still need to find a way of getting your customers to trust you.

One excellent way of doing that is to add user-generated content to your Facebook ads. You can include people’s feedback on the pictures shown as part of your collection. Alternatively, why not showcase your fans wearing and using your products?

Tieks takes a slightly different approach to the social proof strategy here. The main cover image includes a testimonial, while the pictures listed with the collection show off the products available:

The great thing about collection ads is that if your customer decides that they want to check out your product for themselves, they can just click on the ad.

Explore Retargeting and External Links

As mentioned above, you can use collection ads in a variety of ways to grow your brand on Facebook. One of the best options is to direct people to a landing page on your website as soon as they click on your ad.

To make sure that you’re boosting your chances of conversions, experiment with different kinds of landing and sales pages. You might find that a more straightforward page leads to more conversions. Alternatively, you might need to change your offer or research different CTA button styles.

Aside from experimenting with your landing pages, remember that you can also boost your chances of conversion by reaching out to a customer more than once. While collection ads do have good conversion rates, not everyone who visits your site will want to buy straight away.

Using Facebook retargeting strategies, you can create a second chance at a sale. Building custom audiences will allow you to remind your audience why they were interested in your product in the first place. The Me + EM brand used this method to re-target customers with relevant ads based on what they saw when visiting the company website.

Keep Testing and Improving your Facebook Ads

Collection ads are a powerful tool, particularly for visual companies.

With the right collection, you can instantly grab customer attention, and convey useful information that guides your prospect along the sales funnel. However, just like any other kind of Facebook ad, it’s essential to make sure you’re constantly optimizing and improving.

Test your headlines, offers, ad copy, cover visuals and product images to see what works best. You might even need to rethink your target audience from time to time.

Need some extra help getting started? Reach out to the Graygency today.