Facebook is in the process of rolling out a new tool called ‘Dynamic Creative’, giving advertisers a way to automatically vary the content of an ad based on who sees the ad and where the ad appears. Here’s what you need to know to get started with dynamic creative ads.
How It Works
The dynamic creative option is available through Power Editor and the updated Ads Manager. If the option has been rolled out to you, you’ll see a dynamic creative option after you create a new campaign and save it as a draft. To use the option, click the radio button next to dynamic creative, and you’ll then have the option to add multiple assets to the ad.
Advertisers can add up to 30 assets per ad, and they are broken down to a maximum of:
- 5 titles or headlines
- 10 images or videos
- 5 bodies of text
- 5 descriptions of an ad’s link or video
- 5 calls to action
Dynamic creative uses these assets to create up to 6,250 different ad variants. Think of it like a conductor who has access to a full orchestra and a computer coming up with thousands of musical variations. Although thousands of combinations are possible, Facebook will only deliver a small portion of the 6,250 combinations, since it’s designed to pick combinations that are likely to have the most success.
A few things to keep in mind when using the dynamic creative option:
- Can only be used with single image or video ads, carousel ads are not supported.
- Cannot mix videos and images.
- The supported campaign objectives are conversions, app installs, and traffic.
- Can be used across 6 placement types: Newsfeed on desktop and mobile; the right hand column; the main feed on Instagram; Audience Network classic, in-stream video, and rewarded video.
Analyzing Dynamic Ad Variations
If you use dynamic creative, you’ll want to analyze the ad creatives it delivers to see which ones perform the best and drive the most results. You can do this in Power Editor or Ads Manager by choosing “Breakdown” above the reporting table, clicking on “By Asset” and selecting an asset: Image, Video, Headline, Text, Description, Call to Action, or Website. Also available is a breakdown for audience gender and age, which will show you what type of people the ads were served to, and how the ads were received by that audience.
Ad testing is essential to any Facebook strategy, but it can be time-consuming and labor intensive. With dynamic creative, ad testing and optimization should become easier than ever, which is great news. One question that’s unanswered as of yet is how users’ visibility will change when Facebook is expected to release the “View Ads” tab on Pages in the U.S. next summer. Stay tuned.
