The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Video Ads 

What are Facebook video ads? 

Facebook video ads allow you to showcase your brand, products or services through the Meta Ads Manager. You can create specific video ads or boost posts from your Facebook page. 

Video ads are the paid ad placements that use a video and appear in a number of placements on a user’s Facebook screen. 

These include: 

• In-feed ads: these are similar to organic posts and appear in the News Feed
• In-stream video ads: these show in the middle of another ads and will show once 60 seconds of the main video content has been played 
• Facebook Marketplace video ads: these videos show when users are scrolling through Facebook Marketplace
• Facebook stories ads: these are full screen ads that appear between organic Facebook Stories
• Facebook Video Feed ads: these videos show between the organic videos on a user’s Facebook Video Feed

Top 4 benefits of Facebook video ads 

Now you know what Facebook video ads are, let’s take a look at the benefits for your business. 

Reach a specific audience 

With so many people using Facebook, that’s a huge pool of people you can target. In addition, Facebook allows you to target your audience based on specifics factors such as: 

• Age 
• Interests 
• Geographic location 

Facebook is also able to determine the people who are most likely to find your ads relevant to them and will show them your ads. It allows you to reach the right people and target your budget towards the people who are most likely to buy from you. 

You can also use Facebook video ads to target people who have already been on your website or who have engaged with your brand to remind them of who you are and what you do. 

Provide information in a quick, simple way 

A huge benefit of creating video ads for your brand is the ability to provide information about your brand, products or services within just a few seconds. Visual content is much more engaging than static content and is more likely to make users stop scrolling and pay attention. In fact, research shows that 91% of consumers want to see more online videos from brands and 96% of consumers have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product. 

Increase brand awareness 

Organic reach on social media channels such as Facebook is now limited which can make it difficult to gain traction without spending on ads. 

Running paid video ads on Facebook allows you to reach the people who may not see your organic content. You can also reach a highly targeted audience so you know the people who see your ads are more likely to engage with your brand.

Set yourself apart from your competitors 

Your competitors might not be using video for their Facebook ads yet. If they’re not, this gives you a chance to really stand out from the crowd. 

Utilise your videos to showcase your products or services and show potential customers why they should buy from you instead of your competitors. 

Make sure your video is high-quality. It’s going to be representing your brand and might be the first impression a customer has of your brand. 

Best practices for Facebook video ads 

Here are just some of the best practices we recommend that you follow when running Facebook video ads for your brand. 

1. Make shorter videos 

The maximum length for a Facebook video is 240 minutes. BUT it’s going to be very difficult to keep someone engaged for that long! 

Facebook recommends videos of 15 seconds or less as these work best. We usually recommend creating videos that are 30,60 or 90 seconds long, depending on the information you’re trying to get across. Ads for your products or services would work well as shorter, 15-second clips. On the other hand, explainer videos may need to be a little longer to get your message across. 

If you want to run ads, you could create a longer video and break it down into smaller clips so you can repurpose it and use it across a range of channels and in different formats. 

2. Create ads that can be played without sound 

Facebook introduced the ability to mute the sound on video ads because 80% of people react negatively when video ads play loudly.

As a result, most video ads on Facebook are viewed without the sound. That means you’ll need to ensure that your video can be watched and understood without the sound. 

You can do this in two different ways: 

1. Add subtitles to the video 
2. Make sure your full message is delivered visually 

Remember to show, not tell your product or service and your videos are more likely to be successful. 

3. Get your viewer’s attention quickly 

The first ten seconds of your video are essential. Make sure you get your brand logo into the first three seconds and get your message across quickly. Getting your brand mentioned in there early will help to improve brand recognition and ensure that your brand is seen before users scroll past or stop watching. 

4. Utilise retargeting 

Retargeting ads allow you to show ads to people who have already engaged with your brand in the past. You can specifically target the people who have viewed one of your video ads. Once they’re familiar with your brand, they’re more likely to convert when they see another ad so this is a great way to get the most from your budget. 

Key takeaways 

Facebook video ads are an extremely useful tool for any marketing strategy. Video provides a quick easy way to get your brand message across and drive traffic to your website or conversions for your business. 

If you’ve never run Facebook ads before, start with a small budget and optimise and grow from there. 

Request a free digital marketing audit from our team if you’d like to know more about what you could do better or improvements you could make to your strategy. Or, contact us to find out more about how we can help you with creating video ads for Facebook.