What Can Facebook Canvas Ads Do For You?

Social Media Marketing

What were you doing before you clicked on this blog? Let me hazard a guess. You were on Facebook, weren’t you? Open your laptop to check your email: Facebook. Unlock your phone to check a text: Facebook. Push notification pop-up: Facebook. Somehow it’s omnipresent in our lives, whether we like it or not. Always ahead of the curve when it comes to leading edge social media ideas, Facebook has done it yet again with Canvas. This most current creation is a full-screen, photo-heavy ad experience, and (in Facebook’s own words) “an immersive and expressive experience on Facebook for businesses to tell their stories and showcase their products.”

But what is Canvas? It doesn’t seem any different from all the other ads and click-bait screaming at you from your Facebook feed, right? Wrong. Early results show users spend on average “over 135 seconds on a Canvas ad, with 53 percent of users viewing more than half of the Canvas.” That’s 10 times longer than the average ad view. The “show not tell” route is much more visually stimulating. The viewers are in the driver’s seat and they love it. Canvas will load instantly, is easy to create, and 100 percent fully interactive. Still not convinced? Let’s dig a little deeper.

Canvas ads: An instantaneous experience

It takes no time at all to load Canvas. Mobile sites grow larger and more robust every year, and it can take up to 10 seconds for a page to load — much too long for our quick-consuming brains to wait. Hell, people skip 15-second ads on YouTube as soon as the Skip Ad button appears. Canvas, on the other hand, lives right on the user’s Facebook feed and is instantly accessible. Just click, and suddenly you’re immersed in the world of Canvas — cruise ships, the anatomy of a cheeseburger, how perfume is created — all within one seamless form. This keeps users continually interested, engaged, and more likely to click through to your site. Can I get three cheers for no spinning wheel of death?

Facebook Canvas ads provide an immersive experience for viewers. See this example from Wendy's.

Easy to create

Building a Canvas is done directly through your Facebook business page. No coding or web design is required, so you can stop Googling HTML tutorials now. Anyone can do it as long as they have a business page. An easy step-by-step process takes you through each customizable option on your Canvas until you reach the end and click Publish. That’s it. If you so choose, it’s also capable of 360-degree video, animation, and touch navigation, which makes Canvas even more interactive and engaging than the standard ad. And it’s much better than listening to some dude go on and on about how cool Spotify Premium is.

The Facebook Canvas Dashboard is intuitive, making the ads easy to create.

Tailored for mobile

Our phones go everywhere with us. They’re in our beds, bathrooms, and even under the table at those way-too-early client meetings. We look at them as soon as our alarm goes off and right before our heads hit the pillow. That’s a damn strong connection, and marketing creatives have been working to crack into it for a long time. Pretty fitting that Facebook is the one to do it, huh?

Retail is the top industry that has acquired customers through Facebook” and how convenient that Facebook develops Canvas, a fully interactive, product-based ad for mobile. Oh, and it happens to be beautiful (even when it’s blinding you in your dark room at midnight while you’re fighting off insomnia).

L'Occitane, the beauty line, used Canvas ads. Retail is the top industry to invest in the ad type.

Case study: Carnival Cruise Lines

The first company to officially launch their Canvas ad was Carnival Cruise Lines. Their ad was full of stunning photography featuring the cruise ship, each port visited, and activities available to guests. Carnival said that, “50 percent of people who opened the ad scrolled through until the end.” Each user on average spent over a minute and a half looking through the ad —10 times longer than the average engagement length — and CPC was only around $0.90.

Carnival Cruise Canvas Ad

Canvas provides a brand new format for ads, and people are loving it. Businesses would be smart to jump on this opportunity before it becomes flooded. User numbers will be high, costs will be low, and results should be great. Now’s the time to take advantage and set the standard for what Canvas could and will be, “for storytelling in multiple mediums, grabbing imagery, and content broken into snackable bites.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna make like a Canvas and scroll out. Till next time!

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2018-10-08T15:29:11+00:00

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