Facebook is the most extensive social media network in the world, which makes it the perfect advertising environment. Many things go into a successful advertisement, and Facebook Ad placement strategy is one of the most important ones.
The places where your advertisements show up are called placements. Depending on the overall objective you choose when you create the Facebook advertising campaign, your ads can appear anywhere on Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and Audience Network.
Putting your advertisements in the right places can significantly impact your click-through rates (CTRs) by a significant margin, sometimes up to 400%. Furthermore, it can make the price of your advertisement skyrocket, which is also an important metric to take into account.
Higher CTRs are treated as higher conversion rates, so the difference in conversion can be very prominent in different kinds of Facebook Ad Placements.
Contents
In this section, we’ll cover all the different kinds of Facebook Ad Placements. We’ll talk about them in-depth and give a thorough explanation of what each one is, what it does, and how it works.
Newsfeed ads are one of the most popular types of Facebook ads. This Facebook Ad placement strategy is ideal for attracting attention because it occupies the most significant Facebook page’s most considerable portion – the News Feed. This type of advertisement placement shows your content to your targeted demographic while they browse the website.
The ads are beneficial as they promote conversion-friendly desktop browsers that tend to follow through more than their mobile counterparts. Newsfeed ads have a far better CTR and lower cost-per-conversion rate than most other types of ads, such as suitable column ads, making it ideal to introduce your brand, service, or product to new people.
Right column ads are another very sought-after type of advertisement in Facebook’s marketing environment. While Facebook has significantly decreased the size of their column ads with their UI revamp, right column ads still see a lot of engagement, and they’re best when combined with news feed ads.
Sadly, right Column Ads are pretty pricey, especially compared to News Feed ads, which arguably perform better.
They don’t offer CTA buttons and occupy a smaller amount of space on Facebook’s UI. However, they can be pretty useful, especially if generating conversions is not your primary goal. They’re a fantastic and cost-effective way to reach a broader audience, especially when combined with targeted and retargeted advertisements.
It might surprise you to know, but smartphones account for more internet traffic than desktops, making mobile feed advertisement an insanely powerful Facebook Ad placement strategy. Mobile feeds are just like news feeds, but they’re optimised for smart devices.
They’re a very effective way to raise brand awareness and promote conversions. While mobile is less likely to result in conversions than desktop, it’s still great for promoting your brand.
Mobile news feed ads are great if you’re looking for longevity. Mobile is gaining more popularity, and it’s only going to get more popular. Now, with some clever targeting, you can boost engagement, augment likes, and encourage mobile users to interact with your advertisements by installing your app – or even sell eCommerce products.
Many eCommerce products that are seen on mobile news feeds are later purchased on desktops, making this Facebook ad placement strategy great for eCommerce. Good mobile feed ads are always going to be some sort of product and service. Good mobile feed ads always have a visual element to them as well as a price and “buy now” button. Amazon, AliExpress, and GearBeast are well known for their mobile feed ads.
Instant Articles are the go-to ad placement method if you want to deliver a lot of information subtly. They’re presented in a mobile-only format that is essentially an entire web page that features articles with images and videos that load up fast.
This Facebook Ad placement strategy is not known for its conversion rates, but it is instrumental since it pop up directly in the news feeds – keeping everything centralised on Facebook’s mobile platform.
They’re fantastic remarketing tools that are far more affordable than most of the other placements, and they allow you to create an additional touchpoint in the Facebook sales funnel.
These advertisements load up ten times faster than other ads, significantly diminishing bounce rates, and support all kinds of different media such as Tweets, YouTube Videos, and images. Ads displayed in Instant Articles load ten times faster than regular web ads, allowing marketers to earn more from impressions and clicks.
They also allow media like YouTube videos, Tweets, and images and reactions from users themselves.
Another Facebook Ad placement strategy is In-stream videos. In-stream videos are a type of advertisement that runs between two other videos. They have three different placement options, which are pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll. These can be served on third-party websites linked to the Facebook Audience Network, which is beneficial for improving your reach.
However, these have relatively low conversion rates than other types of placement, and they also have a minuscule inventory.
It’s an outstanding placement if you’re looking to add a short 5-15 second midroll video advertisement. About 70% of people that see these ads will let them go on in their entirety, and these ads have a 10% more prominent reach than mobile news feed ads alone.
In-stream videos have a lower CPI (Cost Per Impression) than most other ad placements and are great for introducing people to your brand.
The next Facebook Ad placement strategy is Suggested videos. Suggested videos are a mobile-only advertisement placement that runs a prolonged feed of suggested videos. They play automatically once the video before them has finished, making them fantastic for improving brand awareness.
It’s a very natural and organic way to bring your company and video content to your target demographic, and it’s far less intrusive than other types of video ads. Since these are mobile-only, their targeted demographic is usually people who go with lower follow-through and click-through rates.
Be that as it may, suggested videos are still a fantastic way to increase post engagement, mobile app installs, video views, interaction, and brand awareness.
Marketplace advertisements are standard Facebook ads that show up on the marketplace for both mobile and desktop users. These kinds of Facebook Ad placement strategy are far more affordable alternative than Google and provide a fantastic way to connect people with the items they’re looking for.
Facebook marketplace advertisements are fairly new to many Facebook users, so they don’t provide nearly as many users as other marketplace ads such as those on Amazon and eBay.
Such placements are great for targeting users looking to buy rather than those who are just interested in the products. Marketplace ads allow you to reach people where they shop and offer them a side-by-side advertisement for products and services.
It’s one of the best placements for companies with a local demographic, especially for local brick-and-mortar locations.
Facebook Facebook Messenger is the second most popular messaging app globally, and it’s regularly used by 1.3 billion people every month. It’s safe to say that this is one of the better marketing platforms on the internet as a whole.
Home ads on Facebook Facebook Messenger are the most standard and typical ad placement on the platform. They are fantastic if you’re looking to reach customers instantly and keep a track record of the conversions and the response rates.
This Facebook Ad placement strategy allows you to instantly engage the customers without being annoying or intrusive and scaring off potential prospects.
Facebook Messenger home advertisements allow you to pick a destination for your CTAs, such as a website URL, link to applications, or even other places on Facebook Facebook Messenger.
They’re great if you’re looking to get into marketing yourself, as they allow you to start direct conversations with people who have interacted with your ads, allowing you to nurture a natural, meaningful, and lucrative business-to-customer relationship.
Sponsored messages are another very subtle but powerful way to get your products or services to the right people. They’re messages sent directly to people who have already engaged with your page. It’s a fantastic way to target Facebook users, and it takes up a significant portion of the screen, so it’s not easy to miss.
It’s instrumental if you’re looking to deliver custom messages to people that are looking to see them, and since it’s delivered directly to the inbox, making it a great Facebook ad placement strategy. It keeps everything on one neat, clean platform – and allows you to send messages 24/7 once the user has interacted.
Click to Facebook Messenger (CTM) advertisements appear on the Facebook or Instagram newsfeeds and display a CTA that’s labeled "send message" that will automatically pop up in the Facebook Messenger chat window when the ad is clicked. That’s a great way to communicate your brand, product, and services for people who seem to be interested in them.
The top perk of these advertisements is that they allow you to directly interact with your prospects, further building meaningful customer-to-business relationships. You can customise the UX for every user and automate more than a few aspects of your messaging campaign.
Furthermore, this Facebook ad placement strategy has the potential to cut down on the cost-per-lead (CPL), get customers to engage with your business, and make every interaction between you and the customer a named and registered contact.
Like Facebook, Instagram is a social media giant used by over one billion people monthly. What makes Instagram even more appealing is that Facebook owns it, and the advertising on these two platforms goes hand-in-hand.
Furthermore, advertisers have the option to allow their advertisements on both Facebook and Instagram. Since the two platforms are entwined, so are their advertising systems.
The Instagram feed is far different than the Facebook feed. The overwhelming majority of people who use Instagram use it on mobile, which means that ads like feed placements are mobile-exclusive. They’re great for driving engagement, especially when you’re advertising a visually unique or appealing product.
Another thing with Instagram is that the people there tend to interact and engage more than their Facebook counterparts, which is great news for engagement, CTAs, and interaction.
Instagram advertisement system is a bit less sophisticated than the one found on Facebook, which leaves marketers with a limited array of choices.
Instagram feed ads aren’t nearly as intrusive or annoying, which means that you can expect a far better result as long as you target them properly. They have a customisable CTA button and a great ROI to them. They’re ideal for brand awareness, as engagement is almost ten times better on Instagram than on Facebook.
Instagram stories are features that ushered in a whole new age of social media. Through Instagram stories, you can communicate your message in a non-intrusive, interactive, and modern way.
Advertisement stories vanish after 24 hours. They’re very affordable compared to other kinds of advertisement as they don’t last nearly as long – but they have a great track record of driving sales and engagement.
They’re good when targeted towards people that have already interacted with your brand on Facebook or Instagram, as they allow you to take advantage of their interest and messaging options, as well as CTA buttons. The CPCs are a bit higher, and the CTRs are a bit lower when compared to other placements, but the benefits of this method are still more than useful.
Almost a third of Instagram users (about 333 million) watch stories daily,, and about 20% of all business stories posted as advertisements result in direct interaction with regular users.
These ads are beneficial for advertising visually appealing products and services, such as fitness, fashion, retail, technology, automotive, travel, and food and drink. They’re discoverable, which means that people don’t have to follow you to get your advertisement, augmenting your reach significantly.
Sponsored Instagram stories will automatically have a "swipe up" button that allows you to include an outbound link to your story, adding substance to your Facebook ad placement strategy.
For organic traffic, the account you’re advertising from will need to have at least ten thousand followers for the “swipe up” function to appear.
The Audience Network is a network that supports app developers and helps you monetise your application across the Facebook advertising network.
Native, banner and interstitial advertisements are mobile-exclusive placements that run on websites that aren’t a part of Facebook’s platform. They’re a fantastic way to pump up your reach outside of Facebook and allow users to connect with your brand in other places, driving engagement and brand awareness.
These have a slightly lower conversion rate, mostly due to the relatively unqualified traffic they drive, leading to a higher CPA.
However, these placements have a lower cost per click (CPC), cost per lead (CPL), and cost per mille (CPM), or per thousand impressions, in comparison to most other placements in the Audience Network category. It’s an affordable way to engage targeted audiences across the internet, as they reach about 16% more than just people off of Facebook and Instagram.
Unlike the in-stream videos in the traditional scene, mid-roll video advertisements run in between two videos. It is a great way to format your digital advertising strategy and drive your users to connect with your brand, raising brand awareness.
This Facebook ad placement strategy relies heavily on your targeting, so you should work to target audiences that have already interacted with your brand in the past. If you do everything right, you can expect a fantastic increase in brand awareness, reach, and engagement.
Another Facebook ad placement strategy is Rewarded videos. Rewarded videos are a unique form of ad placement in the Audience Network. They’re opt-in mobile-exclusive advertisements with CTAs that reward gamers for watching them. These advertisements are aimed at giving gamers a reward within the game they’re playing by engaging with the video.
These ads aren’t that common. They tend to provide lower lifetime value, lower user engagement, and overall low-quality traffic compared to most other ad placements in the audience network.
However, suppose you’re a company that is tied to gaming or gamers. In that case, these kinds of advertisements outperform any other in-game advertisement format, have vastly better completion rates, and are easier to target.
People who start watching this kind of advertisement usually finish it, because without finishing it they don’t get the reward – giving you enough room to get your message across. Since these are opt-in advertisements, they’re non-intrusive and optional, raising your reputation with the person viewing the advertisement.
Any advertisement campaign worth its placement is going to have a well-established and defined campaign goal. Depending on the overall campaign’s goal, the Facebook ad placement strategy that you want to use for it will vary wildly.
Awareness campaigns are one of the most popular advertising campaigns out there, and they’re also the most versatile out of the lot. Any placement will work with any campaign aiming to raise brand reputation, recondition, and awareness.
If you’re working with a healthy and hefty budget, it’s always good to make more small audiences rather than only one. It increases the frequency of people coming on to your ads cross-platform. A good practice is to optimize the frequency of capping so people will see as much of it as possible, but try to do it in a way that isn’t intrusive or annoying.
Another type of awareness campaign is reach, and if you’re looking to reach as many people as possible, you’ll want to maximise your frequency capping. While this does require a bigger budget than most small companies are willing to spend, this Facebook ad placement strategy will significantly augment your placements and get more people on board with your product, brand, or services.
Another Facebook Ad placement strategy is the Consideration campaigns. Consideration campaigns are slightly more complex than awareness campaigns, as they consist of more campaign goals, such as:
Engagement is best when combined with automatic placements and then optimised for maximum performance. Traffic campaigns are good in almost all placement types outside of the audience network. If you’re looking for app installs, you’re pretty much left with exclusive mobile placements, which are found on the Audience network.
If you’re looking to ramp up the video views, any placement will work great with the exclusion of Facebook Messenger-based ones.
Generating leads is an art form, and the proper placement for it is anything but the audience network. The best one for generating leads is any placement that’s in newsfeeds. Messaging is the most restrictive consideration campaign goal, as you can only use Facebook Messenger placements.
Conversion campaigns are the most simple and straightforward out of the lot. Every kind of placement works well with conversion campaigns outside of the Audience Network.
If you’re looking for product catalog sales, the eBay choice will probably be the recommended one. Automatic options work great, but you should monitor them closely and optimize them if needed. The best way to determine if these are worth your while is by looking at CPAs.
Store visits are another popular goal of conversion campaigns, and they follow the same reasoning as product catalog sales – set them automatically but monitor them closely.
Advertisement placements will be one of the most important metrics that contribute to your advertisement campaign’s overall performance – it’s imperative to get them right all the time, every time.
If you’re looking to polish up on your advertisement placement skills, we’ve assembled a couple of quick insider tips that will let you take your ad placement skills to the very next level.
The first thing you should do if you want to make your ad placements that much better is create a block list. Through the use of Facebook blocklists, you can actively participate in where your advertisement appears.
You can control this in the Facebook Business Manager, which you can access through the Ads Manager. If you don’t have a Business Manager account, you’ll need to make one. Creating a blocklist is fairly easy.
All you need to do is visit the Facebook business manager and create one. Populating a blog list is as easy as making a CSV file with all the exclusions you want to be on the block list.
The only thing that’s left is to select the ad accounts you want the block list to apply to, which can be done by selecting one of the three application options as demonstrated in the screenshot below
Furthermore, publisher lists and delivery reports are crucial if you’re looking to protect your brand’s image. Through the use of these two tools, you can control where your content is posted, allowing you to disassociate your brand, business, or products with less than desirable places on the internet.
Adjusting your inventory filter is another fantastic way to hone in on your ad placement skills. Aside from blocking individual publishers, you can control where your advertisement inventory shows up with the border controls on Facebook’s inventory filter.
By working on your inventory filter, you can adjust your content’s sensitivity level – dictating where it appears when using Instant Articles, Audience Network, or in-stream videos.
There are three different levels of your inventory filters, each of which excludes different kinds of content. The three are:
The full inventory option excludes only the content that is deemed inappropriate for advertising on the platform, such as nudity, drugs, or illicit activity.
The standard inventory setting excludes everything the full inventory option does and includes things that the algorithm deems inappropriate such as profanity, distressing content, and controversial content.
Limited inventory is the most restrictive out of the lot. It excludes all content that the previous two do, and then some. It blocks all content regarded as mature, suggestive, or aggressive.
Setting up the inventory filter is easy. All you need to do is go to the advertisement manager, open your advertisement up and select "edit placements." Below the location options, you can find the Inventory filter option.
After you’ve located the inventory filter, all you need to do is select the filter option and publish your changes.
Facebook is one of the most lucrative, prominent, and promising marketing environments in the digital world, and it’s essential to approach it with the respect and finesse that it deserves. By learning how the tool works and how to devise the best Facebook Ad placement strategy – you can make every marketing tactic that much more successful.
By understanding Facebook’s advertisement pavements and using them to your advantage, you can determine which brands and websites your company is associated with, control the target audience, and yield a more significant ROI.
While advertisement placement is a crucial metric, it all boils down to your audience, the advertisement’s format, the overall objective, and ultimately, the budget.
Facebook is continually pumping out new options, which means that this platform will evolve, change, and adapt towards client requirements, but the fundamentals of Facebook Ad placement strategy are likely going to stay the same.
If you're looking to improve your Facebook marketing strategy, Heroes of Digital can help. We are the best Facebook ads agency in Singapore. Get your free digital marketing consultation today!
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