It seems everyone wants to talk about Facebook Feed ads but no one covers story ads and how they can fit into your digital marketing strategy.
So why do Story ads matter? Let me explain.
Stories allow people on the Facebook and Instagram platform to share and discover the content they genuinely care about in a faster and enjoyable way & consumers have been using story ads to share content at a rapidly increasing rate.
These types of ads are considered to be a “safer form of advertisement” because blatant advertisements are easier to be ignored.
While going into new verticals as a brand, this can be a great take on driving engagement because millions of people are now using Facebook and Instagram stories to consume content and best of all: make purchasing decisions.
Considering the engagement rate for story ads, it’s making story ads a valuable advertising campaign to drive more interested cold traffic to your online storefront and it’s beast of a tool for brand awareness.
Story ads are full-screen image, video, or carousel ads and they appear between stories that people watch on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Even platforms like YouTube have started to implement stories into their platform.
But unlike organic story posts, story ads do not disappear after 24 hrs and by default, a photo advert shows for 6 seconds & a video advert for up to 15 seconds in Facebook Stories.
In your Ads Manager, you can choose between having Facebook automatically place your ads in every possible ad section possible on the platform or select the stories placements manually. You can do this by using the Edit Placements field and create a separate ad set for these types of adverts or a campaign just for story ads.
Story ads are a great way to promote your business. They help to engage with your target audience, and extend your brand to people.
Here are some of the features that make this edition to Facebook ads such a powerful tool:
- More than half of the people on Instagram globally use stories as well as Feed daily.
- More than half of the people who use stories said in a survey that they are making more online purchases as a result.
- About 68% of people surveyed said that they use stories on three or more apps at least once a week.
Facebook & Instagram Story ads support every objective that is currently available (which is amazing), including reach, brand awareness, video views, app installs, conversions, traffic and lead generation.
Which objective is suitable for your business plan? Are you selling products or services? Promoting your app?
Your are covered either way! All you have to do is to pull together a catchy design, content and a call to action.
Or let my team handle it for you: Lets Talk!
Advertising in stories is a proven way to drive valuable business outcomes.
People say that they became more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in a story.
A few brands who test Facebook Story ads – like iHeartRadio, Kettle Chips and KFC – are among the advertisers who have seen substantial brand lift from their Facebook Stories ad campaigns.
For performance marketers, story ads can also inspire people to take action after seeing a product or service in a story.
For example Tentree, a sustainable, eco-friendly clothing company, and Skout, a dating app, both found that adding Facebook Stories to their Instagram Stories ad campaigns resulted in more customer actions at a lower cost.
Stories also correspond to how people are interacting with their phones.
People hold their phones vertically about 90% of the time and Stories are optimized for a vertical, full-screen view that feels natural and allows people to enjoy videos and photos quickly.
Lately, video content is totally killing it on Facebook, amassing billions of views per day as more and more marketers are shifting their ads from static images to videos.
As mentioned above, there is an ideal length for Story videos and there’s certainly value in short-form content.
Here are some tips for when you use story ads:
- Use speed to keep your audience’s attention – things move fast in stories. Try and land your message and showcase your brand quickly. Seconds matter, so integrate branded elements such as logos to get as much information as possible out to your audience.
- Enhance your story with sound. You can use voice-overs or music as creative tools to enhance the message and value proposition for your brand or product.
- Design the ad with your objective in mind. Add a quick message which will stick with the watcher and that will make them proceed with the call to action or research your product/service.
- Use a Custom or Lookalike Audience (we covered it last week) – in order to avoid swipe-through
This type of content, which is easy to digest at a glance – like an image with a strong message or a video with or without sound – can grab the attention of scrollers on the go and increase conversions.
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