Facebook Canvas Ads or Canvas Facebook Ads launched in 2016 providing a full screen, rich media ad experience on mobile devices and has quickly become a highly effective vehicle for reaching target audiences. It was born out the need to offer compelling brand stories in-app, where most people are spending their time these days. But you have to provide creative content on social media apps if you hope to connect with people who are used to interacting with superior quality brand short stories.
A Digital Canvas to Connect to Smartphone Users
Mobile advertising has become a number one priority for companies as 80% of all internet user’s smartphones. In the US 224.3 million people have smartphones with over 2 billion users worldwide. As more people choose to interact with the internet via their smartphones, the need to execute optimized mobile advertising has reached a fever pitch. Enter Facebook Canvas Ads. This innovative opportunity empowers advertisers by giving them a vast “canvas” space to get creative.
Load Speed Negatively Affects Post-Click Conversions
Before this ingenious option became available, users would see an advert that caught their attention, click on the link and then wait an eternity for the website to load. When they finally got to the webpage, it was not optimized for mobile, leaving visitor’s annoyed. They would just leave and go elsewhere, and the potential conversion was lost. Website pages have consistently been growing in size as companies add images, video, blog content, etc. which has seen a significant reduction in load speed and a rise in visitor irritation.
“Advertisers need a better way to share information after people click on their ad, and the information offered after someone clicks to load quickly, look beautiful on mobile and allow people to take action easily. We built Canvas to solve this problem.” – Facebook
A Truly Beautiful Canvas
Facebook Canvas Ads arrived to save the ‘slow load speed’ day. They provided a solution that allows for a beautiful post-click immersive ad experience that is designed to help businesses tell their brand stories on mobile devices in a visually powerful way. Canvas is fully customizable. Brands can creatively build their stories using text, video, images, animations, GIFs, product catalogs, CTA buttons (or a mixture of all of them) to entice visitors to interact with their products in this digital space.
Fast load Speed When You Click on the Upward Arrow
Canvas ads load almost instantaneously post-click to keep the user engaged. Their load speeds are up to 10 times faster than the standard mobile web, making for an awesome user experience. Canvas ad can also be targeted to different demographics and can be viewed in the Newsfeed. They look almost the same as a traditional Newsfeed ad; however, you will know it is a Canvas ad if you see a little upward arrow near the bottom of the ad that shows it will open to a full-screen experience. You also never leave the Facebook App.
Canvas lets you:
- Tilt to view panoramic images
- Swipe through a carousel of your brand images
- Zoom in to view images in details
These features ensure a uniquely immersive mobile UX.
Mobile Only
These Facebook Canvas Ads are only for mobile users and can be viewed on either Android or iOS.
The results for Canvas ads started strong with 53% of users viewing at least half of an ad with an average view time of 31 seconds, and these figures have only grown since 2016. Canvas ads are in a league of their own –you won’t find a similar immersive, storytelling advertising experience anywhere else.
Displaying Inventory Boosts Conversions
The advantage of using a Canvas ad is that you can display your product catalog or inventory to inspire users to purchase at your online store. If someone sees an item they like, they can just click on it and arrive at your website ready to buy the product. Canvases boost conversions by offering more digital space for a brand to put their best foot forward with this full screen, rich media, immersive advertising opportunity.
They are like mini landing pages. You can create a visually stunning advert making use of all of the multi-media components to incite excitement around your brand offering. Canvas ads are fast becoming one of the elements of any online marketing strategy.
Self-Serve Canvas Ad Tools
If you have access to Power Editor or the Publishing Tools tab, you can start building your “Canvases” with these self-serve tools. It does not require any code; you can just drag images into the templates or design your own. It costs the same as a Newsfeed ad.
Be sure to use your call-to-action buttons optimally when creating your Canvas ad. You are given the incredible opportunity to add multiple CTA’s in a single Canvas ad. It doesn’t matter how gorgeous and lush your Canvas visuals are if you don’t tell people what action you want them to take. Conversions follow clear CTA’s. Every element of your Canvas ad is leading them towards your ad goal. Don’t forget the basics of using contrasting colors for your CTA button with inventive text as click bait. Your CTA must stand out but also not dominate the entire page.
Is Your Canvas Ad Telling the Best Brand Story Possible?
Facebook Canvas ads are powerful opportunities to increase conversions and improve brand awareness. However, you need to make sure you are telling an extraordinary brand story. This feature was created to unleash creativity. Continue to A/B test your ad to make sure you are successfully capturing your target audience with the most persuasive text and multi-media that holds their attention. Focus on a single message for each Canvas ad. You don’t want to overload a canvas with too much information, messaging and CTA’s. Keep your intention clear, and they will be able to follow you all the way to a conversion.
Last but not least –budget wisely. You can shift your ad spend to support the best performing sets.
Facebook offers a simple step-by-step guide on how to create your canvas ads.
Very informative. Must try Canvas Ads to improve brand awareness and drive public attention and deliver the desired results from Facebook marketing.!