Facebook Ads design – is probably the supreme discipline of advertising. Because placing advertising costs money and you don’t want to throw it out the window. So the design of the ad has to be good. Very good. You ultimately want to bring the monotonous scrolling of users to an interesting stop.
In order to achieve that, you have to convince quickly. A cleverly placed call-to-action with a coherent graphic, for example, can work wonders. Here we present the things to consider when creating an impressive Facebook ads design.
What Facebook Ads Designs Are There?
First of all, it is important to define the range of possibilities for Facebook ad designs. The following formats are the most important for you as a Facebook ads designer:
Image Ads
With impressive snapshots or eye-catchers, you can draw the attention of your target group to your ad and forward it straight to your website or encourage them to take certain actions with a well-placed CTA.
Video Ads
Video ads are ideal when a specific product needs to be showcased in the best possible way. In general, videos are the medium that users are most likely to watch – so it’s a good idea from the start
With a carousel ad, you can place up to 10 images or videos in a single ad. Storytelling says hello! Take advantage of the opportunities offered to you here and, for example, set a separate link for each section or place a long panorama photo that reveals its secret with every swipe. Some brands also use how-to short clips that provide instructions.
Slide Show Ads
With a slideshow ad, you can create video-like impressions that are great for storytelling. If you rely on skillful animations that are accompanied by sound or supplemented by the right text, you use the full spectrum of possibilities of this ad type.
Why not just a video? Slideshow ads are easier to create and load much faster. They are therefore also suitable for rather poor Internet connections.
Collection Ads
A product rarely comes alone. And embedded in a chic range, it looks even more desirable. With Collection Ads, you can personalize the product selection and showcase it in a variety of ways. If the range meets the taste of the user, the selection in the ad will be well received.
All of these ads can be placed in different ways, namely:
- in the Facebook feed
- in the story feed (as story ads)
- in InstantArticles
- as in-stream video
- on Facebook Marketplace
- In the right column
- in the Instagram feed
- in Messenger inbox
- Etc.
This Is What Makes A Good Facebook Ads Design
Before you jump into the act of being a Facebook ad designer and start creating the design, it’s important to first determine what’s important to your audience. Unfortunately, Facebook isn’t TikTok as far as ads go – and that means ads are basically considered annoying by users. This in turn means that the KISS rule applies. So keeping it short and simple is the best motto for any design that is going to be featured on Facebook.
Here are our other tips:
1. What You See Is What You Get
We all know it from school, the famous abbreviation »WYSIWYG« (What you see is what you get). Old hat, but an important one. Because that’s exactly what you should keep in mind when designing Facebook ads.
In plain language, this means that users must be able to see at first glance what the ad is about. Whether it’s a new pair of shoes or an online course, the focus is on the product. It goes without saying that the image quality has to be high.
2. Color Game
A Facebook ad design must catch the user’s eye. But how does one do it? Great pictures are one thing, but you can achieve a lot with colors. It doesn’t always have to be a whole rainbow in the pictures – 2 or 3 colors are enough to draw the eye to the ad.
The magic word is complementary colors! In color theory, the seven color contrasts (by Johannes Itten) are always taught and every, really every, designer must at least deal with this color wheel. But that’s a good thing because otherwise the effect of complementary colors would not have been researched so well and would therefore not be such a tried and tested marketing tool for Facebook ad designers.
So, back to the topic. Complementary colors are colors that complement each other particularly well. How about purple and green, for example? Or blue and yellow?
You can easily find the right colors with this tool: Adobe Color CC.
3. Less Is More
Text is important to describe the product, but too much text will hurt your ad’s reach. Officially, the 20% rule is no longer important, but Facebook still limits the range if there is too much text on the ad image.
So it is best to keep the character count under 280. This is how you get your message across to users before they realize it’s an ad and click away.
Also, focus on sending a single message, which you then bring up in a targeted manner. Flowery embellishments or details of an offer can then be explained when the CTA has already taken effect and the user has landed on the linked page.
Even if you do all this, many people will not read the text of your ad. But pictures and videos almost always work. You can build on this and place the most important keywords and CTA on your image.
4. Call To Action
Speaking of CTAs, let’s get down to one of the key points of effective Facebook ads design: the call to action. There are CTAs that work beautifully in many contexts (e.g., “Download now”), but there are also CTAs that feel out of place for certain brands (e.g., “Get started” when it comes to product promotion). Here are some CTAs that you’ve probably seen and followed a thousand times:
- to register
- Book now
- Contact us
- Download
- View offers
- play video
Of course, no CTA can promise success in general. In addition, this must always lead to the goal that you set yourself at the beginning. For example, do you want to generate more clicks? Then a CTA à la “more on that” is highly likely to make sense.
And always apply Test, test, test! Because what works, in the beginning, can no longer be so great later – keyword: Ad Fatigue.
5. The Font Is The Outfit Of Your Ad
And with clothes, you make a statement. Choose a font that does justice to your brand, is simple, conveys the right message, and is easy to read. Important: 1-2 different fonts are sufficient for an advertisement. Rather try to play with the different font styles to get a nice result. Tip: Serif fonts work wonderfully because they guide the eyes when reading and can therefore be grasped quickly.
Do you like working with templates to save time? Canva offers numerous suggestions for great Facebook Ads designs, as you can see below.
6. Native Design
Designing natively means that you respond to the usage habits of the user. On most platforms these days, that means designing vertically! Because turning on the smartphone is far too cumbersome for most people these days. Basically, it also means that you design your content in such a way that it adapts as much as possible to the requirements.
So making your Facebook ad design succinct and eye-catching so that it has an immediate impact is the first step. The next would be to note what your post is for. For desktop feed, for mobile feed, right column, for story feed? Think about which format is most likely to reach your target group, where the ad will appear, and how it will be perceived. This results in the next steps for the design.
Alternatively, you can let Facebook choose and choose “ automatic placement ”. However, the designs must then be designed in such a way that they are convincing everywhere.
7. Details Matter
Enough of the ad details – the trappings are also important. For example, have you ever heard of Ad-Scent? This describes the consistency between the ad and the page to which it redirects. So if the page doesn’t deliver what the ad promises (e.g. because it looks completely different), then the chance that users will jump off are very high. And you definitely want to avoid that.
So always design your Facebook ads to match the look of the target page. Like this brand, for example, where it’s quite obvious that the ad and landing page belong together:
Best Practices
Since tips are helpful and often provide the right know-how, they do not always provide the right input, so here are a few more successful designs for Facebook ads to inspire you:
1. Shapes And Colors
A proper Facebook ad design usually includes a photo – and this should work. Try putting the graphic in a geometric shape :
As you can see, this method not only highlights the image but also skilfully stages the product.
This also works if the picture itself sprays colorful sparks, so to speak, but the background is kept subtle. Slack does a lot of things right. So here is a picture-perfect Slack Facebook ad design:
And because it’s so pretty, here’s another Starbucks product image on a colorful background with geometric shapes:
You see, you can play with all these techniques and combine them as you like. It’s not about following the rules of good Facebook Ads design exactly, it’s about finding the most effective combination for the product or brand.
2. Humor
That’s the thing about humor. If you don’t want to rely on provocation, for example, political issues are a minefield that should be avoided. Likewise, the ad should not exclude groups or go below the belt. This happened quicker than you think. But what can help, of course, is knowing your own target group exactly and knowing exactly what they find funny and whatnot.
Those who dare to have the right dose of humor can hit the spot with their ideas. Like this ad from Kit & Kin, which takes an absolute cliché and lovingly pokes fun at the narrative of the all-too-dangerous question for husbands:
3. Typography
An ad doesn’t need an image to work. Even a bold, meaningful font can make a big impact. To show a good example of this, there is no getting around Mc Donald’s, one of the grand masters of skillful marketing:
4. A Coherent Overall Picture
One of the flagship ads is of course also from LEGO. This example shows that the Facebook ad designers of this brand have a firm grip on advertising:
You could spend a very long time reporting on the clever tricks that work with this ad, but we’ll focus on the most relevant ones: the brand skilfully relies on the logo’s level of awareness, which draws attention to itself without taking up too much space. Nevertheless, as the core of the ad, the writing is the most visible and conveys its message undisturbed, which arouses curiosity without anticipating too much.
The Lego astronaut gives the whole thing a childish, playful touch that not only appeals to the target group but (as planned since 2020) is also humorously aimed at adults. A subtle call to action invites you to find answers to the questions raised by the headline. An all-around coherently designed ad.
Facebook Ads Theme
There are tons of rules, guidelines, and tips on how to get Facebook Ads designed right. Basically, it is simply a matter of a harmonious interplay of three factors: the writing, the visuals, and the CTA.
If you manage to ensure that all elements of your design complement each other instead of stealing the show or blocking each other (e.g. with a hard-to-read font) and they also fit your target group, then you have pretty much-done everything right that you did right can make.
FAQ
What Ads Are There On Facebook?
The platform now provides a number of options for creative Facebook ads design. These are the most important: image ads, video ads, story ads, slideshow ads, carousel ads, and collection ads. There are also messenger ads and lead ads.
How To Facebook Ads Design?
Here’s how to create and style a Facebook ad:
- Set your goals and find your target audience.
- Decide on a budget.
- Choose an appropriate format (e.g. carousel format for product pallets).
- Switch the ad.
- Measure and observe the successes.
How Useful Are Facebook Ads?
For brands that want to achieve certain goals (e.g. more clicks, more reach, or more sales), Facebook ads are the opportunity to carry out targeted marketing with all the necessary know-how. The platform helps to perfect the Facebook ad design and achieve success through target group analyses, statistics, and much more. So it can definitely be worth it.
