Nowadays, social media marketing is the norm. Businesses use it to connect with their ideal audiences in order to help build a stronger brand image, increase traffic to their website, and, more importantly, drive sales and generate leads.

Leading this wave of digital marketing is, of course, the biggest social media platform out there, Facebook, with around 2.89 billion monthly active users. Facebook offers 8 different ad formats, and today, we are focusing on one of the more prominent ones. Facebook slideshow ads.

What are Facebook slideshow ads?

Facebook slideshow ads, as the name already suggests, are ads that rely on a series of images with a touch of motion effects as well as display text and background sound. According to Facebook, slideshow ads enable you to “make a video-sized impact without a video-sized budget”. This is because they’re quicker, easier, and, most importantly, cheaper to make.

Using the Facebook Ads Manager, you can attach your own images to a slideshow ad as well as use ones provided to you by Facebook. It’s a great way of telling your brand story, for instance.

Similar to video ads, Facebook slideshow ads rely on motion which helps to captivate Facebook users as they are quickly scrolling through their feed. Nowadays, with all the activity that goes on in one’s News Feed, it can be difficult to grab the attention of people. Slideshow ads are an exception though, their reliance on motion is attention-grabbing enough in most cases.

Moreover, Facebook slideshow ads are simply supreme when it comes to telling a story either about your brand as a whole or a product/service you are currently offering. We simply cannot deny that a slideshow or video ad tends to get people quite interested, as opposed to a still image, for example.

Additionally, the fact that you can use ten different images in a slideshow ad means that you can include a lot of additional information about your brand in comparison to other ad types.

One more thing, and this is perhaps our favourite thing about Facebook slideshow ads, is the fact that they use way less data than regular video ads. In other ways, they are a great way for you to reach audiences with significantly slower internet speeds than the average. Of course, reaching such potential customers with something as lively as a Facebook slideshow ad is always better than an image.

How to create Facebook slideshow ads

Back in the day, people would create a Facebook slideshow ad from their Facebook page settings. Nowadays, however, all you have to do is to visit the Facebook Ads Manager. However, if you are looking to create a dummy ad to test a few things out, head to the Creative Hub instead.

Before we start

Make sure to use high-quality images when creating your slideshow ads. They should be at least 1,080 x 1,080 pixels for them to look good. As for the aspect ratio, you can either use a 1:1 image or 16:9. Worry not if your images aren’t in these aspect ratios, as they will be automatically cropped to whichever aspect ratio you choose the moment you upload them.

Creating a Facebook slideshow ad

1. Head to the Ads Manager
2. Scroll through to the Media section and click on Create Video. A creation window will open.
3.  Select anywhere from 2 up to 15 images to use in your slideshow ad.
   • Click on + Upload.
   • Select the corresponding files and click on Upload.
   • If you want to use an existing image, simply scroll through the gallery, or use the search to quickly find what you need.
4. A template called Slideshow will appear to the right of the window, put your cursor over it, and an Edit button will appear. Click on it.
5. To edit a slideshow scene, simply click on the thumbnail. The customisations that you can make are numerous, including:
   • Change: Use a different piece of media in your scene.
   • Crop: Use a different part of the image to be shown.
   • Logo: Add a smaller image, .png or not, that will represent your brand. You can change its size as well as position it as you see fit.
   • Text: This allows you to add up to 30 characters of text to the scene at hand. You have a wide selection of text fonts, colours, background colours, and more. Of course, you can also change its positioning.
6. You can customise the scenes as a whole, of course, in numerous ways:
   • Click on the + button if you want to add a new scene,
   • If you wish to change their order, simply hover over the scene you want to move, hold it, and drag it into the desired position.
   • If you want a scene gone, click on it, then click on Delete Scene.
7. To adjust your template, click on the Template button, then click on Settings. The following adjustments can be made:
   • Scene Duration: This basically allows you to choose the duration that each image will spend on the slideshow. Note that slideshow ads can’t be longer than 15 seconds. In other words, the duration options that you get for each image will vary depending on how many images you have added.
   • Scene Transitions: You can either have the images fade into one another or no transition at all by choosing “None”.
8. After you are done customising everything according to your preferences and needs, click on Create Video.
9. Add your headline text, the corresponding links, and tracking, and then click Publish.
10. Tadaa! Your slideshow ad is now running.

Creating a Facebook slideshow ad: Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks that can boost the performance of your Facebook slideshow ads:

Initiate a storyboard before you start making the ad

Similar to almost anything that is done in the realm of marketing, a clear plan is needed before you start making and customising your slideshow ad. We recommend that you put yourself in the shoes of a consumer and start asking questions about what they would want to see in a slideshow ad. The answers to those questions will definitely help you to properly plan for the narrative that your slideshow ad will take.

Storyboarding can either be done digitally or in real life, and the choice is yours. If you want to opt for physical storyboarding, for instance, your options are endless. Anything from a piece of paper and a pen to a whole whiteboard will do the job. As for digital storyboarding, something like Google Slides or PowerPoint will do the job just fine. We also recommend tools such as Storyboarder and Canva.

You want to create full-fledged templates or simplified sketches of what will go on in your slideshow ad. Make sure to attach notes to the different pieces of your plan in order to make the whole process easier and more straightforward.

Rely on vivid images & colours

Make sure to rely on vivid, bright images in your Facebook Slideshow Ads in order for them to stand out on the white or black background of the News Feed.

Back in the day, we ourselves were testing out numerous versions of a slideshow ad, and we’ve noticed that the one featuring a number of bright colours such as red, yellow, and blue performed way better than the one boasting dull colours such as white and black.

Variety is key

Treat your slideshow ad as if it’s a carousel one. In other words, used to showcase the wide variety of products or services that your company offers. If your business specialises in e-commerce, for example, you can use a slideshow ad to put on display the new clothing items that are coming out soon.

How to target Facebook slideshow ads (and any other ad format)

From the get-go, Facebook will try its best to show your ads to the people who they think are interested in whatever you’re providing. Still, you can further edit the targeting of your Facebook slideshow ads using three main selection tools.

Core audiences

You use this to outline an audience based on factors such as location, age, gender, interests, and more.

Lookalike audiences

This allows you to target people who have similar interests to your regular customers.

Custom audiences

This enables you to re-target people who have previously interacted with your business, one way or another.

How to define your audience

Relying on Core Audiences, you can designate different rules for your ads’ targeting. You can have a target audience that is very broad or very specific, whatever suits you best. Core Audiences is based on the following criteria:

Demographics

You get to choose your audience based on gender, age, education, and more. Facebook will only allow you to keep track of the types of people, of course. Don’t expect them to give you any bits of personal information about anyone.

Location

You can limit your ads to certain communities, cities, or even countries, whatever suits your needs. Let’s say, for example, that you’re running an ad campaign with the aim of pushing people to visit your physical store in London. It would be weird for someone from Edinburgh to receive your ad now, wouldn’t it?

Interests

Facebook allows you to add different interests and hobbies that you think your ideal audience would be into. These can be anything from Football to horror movies and much more – all in the name of making your ads more relevant.

Connections

You can target people who already like your Facebook page or are interested in attending an event of yours. You can also choose to exclude them if they are already regular customers.

Behaviour

Target people based on their previous interactions and impressions of your business.

Let’s get more sales together

Running Facebook ads can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Contact our UK Facebook Ads agency, and we’ll help you achieve your goals the right way.

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Facebook slideshow ads – FAQ