Facebook Launches Product Focussed Collection Adverts

Embracing the popularity of Facebook advertising campaigns, the popular social media platform has recently introduced collection adverts.

Having been tested by a carefully selected group of leading brands, such as Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, and Michael Kors, the new advertising option became available to all companies at the end of March 2017 as part of the social media network’s aim to roll out mobile ad formats that bring off-Facebook experiences onto the platform.

So what are collection Adverts?

Reflecting the current trend for accessing the internet by mobile devices and the wealth of statistics showing an ever-increasing amount of mobile traffic, Collection adverts are product-focused ads that allow users to shop the adverts directly from their mobile, in a more visual and immersive way.

These ads can combine a video, slideshow, or image, with product images taken from a product catalogue taken on a mobile, linking through to the point of sale on the brand’s site or mobile app.

As one of the most immersive ad formats offered by the platform to date, Facebook collection ads are ideal for retail and e-commerce brands that want to show an inspirational video or image alongside their products. The social network hopes that this new ad format will help to build a great new shopping experience for consumers, whilst helping marketers to drive mobile sales and discovery.

Facebook’s director of product marketing, Maz Sharafi, was quoted in the press stating: “Collection is, at its core, a new ad experience that we’ve built specifically for news feed, to drive product discovery and sales through an engaging format in a fast-loading shopping experience.”

The benefits of collection adverts for brands

Drive product discovery via mobile devices

 Collection ads allow you to pair video or imagery with relevant products for a mobile-friendly, engaging experience. With mobile being people’s main platform for online shopping, it’s vital that your brand makes its online experience as easy as possible for mobile users – collection adverts do just that.

Deliver a seamless mobile browsing experience

 Consumers who view your advert can then browse more products in a fast-loading, full-screen experience, without leaving the Facebook app, unlike a traditional Facebook ad, where clicking on a brand’s ad would open a dedicated microsite or product catalogue hosted outside of Facebook.

Convert demand into sales

 Interested customers can continue to purchase on your website or app, without the hassle of leaving the platform. This makes conversion quicker and simpler, allowing you to convert demand and interest into sales by offering engaging, dynamically targeted mobile optimised ads.

Diverse and flexible

 Collection adverts can be styled and created in countless different ways in order to fit seamlessly into your other campaigns and marketing activities. For example, if you create how to guides, you can turn them into adverts, or if your audience has been shown to engage most with style guides, you can use this format to make a shopable one.

Track your results

 Alongside this new ad format, Facebook has also introduced its outbound click metric, which is optimised for tracking results on more creative formats, such as Collection. Promising to give marketers a clearer view of the path that their customers take, the new metric will ensure that you know exactly when someone leaves Facebook through an ad. The previous link clink metric meant that it was often difficult to know exactly where ads came from, particularly for creative ads.

Sharafi was quoted in the press stating: “One of the things we’re trying to do with the introduction of a new metric is to provide more clarity and transparency. In the scenario of Adidas using Collection, in a world where you don’t have outbound click, you wouldn’t be able to tell which click happened from the News Feed, where people have opened the immersive experience, and which clicks happened within the Collection.”

Of course, it’s worth bearing in mind that collection adverts won’t work for every business – they are designed to meet the needs of those companies who are selling products rather than services, particularly fashion and lifestyle brands.

Creating a collection advert…

As with other types of Facebook ads, collection adverts are created within Facebook Business Manager.

To create your collection ad, you’ll need an image or a video, and a product catalogue. If you haven’t already got a product catalogue set up, you might need to seek the help of a professional developer to set up the coding for the products you want to include in the advert.

When you set up your collection ad, you’ll also need to choose whether the objective is traffic or conversions. If you opt for traffic, then you’ll be charged based on the number of times people click on the initial ad to open the product category. On the other hand, if you select conversions, Facebook will target the ad at people they think are most likely to click through to your site or app, but will charge you based on the number of times the ad appeared in people’s news feeds. If you’re looking to boost sales, we’d recommend a conversion-focused campaign.

Now all of the technical work is out of the way, it’s time to get creative! Using video content as your key feature is the most popular and effective way to create an engaging advert that will excite your target audience. In fact, according to Facebook, approximately 30% of mobile shoppers state that video content is the best way to discover new products.

The video can be either square or horizontal, at a 16:9 aspect ratio – vertical videos are not recommended. If you opt to use photos instead of videos, you’ll need an image that’s horizontal at a 1.9:1 aspect ratio. It’s also important to note that no more than 20% of the image can be text.

Collection adverts allow you to feature up to 50 products, selecting key pieces that you want to feature higher up on the list. Alternatively, Facebook can use an algorithm to automatically select and feature the most popular products towards the top.

However, although it is possible to feature up to 50 products, this isn’t necessarily advisable as it can prove overwhelming to your audience and they may not stick around to work their way through your list! Instead, why not create multiple adverts targeting different products to different consumers? These carefully targeted ads are likely to drive more sales.

Here at Digital Ethos, we specialise in creating effective Facebook advertising campaigns that not only inspire action, but also achieve optimum results. If you have any questions about how we can help you to drive your start up business forward in the digital world, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Our friendly and helpful team is always on hand to answer any of your questions and we always go that extra mile to deliver digital marketing solutions that meet your objectives and requirements.