The Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Specs

Facebook is a very powerful online advertising tool, and currently the top social media marketing platform, with over $3 billion ad revenue in Q1 2015. However, changes to it’s ad inventory routinely go unnoticed by many professionals. Many who use Facebook to advertise their products, services, or Pages are finding it harder to keep up with developments and wouldn’t be able to answer the following questions. “How many ad placements does Facebook have?, “What are the guidelines for ad sizes in “links” or “multiple product ads”?” If you too, cannot answer these questions, keep reading.

Also Read: Facebook Ads Vs Google Ads: The Debate May Be Over For Small Business

Thanks to SalesForce and this slick infographic they created, we can help all social media marketers to keep up with things. Let’s take a quick look at some of the most important data.

Ad Placements

There are three different ad placements on Facebook – Mobile feed, Desktop feed, and Right-Hand Side. Text, images and video are featured in all placements, however Call to Action is available on Mobile and Desktop only. Similarly, business and social info is not available in Right-Hand Side placement. Surprise, surprise! There is one more… Facebook’s Audience Network which was included recently, and it includes interstitial, native, and banner placements that extend Facebook advertising into other mobile apps.

Pop quiz! How many Ad Placements are there on #Facebook?

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Clicks to Website: Links or Multiple Product Ads

These two share exactly the same guidelines but appear differently. 600X600 pixel image size, 90 characters text, 25 in the headline and 30 in the link description. As with ALL ads on Facebook, creatives with more than 20% text will not be tolerated. The difference here is how Links and Multiple Product Ads appear – Images appear rectangular and product ads remain at a 1:1 ratio. Finally, Multiple Product Ads only appear on Desktop and Mobile and not Right-Hand Side.

Know the differences between aspect ratio or photos and videos in Facebook page post engagement ads?

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Page Post Engagement

A bit more complicated because of video here. When using photos for Page Post Engagement you have a 4:3 ratio whereas for video you have 16:9. That’s hardly a surprise really since 16:9 is the main choice for video these days. These ads can appear in the Desktop, Mobile and Right-Hand Side and all of them can include 90 characters of text. There are other minor differences due to the different media being used… Have a look at the infographic for some more details.