Facebook Carousel Ads: Hacks & Best Practices

Do you want to improve the performance of your Facebook ads? Are you looking for different ad types to experiment with ideas?

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To make the most of your ad spend, let’s take a look at some Facebook Carousel Ad Hacks that can leverage your business and drive more sales.

Why Use Facebook Carousel Ads

There are many different ad types to choose from and some seem to perform better than others.

For example, Video Ads are effective at creating deeper connections with your audience by introducing them to engaging, visual content that is quick and easy to consume. In a study by Facebook, they anticipate that 80% of data consumed on mobile devices will be video by 2021.

From a marketing/advertising perspective, businesses are quickly adapting to the trends of their audience/consumers. HubSpot found that businesses have increased their usage of video in marketing materials from 63% in 2017 to 81% in 2018.

There’s a reason why video is becoming such a powerful and research from Insivia says this:

“Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text.”

So, why should you use Facebook carousel ads?

With Facebook Carousel Ads, you can invest your marketing money in a single ad that features up to 10 videos (or photos) for your products, services, or promotion.

And, from Facebook themselves, their success story from The Black Tux which resulted in 3.4x higher conversion rates when using carousel ads.

Does that convince you to start using them in your advertising? If so, let’s look at when you should use Facebook carousel ads, one “hidden” ad hack, and some best practices to help you succeed with your campaign.

When to Use Facebook Carousel Ads

Do you own a Shopify store and want to boost sales to specific products? Are you a SaaS provider using a 3-tier pricing strategy to penetrate your market?

These are just two examples of which types of businesses should use Facebook carousel ads.

The greatest benefit of this type of Facebook ad is that you can highlight and showcase distinct variations of your products, services, or promotions.

Let’s get a bit more specific. You should use Facebook carousel ads if:

• You want to display products available in different colors, sizes, etc.
  

• You want to feature different products with links to its landing pages or cart/checkout.
  

• You want to showcase the different features of your products or services.

• You want to engage people using a stunning story about your products, services, or promotion.

Want more Facebook Ad ideas, examples, and tips?

• Facebook Video Ad Examples
• Facebook Lookalike Audiences
• 10 Facebook Advertising Tips
• How to Advertise on Facebook

Facebook Carousel Ad Hack

Carousel ads are one of the most effective Facebook ad formats for positioning your products to drive more traffic through your sales funnel. Not only do they stand out in people’s feed, but they also yield a 30 to 50% lower CPC than other ad types, and 20 to 30% lower CPC (according to Facebook).

Use Dark (Unpublished) Posts

You are probably familiar with organic and boosted posts, but have you ever heard about dark posts?

Dark posts, also known as unpublished posts, are targeted Facebook ads that don’t show up on your timeline. With dark posts you can:

• Create sophisticated ads that strategically target audiences;
• Instead of boosting a post, you can experiment with ads to see which group (or groups) of people result in the most engagement;
• Analyze performance of Organic Posts vs. Paid Ads vs. Dark Posts
  

Facebook Ads Pro Tip:

The main purpose of using dark (unpublished posts) would be for split testing. Dark posts let you create different placements that are advertised to different users. You can test these differences to see which ad gets the most engagements, clicks, or conversions.

With Carousel ads, you will be able to use any ads (i.e. “Dark Posts”) from different campaigns and ad groups. Any “social proof” you accumulate on those ads, such as likes, comments, and shares will carry over in your carousel ad campaign.

Facebook Carousel Ads: Best Practices

Experiment With Your Creatives

Here are 3 key elements you can modify and tweak to improve your carousal ads:

• Headline. Use different headlines for each carousel card. Give people something enticing to read that’s related to the featured item on that card. For example, explain different offers or highlight differentiating features.
  

• Call-to-action (CTA). ALWAYS include a CTA use the right messaging for your ad (i.e. “Shop Now”, “Learn More”, etc.).  

• Visuals (i.e. photos / videos). Depending on the concept or goal for your ads, arrange a set of cards that are visually engaging (for photos) or enticing to watch (for videos).

Tell a Story

Carousel ads allow you to create detailed stories as people swipe through each card. Create a series of cards that make people want to swipe through to the end while compelling them to click through to your landing pages or store.

If you don’t have a story to share then take them on a journey through the different features of a particular service or product.

Facebook Ads Pro Tip:

Facebook’s algorithms reward you when people interact with your ads, such as clicks, comments, and shares. With Facebook Carousel Ads, interaction also includes moments when people click “next” to view other slides. With these higher interaction rates, you achieve a better relevance score which can lower your CPC pricing.

Final Thoughts

Facebook’s carousel ads allow you to offer an exceptional experience on both mobile and desktop devices. It allows your audience to browse through different images or videos then direct them to landing pages.

Ideally, you should use Facebook carousel ads if:

• You want ads that deliver a strong performance
• You want to deliver multiple ads using a line up of creatives
• You have products or services with different features

Overall, carousel ads appear to be most effective for e-commerce stores, big brands, or SaaS companies. If there are other scenarios or businesses that can benefit from this type of Facebook ad, let us know in the comments below!

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