Facebook advertising trends in 2020
67% of social advertisers consider Facebook to be the most effective social media platform they use. Facebook advertising remains strong with a 2019 third-quarter report showing an increase of 28% in ad revenue over last year. With 1.67 billion daily users and 2.5 billion monthly users, Facebook remains a top platform for marketers to reach their audience. There is no denying the fact that Facebook advertising trends are constantly changing. The strategies and tactics that worked well this year will soon become obsolete, and use the same approach for every campaign, will find themselves increasingly frustrated. In this guide I’ve covered the basics of creating a winning Facebook advertising strategy.
Video content
Video is more popular than ever. Statistics reveal that in 2020 video content will dominate 85% of the internet. If your Facebook marketing strategy doesn’t include video content, you may want to reconsider. According to Buffer, 81% of businesses use Facebook as their top social media channel to share video content. It even outranks YouTube, which came in at 62%. However, 85% of people don’t use sound when watching videos. Captioned video ads increase video view time by as much as 12%.
Mobile-first
93% of Facebook’s ad revenue comes from mobile advertising, which means: forget desktop if you’re a marketer — mobile-first is the way to go. According to Fors Marsh group tests, it takes only 0.25 seconds of exposure for people to recall mobile feed content at a statistically significant rate. And in News Feed on Facebook people spend, on average, 1.7 seconds with a piece of content on mobile compared to 2.5 seconds on desktop.
Messenger ads
Facebook Messenger has 1.3 billion active users who send more than 2 billion messages on a monthly basis. Messenger ad solutions help send people into conversations with your business, which helps you drive the results that matter. These ads are by far the most direct way of marketing to people because they show up in a very personal digital space. As a business, you can only send a sponsored message to people who have already messaged you. Messenger ads have been proven to increase conversions and drive sales. Messenger ads is a powerhouse when it comes to instant online communication, and it’s the perfect place to advertise your business.
Search ads
Ads in Facebook search results offer a new way for you to reach people who are in this discovery mindset. These ads, which appears in Facebook News Feeds and across its marketplace, aims to provide a way for marketers to reach consumers looking for products to purchase. The placement will be included automatically when Automatic Placements are used in any new campaign, but advertisers can also manually select the placement themselves. There is currently no option to target people based on the specific keywords or phrases they use. If advertisers want to appear in the placement for a specific search term, they must make sure it appears on their Facebook Page.
Instant experiences
Facebook Instant Experiences, formerly known as Canvas, load instantly, they’re mobile-optimised and they’re designed to capture the complete attention of your audience. Within an Instant Experience, people can watch engaging videos and photos, swipe through carousels, tilt to pan and explore lifestyle images with tagged products – all in a single ad. Instant Experiences are the quickest and easiest way for you to take advantage of mobile advertising. This format offers viewers a full screen experience and a more immersive interaction with your business. If you’re looking for a cost-effective strategy to convey your brand message and showcase your products, it’s worthwhile to consider using Instant Experiences.
Stories ads
An Ipsos survey commissioned by Facebook showed that 62 percent of people said they were more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in a Story — with more than 50 percent saying they make more online purchases as a result of Stories. Stories also match how people are already interacting with their phones. People hold their phones vertically about 90% of the time and Stories are optimised for a vertical, full-screen view that feels natural and allows people to enjoy videos and photos quickly.
Campaign budget optimization
Using campaign budget optimization, advertisers can set one central campaign budget to optimize across ad sets by distributing budget to the top performing ad sets in real time. Campaign budget optimization is available for any campaign objective and is best suited for campaigns with multiple ad sets. Campaign budget optimization (CBO) makes the most efficient use of your budget spending to get you the overall best results, and ensure that the cost of those results align with your bid strategy. CBO will also reduce how often your campaigns are put into “learning mode”. That means you won’t get penalized when Facebook’s algorithm reassesses your campaigns.
Placement optimization
Facebook recommends Automatic Placements because it allows it’s delivery system to make the most of your budget. It places your ads on all placements available for your settings on Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger. Automatic Placements will optimize your ads in real-time to get your ad unit in front of users who are more likely to take action based on the campaign objective. Automatic Placements are typically the most efficient use of your budget and helps control costs.
And that’s it! If these trends are anything to go by, 2020 is shaping up to be another promising year for advertising.