If you are making plans to launch your holiday marketing campaign, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) has just announced new features for video creation, storefronts, and overlays.
New Facebook Ad Features
The new features have been designed with customizable templates for creating holiday theme promotions as well as campaigns for the rest of the year. By making your products more visually appealing with holiday themes, you have a better chance of getting the attention of the hundreds of millions of Facebook users who shop during this time.
According to Facebook, there were 450 million views of Black Friday and other related videos during the Thanksgiving shopping weekend.
As a small business owner, getting some of those eyes on your company can translate into brand recognition and sales during, and long after the holidays have come and gone.
Video Creation
Video is now the preferred medium for consuming content, and increasingly mobile is the chosen device for viewing them. This has led creators and marketers to use a range of tools to come up with innovative content users are likely to view, interact, and hopefully share.
FBB Blog: New Ways to Showcase Your Products this Holiday Season
Posted by Facebook Business on Monday, September 10, 2018
The Facebook video creation kit was launched in August 2018, with the goal of turning existing image and text assets into mobile-optimized videos. The videos can be framed in 1:1 for feed environments or 9:16 for stories on Facebook and Instagram.
The platform has been designed by Facebook’s Creative Shop team with a framework so you can make lightweight video ads from still image ads without having to be an expert. You can make 6 and 15-second videos to promote, sell, show, and drive product discovery.
The new features will have holiday-themed templates and stickers so you can customize your videos for the season.
Collection Ads
Collection ads was launched last year to give mobile shoppers more visual content. Facebook said it has two new updates for collection ads so you can make it more immersive and personalized.
You can now direct shoppers from collection ads to a storefront template where they can see personalized products and services. This includes groupings such as “Suggested for You” and “Most Viewed” to increase user engagement and conversions.
FBB Blog: New Ways to Showcase Your Products this Holiday Season
Posted by Facebook Business on Monday, September 10, 2018
The storefront template can also be used to add a video which is automatically generated with relevant products from your catalog.
Overlays
Overlays for dynamic ads was also launched last year so businesses could add price and discount tags automatically on ads for their products.
You can now build customizable templates for the dynamic ads to showcase your products specifically for the holiday season. This includes templates for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and more.
Image: Facebook
These are some really cool features to help your ads stand out, which is getting harder all the time.
Aira Bongco
The last quarter will be great for ecommerce businesses. There will really be some holiday cheer with the influx of sales.
The video studio is a noteworthy announcement, but as of 2018 and especially now in 2019, it’s not enough.
You can’t be relying on these things alone to stand out. Most of the ad building feature announcements are just shiny objects that distract from what’s really important.
Fundamentals.
Good news is, the things that make ads work haven’t changed much.
Learning the fundamentals of content marketing, human psychology, and buying behavior still puts you ahead of the game.
Getting noticed has become a little bit harder, so you have to make better use of the understanding you have, to hook people more quickly.
Once you catch their attention, you need to show them ads that stand out in your customer’s mind and compel them to take action.
A gimmick like price tag overlays doesn’t do that.
Understanding your customers helps. Utilizing skills in campaign design and creation, segmentation helps (whether your skills or someone else’s). Offering something people actually want is still key.
Stick to the fundamentals, make great ads. Let the lemmings chase the shiny objects.