Facebook advertising presents a huge opportunity for businesses looking to connect with customers. With over 3.05 billion monthly active users currently and a prediction to reach 3.07 billion users by Q1 2024, Facebook grants access to an enormous audience. 2.064 billion users access Facebook every day, which accounts for 68.11% of the platform's monthly active users. The platform offers various Facebook ad formats that enable you to promote your products, services or causes. Determining the right types of Facebook ads to use can seem overwhelming given the multiple options. In this article, we detail the top 18 most effective Facebook ad formats you should consider to achieve your marketing goals. We’ll describe how each ad type works along with the benefits of leveraging them in your Facebook ad campaigns.

Image Ads

Image ads are among the most ubiquitous types of Facebook ads. With just a single, eye-catching photo accompanied by minimal text, they provide a simple yet visually impactful format.

Image ads typically include the following components:

High-quality photo: The image should clearly convey your product, offer, or brand. It's the very first element to capture attention, so choose photos thoughtfully to communicate the right message.
Headline text: A compelling headline usually no more than 25 characters drives interest in your ad. It should complement the visual rather than repeat the same message.
Description text: You have only a short description to sell viewers on taking action, whether visiting your page, shopping sale items, or engaging further. Use persuasive wording focused on customer benefits or value propositions.

The brilliance of Facebook image ads lies in their versatility and visual nature. They can promptly convey sales, promotions, brand imagery, or events. When vying for customer attention, vibrant photos tend to outperform text-heavy ads. With 63% of Facebook advertising focused on image ads, they remain one of the most strategic approaches across industries. Choose images intentionally, highlight special offers or products, and keep descriptive text brief and engaging.

Stories Ads

Stories ads represent a fast-growing Facebook and Instagram ad format ideal for showcasing your brand more conversationally across mobile devices. They feature full-screen vertical video up to 15 seconds long which captures viewer attention as they scroll.

Key advantages of Stories ads include:

Mobile-centric design: The tap-and-swipe Stories style was built for one-handed smartphone use. Short video segments accomodate minimized attention spans.
Personality and storytelling: Tell your brand's story in a more eye-catching way through multi-slides of video, images effects and text overlays.
Vertical video power: Vertical video now accounts for over 70% of content viewed on mobile devices. Leverage the compelling Stories style.
High memorability: Creative use of sound, motion and transitions sticks in the minds of target viewers better than static ads.

As mobile screen consumption skyrockets, advertisers should take advantage of the blossoming Stories ad avenue. Tap into user-favorite video features like stickers, filters and augmented reality lenses to charm their audience. Keep video snippets succinct, employ custom animation and on-brand visual flair for the best reception. Stories advertising presents some of the highest engagement possibilities today.

Page Post Engagement Ads

Facebook Page Post Engagement ads enable you to maximize viewership and interest in your top-performing organic page content. Whatever business page posts show off your brand best or receive the most likes and shares—you can boost that straight to your ideal audience's News Feed.

Why advertise your page content? The benefits include:

Showcasing Your Signature Content: Paying to reach and engage more of your fans and followers means your winning posts get more eyes. Highlight your content that authentically represents your brand.
Reach Custom Targeting with Content: Facebook's detailed targeting options allow you to specify your ideal audience for your best content, whether by location, demographics, interests or other factors.
Triggering More Organic Interaction: The more people who interact with and share your boosted post, the more it amplifies your word-of-mouth marketing and revival of it into others' feeds for free.
Brand Awareness and Storytelling: Your page tells the story of your business and highlights your mission. Boosted posts spread that brand story to new potential customers.

Amplifying your page's posts that resonate and are on-mission should be a key element of any Facebook advertising approach. Engaging stories, powerful messages or your signature visual style all deserve greater visibility through ad spend. Page Post Engagement Ads let you control both content and targeting for maximum benefit with a wise social marketing investment.

Page Like Ads

For businesses looking to rapidly expand their Facebook page following, Page Like ads offer an excellent avenue. As the name suggests, these ads encourage new users outside your current reach to actually like your page through well-targeted promotion.
Reasons to prioritize Facebook Page Like ads include:

Swift Growth of Followers - Expose your page strategically to untapped audiences who align with your customer base and haven't organically found you yet. This expands your stable audience.
Enhanced Future Reach - Every new page follower sees more of your current and future organic content posted. So your efforts compound over time.
Insight Mining - Monitor which audiences respond best to your like campaign. Study their characteristics to refine ongoing targeting and creative approaches.
Cost Efficiency - Securing page likes means each new follower comes on board to receive your latest updates at no added promotion expense. High lifetime value.

Especially for newer companies or those undergoing a rebrand, dedicating ad budget towards page likes makes smart business sense. Configure your campaign for the right demographics that have an inherent interest but lack awareness of your offerings so far. Page like ads cement crucial early supporters.

Clicks to Website Ads

While building your Facebook presence is crucial, for many businesses the end goal is driving qualified traffic to your website to ultimately convert visitors. Facebook's Clicks to Website ads optimize for exactly that - sending interested audiences straight from their feed to targeted pages on your domain.

Benefits of investing in website click-through ads include:

Directing Traffic to Sales Funnels - Guide prospects to landing pages, special offers or product pages with higher intent to purchase.
Promoting Blog Content - Increase views and subscription sign-ups for your latest high-value blog content.
Capture Leads with Gateed Resources - Advertise free toolkits, research reports, trainings or other gated assets in exchange for lead generation.
Retargeting Site Visitors - Remarket to users who already engaged on your website to re-engage the warmest leads.
Branding Exposure to Cold Audiences - Send fresh visitors to pages that strongest communicate your brand promise and advantages you offer customers.

Facebook provides the tools for both cold and hot targeting approaches via website clicks ads - identify and connect with those most likely to convert. Monitor performance to double down on assets and audiences demonstrating results.

Website Conversions

For businesses investing ad dollars, return on that marketing spending comes down to conversions - website visits that drive desired actions correlating to revenue. Facebook's Website Conversions ad type allows unmatched tracking of conversions from your campaigns straight on your website.

Implementing Facebook conversion tracking involves:

Installing the Facebook pixel code on key pages like registration, purchase confirmation, contacting, download and other pages representing conversions. This enables tracking of site activity.
Setting up a Website Conversions campaign within Ads Manager focused on your goals - registrations, lead generation, purchases, app installs, etc.
Serving ads to cold or warm audiences that drive traffic to those pixel-enabled pages on your domain to complete conversions.

The system then attributes any on-site conversions back to the formats and target segments that are working best in your campaigns. This full-funnel visibility allows you to:

Identify your highest converting audiences for optimized bids and spend.
Continually craft better performing creative content.
Calculate your true return on ad spend by connecting revenue data back to sources.

For professional marketers intent on maximizing their budgets, website conversions tracking is mandatory. Determine what tactical adjustments incrementally increase the revenue driven by your Facebook advertising.

App Install and Engagement Ads

For developers of mobile or web applications, Facebook provides two go-to advertising formats explicitly designed to rapidly expand your user base - App Install and App Engagement ads.

Key capabilities of Facebook's app ads include:

Drive Direct App Installs - Send clicks straight to your app's page on the App or Play store to trigger quick downloads.
Increase Engagement - Re-target existing users to have them return and activate push notifications for ongoing retention.
Advanced Tracking Options - Leverage Facebook's pixel and analytic integration to attribute installs/registrations, understand engagement metrics and optimize user value.
Target Early Adopters - Tailor your campaign to core demographic segments most likely to immediately embrace your app concept and propel organic viral growth.

As the costs of securing loyal, high-lifetime-value users grow across paid channels, Facebook continues offering extremely transparent attribution and competitive user targeting capabilities for the best ROI. Monitor adoption rates among customer cohorts, tweak visuals and descriptions that inspire downloads and purchases, and scale rapidly. For apps still finding product-market fit or established players driving growth, Facebook app ads deliver.

Augmented Reality Ads

As augmented and virtual reality explode in popularity on mobile platforms, Facebook offers brands new possibilities to stand out with immersive Augmented Reality (AR) ads. AR ads let users actively engage with sponsored filters, lenses, and 3D elements that digitally enhance their images and video to showcase products in memorable ways.

Key perks of AR Facebook ads include:

Novelty and Interactivity - Users flock to try on sponsored AR masks, effects and lenses unavailable elsewhere. This inherently drives higher click-through rates as audiences have fun with the content.
Social Sharing Built-In - Sponsors benefit from audiences spreading branded effects virally with friends for exponential impressions. Hashtag challenges can further boost organic reach.
Brand Storytelling - Enable virtual try-ons of merchandise, envision products in real physical spaces, and demonstrate capabilities in visually striking fashion.
Recall Value - Tangible interactions with products via augmented reality get encoded into consumer memory better than passive images alone, magnifying potential purchase influence.

For advertisers in categories like retail, CPG, travel and automotive, AR ads represent the latest tool for showcasing brands and offerings in sticky, interactive contexts optimized for trends in mobile behavior. Get creative in blending digital enhancements with physical spaces and merchandise to inspire consumers.

Event Response Ads

For brands hosting special in-person or virtual events, from conferences to galas to fundraisers and more, Facebook enables seamless promotion to drive registrations and attendance through Event Response ads.

Key features of Facebook's event advertising include:

Instant Event Creation - Quickly configure the event details including name, date/time, location, imagery and description for promotion without needing to set up a separate Facebook Event.
Calendar Integration - Users can add your event to their account calendars with one click for streamlined planning.
Response Tracking - Monitor registrations and guest responses like Going, Interested and More Info to gauge interest and optimize.
Custom Audience Retargeting - Remarket to audiences who have already responded positively or create lookalike groups to expand your reach.
Post-Event Surveys - Assess event success including satisfaction, areas for improvement and analytics by publishing surveys to your past guest list.

For exhibitors, organizers, nonprofits, companies and more hosting events as cornerstones of their engagement efforts, driving attendance is crucial. Let Facebook Event Response ads handle promoting event logistics, registrations, notifications and analytics for maximizing turnout with minimal extra effort required.

Offer Claim Ads

Offer Claim ads enable businesses to easily promote special discounts, sales, coupons or other deals to cold and warm audiences perfect for incentivizing first-time trials or purchases.

Notable options with Facebook Offer Claim Ads include:

Highlight Limited-Time Offers - Create urgency and spikes in interest by showcasing discounts and specials available for short durations or in limited supplies.
Support New Product Launches - Drive trial and awareness for newly launched items via bundled discounts or bonuses on initial purchases.
Reward Loyal Customers - Provide exclusive access to sales or other perks to existing customers through targeted offers.
Drive In-Store Traffic - Link geo-fenced offer claims to physical locations to attract nearby customers into your brick and mortar operation.
Enhance Video Views - Incentivize video content engagement by gating access to deals only after viewers have watched a spot or full video.

While everyday value is crucial, well-timed and well-targeted deals compel new audiences to take action while they save. Provide instant claimability within Facebook for frictionless promotion. Monitor performance to double down on which discount levels, products, creatives and customer groups maximize results.

Video Views

Video represents one of the most compelling creative ad formats on Facebook given its ability to entertain and engage viewers visually. Video Views ads specifically optimize for maximizing eyes on your video content through strategic placements in target users' feeds.

Advantages of Video Views ads include:

Broadening Visual Content Reach - Ensure wider viewership of videos that authentically communicate your brand personality and value proposition.
Improved Visibility - Outperform the organic algorithm and news feed clutter by proactively putting dynamic video content in front of ideal viewers primed to consume it.
Identify Resonating Messages - Test viewer response rates to multiple video concepts and styles to determine what content to produce more of.
Multiply Brand Impressions - Generate exponential impressions as interest viewers watch, react to, comment on and share your video with their own networks.
Reduce Production Risk - Validate interest in video content themes and styles before investing heavily in new productions.

For both one-off hero videos and companies committed to regular YouTube/social production, Video Views ads empower intelligently showcasing your best assets to engaged viewers most likely to watch and share them. Prioritize video that spotlights your differentiators.

Local Awareness Ads

For traditional brick-and-mortar businesses like retail stores, restaurants, service providers and more, promoting your physical location to nearby customers represents a constant need. Facebook's Local Awareness ads enable showcasing your in-person offerings to audiences literally in your locale.

Notable features of Local Awareness Ads include:

Location-Based Targeting - Target consumers within designated radiuses set around your business locations using proprietary mapping data.
Accurate Operating Info - Highlight correct open hours, contact methods and address or venue details that searchers and passersby can instantly access.
Navigation Built-In - Enable one-tap access to Google/Apple Maps, Waze and other navigation tools to provide directions straight from ads.
Performance Tracking - Understand in-store visit conversions driven by your campaign using offline conversion tracking via callbacks or in-app visits.

While driving foot traffic requires holistic efforts, from SEO to reputational content, ad visibility remains imperative. Meet customers where they digitally discover and explore local options to put your business top of mind. Facebook Local Awareness Ads turn online interest into offline sales.

The Carousel Format

While single image or video ads effectively spotlight distinct products, offers or content, Facebook's Carousel format provides expanded creative flexibility to feature multiple visual assets within a single ad unit.

Strategic applications of Carousel Ads include:

Product Catalog Showcases - Highlight your full product lines, categories or complementary items in an engaging swipeable gallery.
Demonstrating Range - For services providers like gyms, salons or agencies, display the variety of classes, treatment options or client work using Carousels.
Storytelling - Guide sequential narratives over multiple scenes using images or short video clips combined creatively.
Expanding Engagement - Insert additional hotspots for calls-to-action within one ad to prompt lead generation, purchases, content views and more.
Split Testing - Test how components like taglines, imagery, offers and buttons influence performance whenchanged within the same ad.

Carousel Ads essentially multiply your visual canvass real estate while users engage with content by actively scrolling through your slides. Reduce single asset dependency and leverage flexible combinations that resonate.

See the top Facebook carousel ads that convert and captivate audiences. This clickable guide features real ad examples from leading brands plus expert tips to make your next carousel ad stand out and drive more clicks.

Dynamic Product Ads

For ecommerce brands or product-driven companies, running individual ads for your potentially thousands of items simply doesn't scale. Here's where Facebook Dynamic Product Ads activate your entire existing product catalog for automated tailored ads.

How it works:

Feed Product Catalogs - Upload your full suite of products into Business Manager including details like imagery, pricing and descriptions.
Pixel Install for Tracking - Leverage the Facebook pixel to monitor site visitor actions, abandonments and past purchases.
Automated Targeting - Facebook then dynamically serves personalized ads for products individual users previously viewed or expressed interest in across devices and seasons.

Benefits include hyper-relevant product suggestions to each shopper, reduced manual creative needs and the ability to harness your full inventory with minimal added effort. As the lines between digital discovery and physical retail blur, efficiently showcase every product reliably.

Slideshow Ads

For brands seeking video-esque visual storytelling sans the production demands and ad buying cost, Facebook Slideshow ads offer lighter-weight motion graphic alternatives.

Notable features include:

Attention-Grabbing Movement - Simulate engaging video motion and scene changes through a series of still images transitioning stylistically.
Lower Asset Burdens - Rely more on impactful images and less resource-intensive filming/editing.
Seamless Looping Capability - Set your visual narrative through multiple slides to flow continuously without awkward restart points.
Flexible Storytelling - Mix explanatory graphics, product imagery, behind-the-scenes photos, text captions and logos within sequential slides.

For cost-conscious advertisers, slideshows represent a stripped-down substitute for storytelling previously only possible through video. Make your brand shine in motion without overextending resources.

Lead Ads

For professional service providers, agencies, enterprise sales teams and other businesses dependent on inbound leads, manually collecting prospect contact information and details traditionally created friction. Facebook's Lead Ads integrate lead capture functionality natively to index interested audiences for sales follow-up.

Benefits of Lead Ads include:

Embedded Lead Forms - Display customized lead gen landing pages and forms directly within Facebook ads vs. forcing off-site conversions. Reduced dropout.
Rapid Submission - With autofill and one-tap submission optimized for mobile, prospects breeze through sharing their profiles.
Lead Management Integration - Feed leads seamlessly into your CRM or marketing automation workflows for immediate follow-ups.
Identify Sales Qualified Leads - Reveal audiences most likely to convert based on their engagement with your customized lead capture process.

Don't lose promising connections because of tedious info collection. Meet them where they already spend time with frictionless lead ads.

Messenger Ads

For brands focused on ultra convenient customer communication, Messenger ads drive targeted clicks straight into real-time Facebook Messenger conversations.

Notable Messenger ad perks:

Direct Messaging - Guide prospects straight into private message threads with your Page for personalized dialogues.
Streamlined Support - Enable instant access to your support team or bots to resolve issues faster.
Appointment Scheduling - Integrate booking partners like Calendly seamlessly after initial outreach.
Frictionless Lead Capture - Request info, offer demos or pass off to sales without leaving Messenger.
Rich Creative Options - Utilize all creative ad formats from video to carousels within the native Messenger environment.

With over one billion users messaging monthly, meeting consumers where conversations already occur eliminates obstacles. Offer click-to-chat Messenger ads for instant answers and relationship-building.

Collection Ads

For ecommerce brands or retailers marketing products directly on Facebook, Collection ads empower showcasing multiple catalog items, offers or categories in an engaging, instantly shoppable format.

Collection Ad options include:

Instant Storefronts - Display your products in a swipeable carousel leading straight to your online shop.
Lookbooks - Style collections situationaly with lifestyle imagery while linking for direct checkout.
Customer Acquisition - Promote lead gen signup incentives or access to gated content alongside showcasing products.

When users tap collection ads, they enter immersive Instant Experience where your products, videos and offers combine seamlessly without leaving Facebook. This reduces friction for social commerce.

Notable results - jewelry brand Pura Vida increased daily purchases 6x and earned 20% higher ROAS using Collection Ads to promote a 40% off Memorial Day sale. Consider collection ads your direct-response storefront within the world's largest social platform.

With over 85% of Facebook's ad revenue attributed to mobile users, brands must optimize creatives for smaller screens where video, imagery and simplicity capture share of mind. Fortunately Facebook's range of advertising formats empowers nuanced promotion across objectives - from video engagement to lead gen and all-in-one product showcases.

Strategically test the formats aligning to business goals against your unique audience interests and behaviors. Images vividly spotlight distinct products, carousels showcase more diversity, Open House drives local action and Collection ads enable frictionless on-platform conversion. Meet consumers where their attention goes - with the right message through the right channel.

Mohamed Fouad

Mohamed Fouad is a full-stack web developer and an entrepreneur who's really into advertising. He is the CEO of Rent Ads Agency, a company that helps businesses reach more customers through advertising. He graduated from Stanford University in 2018 and has over 4 years of experience in the tech industry.

18 Types of Facebook Ads to Consider for Your Business