Placements – where will your adverts appear?

This may shock you…

Your Facebook Ad can and will appear in a number of different places – known as Placements – many of these placements you probably don’t even realise exist!

Of course everyone assumes that ads only appear on the mobile newsfeed, sometimes they remember desktop, and Stories but they are nearly always shocked and surprised when they discover that they have been paying for their ads to appear in places they perhaps would never have chosen.

Not all Placements are equal – the actions people take are heavily influenced not only by the ad, but where they see the ad!

Automatic Placements

{Updated May 2021} Historically, we have always advised people to switch to MANUAL placements, and not Automatic Placements – but a lot has changed this year with ad costs rising and ios14.

I would now advise you to keep automatic placements – this give Facebook more flexibility to find the cheaper ways to run your ads and give liquidity to the auction, providing you with more opportunities.

The caveat to this, is of course if you are choosing to separate out IG/FB because you know that most of your leads are coming from one particular platform.

  • Facebook Right Hand Column – this means your ad is appearing on the right hand side of the desktop (as in, people who are browsing Facebook on their computer!) When did you last notice an advert here? In fact…. when did you last browse Facebook on a desktop?!

    This goes right back to the behavioural psychologies we talked about in Pre-Planning your Ad Campaign. What works for Audience A, does not work for Audience B. If you want to sell a pair of shoes to a 22 year old girl, this Placement is going to be rubbish for you. If you want to sell a Saga holiday to a 65 year old man, this low cost placement might be perfect.

  • Instagram Explore  – I’ll give you a tenner if you can even FIND the Instagram Explore tab on your App…. as of Sep 2020 this has been replaced on the lower screen button menu by ‘Reels’

  • Facebook In-Stream Videos  – you know when you’re deeply engrossed in an emotionally compelling video, there’s an overturned car in a river, the children inside are drowning…. the villager are all pulling together to pull the car from the water….. OMG are they going to die?!?….. you’re watching intently…..

    “Did you know that you can now prepare your tax return using our new software programme, you can photo your receipts…”

    WHAAAAAAT?? What is this. Take me back to the video.

    Familiar? Ever bought a product from those videos? Nope, me neither.

  • Audience Network  – what does this even mean?! This is where your Ad appears on third-party Apps and websites, for example Tinder, dating sites, lifestyle blogs, gaming Apps etc.

    Do you take much notice of the ads you see as you’re swiping left, swiping right on a dating app? Is finding a plumber to unblock your pipes really what is on your mind at that moment in time? Okay…. bad example… but you get my drift!

Explainer – 2 minute video

Where to find Placements when creating your Ad and how to remove unwanted Placements.

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