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Facebook Ads Formats: A Guide for 2022

Vlad Falin on October 21, 2022

Facebook rose to the top of the social media food chain thanks to its user-friendly interface and ability to keep people connected.

Over time, it’s plowed millions – if not billions – of dollars into perfecting a sophisticated advertising ecosystem to help brands reach Facebook users.

The end result is a system that’s powerful, convenient, and, most importantly, converting.

But if you’re going to use Facebook advertising, you’re going to have to make yourself competitive.

That means optimizing every detail of your advertisements, from the recommended specs to choosing the right Facebook ad formats for every goal, as well as knowing Facebook Ads best practices!

With our handy Facebook ads guide, you can get there in no time.

Facebook Ad Format Considerations: Technical Aspects

Before we go diving into Facebook ad formats and the best technical specs, we need to cover a few quick terms. (We promise this will be short…ish.)

Facebook Ad Objectives

Your advertising objective determines the different ad formats you can use, as well as where your ad appears across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and the Audience Network. You can choose your advertising objectives through the Facebook Ads Manager.

Awareness Objectives

Awareness objectives increase awareness of, and interest in, your brand and products. The greater your brand awareness, the further your reach. Some of the ad objectives that fit into the Brand Awareness niche include:

  • Brand Awareness: This namesake objective is optimized explicitly to obtain views from people in your target audience or niche.
  • Reach: These Facebook ads work by putting your ad in front of the most unique users possible.
  • Video Views: Video ads are centered around increasing everything from engagement to conversions. Typically, videos between 10 seconds and 2 minutes see the best results.

Store Traffic: This Facebook ad type is designed to target people by location and offer incentives to bring them into brick-and-mortar stores.

Traffic Objectives

Traffic objectives attempt to increase traffic to your chosen online destination, such as your Facebook Page, business website, or app.

Currently, there’s only one objective that fits under this banner: Traffic.

Engagement Objectives

Engagement objectives aim to target those consumers most likely to engage with your business through messaging, Facebook likes, or website purchases. Some examples of these ad objectives include:

  • Engagement: This Facebook ad type engages your target audience through Post Engagement, Facebook Page Likes, or Event Responses, depending on your campaign’s goals

Messages: Message-based campaigns allow you to use Facebook’s messaging features to promote your website or blog, ask about product experiences, or even extend your email campaigns.

Lead Generation Objectives

Lead generation objectives are designed to collect leads via messages or signups.

While several ad objectives fit into the bucket, there’s one primary objective: Lead Generation:

Under this objective, Facebook ads aim to collect email addresses right in-house, potentially increasing your lead generation potential.

App Promotions

App promotion objectives aim to boost the number of app installs you see.

Currently, there’s only one objective under this banner: App Installs.

These Facebook ad types target mobile users to encourage app downloads, registrations, and logins.

Sales Objectives

Sales ad objectives find people to purchase from your brand. Currently, two objectives fall under this umbrella:

  • Conversions: These Facebook ads are built to generate leads, capture information, and drive consumers to your website.
  • Catalog Sales: Catalog sales ads allow you to sell catalog items right on Facebook, decreasing friction and increasing sales.

File Sizes and Formats

Every kind of Facebook ad format supports a range of file sizes and types. Optimizing the file size within Facebook’s limit ensures that your files upload properly and appear crisp and clear. If your file type isn’t supported, you can’t run your Facebook ads at all.

Aspect Ratios

Aspect ratios determine how your image fits on the page based on pixel dimensions.

For instance, a 1,600×900 pixel image falls under the 16:9 aspect ratio. An image that’s 1,600×1,600 pixels fits into the 1:1 aspect ratio.

While you can measure your image sizes by both pixels and aspect ratios, understanding the difference can help you better optimize your ads (particularly for mobile devices). 

The Role of Facebook Ads Manager

Facebook Ads Manager is a Facebook tool that allows you to launch various Facebook ad campaigns and gain insightful, actionable information about their performance. You can measure various metrics and customize your reporting needs in-house.

Plus, you can use the Facebook Ads Manager to launch or alter specific campaigns, from your ad objectives to file sizes to Facebook ad placements.

What are the 5 Main Facebook Ad Formats?

Facebook advertising offers over a dozen ad types, many of which target specific niches or user types. Ultimately, they all boil down to rearranging or dissecting the following five:

  • Facebook Image Ads
  • Facebook Video Ads
  • Facebook Carousel Ads
  • Facebook Instant Experiences Ads
  • Facebook Collections Ads

Facebook Image Ads

Facebook photo ads help you showcase your product, service, or brand with a single image and optional footer. You can create an image ad with Facebook Ads Manager or by boosting an existing post.

The image ad format is ideal for:

  • Increasing interest and awareness of your brand, products, or services
  • Pushing a unified message about your brand
  • Driving website traffic and conversions

Recommended Specs for Image Ads

Design Specs

  • Image File Type: JPG or PNG
  • Ratio: 1:9.1 to 1:1 (with link) or 9:16 to 16:9 (no link)
  • Resolution: At least 1080×1080 pixels

Text Specs

  • Primary Text: 125 characters
  • Headline Text: 27 characters
  • Link Description Text: 27 characters

Technical Requirements:

  • Maximum Image File Size: 30MB
  • Minimum Width and Height: 600×600 pixels
  • Aspect Ratio Tolerance: 3%

Available Marketing Objectives for Image Ads

  • App installs
  • Brand awareness
  • Catalog sales
  • Conversions
  • Engagement
  • Lead generation
  • Messages
  • Reach
  • Store traffic
  • Traffic

Available Placements for Image Ads

Facebook Ads:

  • Instant Articles
  • In-Stream Videos
  • Marketplace
  • News Feed
  • Right Column Ads
  • Search Results
  • Stories

Instagram Ads:

  • Explore
  • Feed
  • Stories

Messenger Ads:

  • Inbox
  • Sponsored Message
  • Stories

Audience Network Ads:

  • Banner
  • Interstitial
  • Native

Supported Device Types

  • All

Quick Tips to Perfect Your Image Ads

  • Focus your message
  • Show your brand or logo
  • Use high-resolution images
  • Keep text under 20% and in a clean, modern font
  • Picture compelling subjects like arrangements, displays, or people

Facebook Video Ads

Video ads catch scrollers’ eyes with bright colors and movement that inspire views, clicks, and conversions. Facebook even offers the ability to turn images into quick-paced ads for extra oomph with less effort.

You can use the video ad format to:

  • Show off your brand, products, or services
  • Tell a story
  • Illustrate unique features about your brand or products
  • Quickly capture consumers’ attention
  • Deliver a clear, concise message

Recommended Specs for Video Ads

Design Specs

  • Video File Type: MP4, MOV or GIF (multiple accepted)
  • Ratio: 1:1 for desktop or mobile, or 16:9 to 9:16 for mobile only (optimized at 4:5)
  • Resolution: at least 1080×1080 pixels
  • Captions and Sound: Optional (but recommended)

Text Specs

  • Primary Text: 125 characters
  • Headline Text: 27 characters
  • Link Description Text: 27 characters

Technical Requirements:

  • Maximum Video File Size: 4GB
  • Video Duration: 1 second to 241 minutes, depending on placement
  • Minimum Width and Height: 120×120 pixels
  • No letter or pillar boxing (black bars)

Available Marketing Objectives for Videos Ads

  • App installs
  • Brand awareness
  • Catalog sales
  • Conversions
  • Engagement
  • Lead generation
  • Messages
  • Reach
  • Store traffic
  • Traffic
  • Video views

Available Placements for Videos Ads

Facebook Ads:

  • Instant Articles
  • In-Stream Video
  • Marketplace
  • News Feed
  • Search Results
  • Stories
  • Video Feeds 

Instagram Ads:

  • Explore
  • Feed
  • Stories

Messenger Ads:

  • Stories

Audience Network Ads:

  • Banner
  • Interstitial
  • Native
  • Reward Videos

Supported Device Types

  • All 

Quick Tips to Perfect Your Video Ads

  • Keep videos between 15 seconds and 2 minutes to enhance engagement
  • Use vertical or square compositions
  • Feature your brand message or product(s) early
  • Design for sound off (e.g., using captions) to increase reach and view time
  • Upload the highest resolution possible

Facebook Carousel Ads

Carousel ads combine up to 10 images or videos that users can click or swipe through. Each “slide” in the carousel has its own headline, description, link, and call-to-action.

You can use the carousel ad format to:

  • Feature multiple products and individual landing pages
  • Highlight multiple features of a single product
  • Offer greater value for your money and users’ time
  • Explain a process, story, or even recipe step-by-step
  • Create a larger canvas ad using all your cards together

Recommended Specs for Carousel Ads

Design Specs

  • Image File Type: JPG or PNG
  • Video File Type: MP4, MOV or GIF (multiple accepted)
  • Ratio: 1:1
  • Resolution: At least 1080×1080 pixels
  • Captions and Sound: Recommended for videos

Text Specs

  • Primary Text: 125 characters
  • Headline Text: 32 characters
  • Link Description Text: 18 characters (optional on Instant Articles)
  • Landing Page URL: Required

Technical Requirements:

  • Number of Carousel Cards: 2-10
  • Maximum Image File Size: 30MB
  • Maximum Video File Size: 4GB
  • Video Duration: 1 second to 240 minutes (2 minutes on Instagram)
  • Minimum Width and Height: 600×600 pixels
  • Aspect Ratio Tolerance: 3%

Available Marketing Objectives for Carousel Ads

  • App installs
  • Brand awareness
  • Catalog sales
  • Conversions
  • Lead generation
  • Messages
  • Reach
  • Traffic

Available Placements for Carousel Ads

Facebook Ads:

  • Instant Articles
  • In-Stream Video
  • Marketplace
  • News Feed
  • Right Column
  • Search Results
  • Stories

Instagram Ads:

  • Feed
  • Stories

Messenger Ads:

  • Inbox

Audience Network Ads:

  • Banner
  • Interstitial
  • Native

Supported Device Types

  • All

Quick Tips to Perfect Your Carousel Ad

  • Use engaging, aesthetically blended images and videos
  • Consider GIFs or shorter videos over longer-form content
  • Provide multiple links to promote multiple products or services
  • Use all available components (headlines, links, CTA buttons) to maximize efficacy
  • Showcase a product range, series, or brand narrative

Facebook Collection Ads

Facebook collection ads feature multiple products, images, or videos at once. Each collection ad boasts a cover image or video, with multiple images or videos highlighted beneath.

The collection ads format automatically opens as an Instant Experience (highlighted below). With this Facebook ad type, customers can peruse and purchase products from their phones.

You can use the collection ad format to:

  • Enhance users’ mobile browsing experience
  • Showcase your product catalog
  • Convert browsers into buyers with well-placed CTAs

Recommended Specs for Collection Ads

Design Specs

  • Image File Type: JPG or PNG
  • Video File Type: MP4, MOV, or GIF recommended
  • Ratio: 1.91:1 to 4:5 (optimized at 1:1) or 9:16 for landscape
  • Resolution: 600×600 pixels
  • Captions and Sound: Optional, but recommended (for video)

Text Specs

  • Primary Text: 125 characters
  • Headline Text: 40 characters
  • Landing Page URL: Required

Technical Requirements:

  • Instant Experience: Required
  • Maximum Image File Size: 30MB
  • Maximum Video File Size: 4GB
  • Video Duration: Recommended under 2 minutes, but maximum 120 minutes
  • Minimum Width and Height: 600×600 pixels (for images) or 1200×628 pixels (for video)

Available Marketing Objectives for Collection Ads

  • App installs
  • Brand awareness
  • Conversions
  • Engagement
  • Reach
  • Store traffic
  • Traffic
  • Video views

Available Placements for Collection Ads

Facebook:

  • In-Stream Video
  • Mobile News Feed

Instagram:

  • Feed
  • Stories

Supported Device Types

  • Mobile-only

Quick Tips to Perfect Your Collection Ad

  • Use a product set of 50 or more to increase ad variety
  • Utilize Facebook’s dynamic product selection for better results
  • Use CTAs that link to well-stocked landing pages to encourage exploration and conversions
  • Add URL parameters to track traffic flow

Facebook Instant Experiences Ads

Instant Experiences, formerly Canvas ads, offer a full-screen, mobile-only experience that’s perfect for highlighting your brand or products. These ads load instantly, cutting down on bounces, and work with a single image, video, carousel, and collection ads.

You can use the Instant Experiences ad format to:

  • Capture your audience’s attention
  • Tell a story
  • Highlight products and services
  • Increase content value by linking multiple Instant Experiences together

Recommended Specs for Instant Experiences Ads

Design Specs

  • Image File Type: JPG or PNG
  • Video File Type: MP4 or MOV
  • Ratio: Varies by Instant Experience selection
  • Resolution: At least 1080×1080 pixels
  • Captions and Sound: Recommended for videos

Text Specs

  • Primary Text: 125 characters
  • Headline Text: 27 characters 

Technical Requirements:

  • Maximum Image File Size: 30MG
  • Maximum Video File Size: 4GB
  • Video Duration: 2 minutes
  • Minimum Width and Height: Fit to width and length

Available Marketing Objectives for Instant Experiences Ads

  • App installs
  • Brand awareness
  • Conversions
  • Engagement
  • Reach
  • Store traffic
  • Traffic
  • Video views

Available Placements for Instant Experiences Ads

  • Available placements change according to ad format

Single Image Ads or Video Ads

Facebook Ads:

  • Group Feed
  • Marketplace
  • News Feed
  • Search results
  • Stories

Instagram Ads:

  • Explore
  • Feed Stories

Carousel Ads

Facebook Ads:

  • Marketplace
  • News Feed
  • Search results
  • Stories

Instagram Ads:

  • Feed
  • Explore

Collection Ads

Facebook Ads:

  • Marketplace
  • News Feed

Instagram Ads:

  • Explore
  • Feed

Supported Device Types

  • Mobile-only

Quick Tips to Perfect Your Instant Experience Ad

  • Showcase your brand early
  • Combine images, videos, and text to increase engagement
  • Reuse or repurpose existing ad materials
  • Highlight your product diversity
  • Include CTAs (and the right CTAs) to drive traffic and conversions

Key Takeaways: The Best Facebook Ad Format

By and large, images remain one of the top contenders for the best Facebook ad format by sheer usage.

However, video ads have proven to be an incredibly popular and competitive niche – when done right, that is.

Once you have these Facebook ad formats down, you can readily expand into a carousel, collection, and Instant Experience ads with ease. You can even use existing ads to combine old or build new content to spread your brand with a new Facebook ad campaign.

Overall, that means the best Facebook ads are the ones that bring in the big bucks for your business.

Many brands start with images for their ease and cost-effectiveness and spread into video ads as they grow.

As you grow more comfortable with your advertising skills, soon, you can spread your wings and fly into new types of Facebook ads in no time.

How to Repurpose Your Social Media Content in Email Campaigns

Hollie Youlden on October 21, 2022

Producing quality content takes time. And with businesses stretched thin, keeping up with the demands of running multiple campaigns across multiple channels can easily leave you feeling stressed and frustrated. 

But the great thing about content is that it can be repurposed. The content you produce for social media can work beautifully in your email marketing campaigns too. 

And we’re going to look at how content repurposing can make your email marketing even better.

Five ways to use your social media content in emails

 1. Showcase user-generated content (UGC)

Social media is a great place to find images created by your very own customers (known as user-generated content or UGC for short).  

If you sell a physical product, such as a clothing brand or homeware, there’s a good chance that loyal customers might photograph what they’ve bought from you and share the images on social media. 

You can encourage more customers to do this by asking recent purchasers to tag photos of your product on Instagram. It can also work on Facebook and Twitter too.

Offering an incentive or running a giveaway is one effective way to generate more user-generated content. For example, you could award vouchers to the best image tagged on Instagram. 

For a masterclass on how to use UGC, look at the marketing materials of the underwear brand MeUndies. They’ve grown an active community of over 406k followers on Instagram thanks to their fun and racy content.

But much of this content is user-generated – customers and influencers alike are posting thousands of selfies showing their MeUndies underwear. In fact, there are over 32,000 posts with #meundies on Instagram. 

Image source: Instagram

And MeUndies has put this user-generated content to extra use by including some of the most popular Instagram images in their email marketing campaigns.

Image source: ReallyGoodEmails

The only images in this email are images created by customers and influencers on Instagram. This not only showcases the MeUndies products but also encourages subscribers to follow MeUndies on Instagram. 

Plus, featuring UGC is an effective form of social proof – potential customers see other happy customers wearing MeUndies underwear and that helps bring them closer to buying their own.

2. Use your social media feed and images in your email templates

Images are an important part of good email design. But producing high-quality images can be time-consuming and expensive. 

To save on time and cost, use images and link your feed from your social media accounts in your email templates. 

When you add your social media feed into your email, it encourages your subscribers to engage with your brand in multiple ways, as well as allows them to view your brand from new perspectives. Especially if you have a heavily visual type of business, such as jewelry.

Images from Instagram and Pinterest can be used to create newsletter headers. Here’s an example from the wellness brand Well + Good:

Images and takeaways from any webinars you are a part of are also great to add into your email template. By showing yourself in the light of leadership and community, you are positioning yourself in a trusting way while also providing visuals and value to your subscribers.

Well+Good used images from their Instagram account to form the header in their welcome email. The color palettes and subject matter of these images are typical of the images Well + Good posts on Instagram.

And this synchronicity between their social media and email marketing helps foster a stronger brand image and awareness – subscribers will more easily recognize content produced by Well + Good. 

Brand awareness – the degree to which consumers recognize your brand, product, or service – helps keep your business top-of-mind so that when consumers are ready to buy, they’ll think of you first. 

Image source: ReallyGoodEmails

Creating a strong brand image across your various marketing channels will help your audience become even more familiar with your offering. 

But it’s not just the email header where you can use social media images – you can also use them in the email footer. The bottom of an email is the perfect place to mention your social media channels and encourage subscribers to become followers. And using content from your social media channels will show subscribers what they can look forward to when they follow you. 

Here’s an example from the women’s health brand Hers:

At the bottom of their email, they’ve included a grid of images taken from Instagram alongside a call-to-action of ‘follow us’. 

With headers and footers like these, you can create email templates so that you don’t have to start from scratch with each new campaign. 

Tailwind’s social media & email management platform helps you do email and social media marketing all-in-one, including free email templates to efficiently and seamlessly run your email marketing campaigns. Sign up for a FOREVER FREE plan below!

Image source: ReallyGoodEmails

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3. Create an email from existing social media creative 

As well as using social media images to create headers and footers for your email templates, you can also use more elaborate social media content to design one entire email. 

Here’s an example from shaving brand Harry’s to illustrate the point:

This email promotes the three different scents available for Harry’s bar soap and body wash. And it’s done using eye-catching illustrations that are also featured on their Instagram account as animated GIFs.

A lot of work would have gone into designing the animated GIF for Instagram. So it makes sense to repurpose this content across other channels – not only does it save time, but it also saves money.

Rather than having to design fresh content for an email campaign, Harry’s has simply reformatted existing content to suit the format of the email. 

Another bonus of this is that it ensures this particular campaign reaches Harry’s audience wherever they might be – on Instagram or email.

In case followers missed the post on Instagram, they’ll receive an email promoting the same products as well. 

If you’ve ever found yourself looking at a blank template in your email marketing tool wondering what content to fill it with, take a look through your social media posts and steal your most attention-grabbing designs.  

 

Image source: Really Good Emails

4. Round up your most popular posts

If content is trending with your social media followers, there’s a good chance your email subscribers will appreciate the content too. So consider sharing your most popular social media posts in an email. 

Using the analytics in your social media accounts, such as Instagram and Pinterest, or in your scheduling tool, find the posts that are getting the most likes and comments. And then curate a collection in an email campaign. 

If you can theme the images, even better, as you can then link to related product pages on your website to drive sales. 

Here’s how clothing brand Urban Outfitters does it:

In this email Urban Outfitters has rounded up its most-liked Instagram posts. And each image shows off an Urban Outfitters product, from dresses to trainers. 

Image source: ReallyGoodEmails

This is another example of using user-generated content and each image includes the handle of the Instagrammer that created the content. It has the added bonus of encouraging email subscribers to create more UGC – when they see that others have had their Instagram posts featured in an email campaign, they’ll be inspired to seek their own ‘five minutes of fame’ by submitting similar content for Urban Outfitters to feature in their next campaign. 

Though you don’t have to use UGC – you can round up your own social media content too. Urban Outfitters sent a similar email to their subscribers rounding up their most-pinned items on Pinterest. 

4. Share social media polls and survey results

Adding polls and surveys to social media posts is one surefire way to boost engagement. For example, you can use Instagram Polls to ask your followers about their preferences – it’s easy for them to respond, and it provides you with valuable insights into your customers’ wants and needs. 

But a social media poll’s usefulness doesn’t end there because you can use the results to create emails that evoke curiosity among your subscribers. 

Here’s another example from Hers:

In this email, Hers presents the results of a survey that tells their audience what’s popular and what was most voted for. Granted, the survey was most likely sent via email. But it’s a good example of how to use survey results to create an email. 

Social media polls can also give you insights into what’s popular with your audience.

Image source: ReallyGoodEmails

Of course, you can also run social media polls as a survey via email and collect results across multiple channels. This will give you even more results to later share with your audience. 

6. Include social media testimonials

Including customer testimonials pulled from your social media accounts can provide that all-important social proof to help convert subscribers into customers. 

Here’s an example from deal finder site Scott’s Cheap Flights:

The goal of this email is to persuade the audience to sign up for a free trial of the premium membership. And by including a few customer testimonials from Twitter, Scott’s Cheap Flights assure potential trialists that they won’t regret the decision. 

Using testimonials like this is a great way to show off the benefits of your product or service, in the actual words of your customers. It helps build confidence among prospective customers who will take these testimonials as proof that your product or service is trustworthy. 

Image source: ReallyGoodEmails

And thankfully social media testimonials are easy to collect – simply search posts you’ve been tagged in and pick the most positive ones. If you’re low on social media testimonials, use one of these 25 proven ways to get more customer reviews on social media. 

Wrapping up

Constantly having to come up with new ideas for email marketing campaigns can be frustrating. But by repurposing existing social media content, you can save time, money, and your sanity. 

So when you’re next looking at a blank email template, wondering what to send to your subscribers, remember to:

  • Keep an eye on your most popular social media posts to better understand your audience and use these insights to decide what content to include in your emails. 
  • Collect user-generated content to give you a broader catalog of images and provide social proof to customers who might be sitting on the fence. 
  • Make your best social media content work harder by creating email templates and entire email campaigns from it – deliver the same message with consistent design across multiple channels to make sure it’s seen and heard. 

Repurposing content is just one way to integrate social media with your email marketing. And when done well, each channel feeds into the other, giving you greater reach, increased engagement, and more opportunities for conversions. 

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FAQ

What is content repurposing?

Content repurposing is a common marketing tool in which you take already existing content, such as your social media content, and recycle it into a new format suitable for another one of your business’s marketing channels, such as email!

Why repurpose your content for email?

Many marketers and business owners understand that “content is king”. However, having to constantly come up with and create new content for every marketing channel is extremely challenging and time-consuming. By repurposing your content you are saving yourself and your employees time and energy to use on other initiatives.

How do you write good email content from your social media content?

The important thing to remember is that your social media marketing and your email marketing are very different. You can’t simply copy and paste your social media content into an email template and call it good. The best way to write good email content from your social media content is to reformat it. This can be expanding on sections or shortening them, adding links, reworking or removing images, and trying to avoid copying all of the content verbatim, as your email list will likely notice.

Ever wondered if you could repurpose social media campaigns in your emails? The answer is yes - and here's how.