Are Facebook Canvas Ads Right for Your Business?

It’s no secret that mobile ads are a pain. They are very often intrusive, impossible to exit, auto play music and suck up valuable data. Google, Apple and many other tech companies have been joining the fight against poor advertising, and now Facebook is joining in, changing the way businesses are able to present their products.

What is a Canvas ad? Canvas ads are an advertisement option by Facebook which allows you to design an ad optimized for user interaction on mobile devices. It presents businesses with the ability to better reach their audience by presenting them with a beautiful user experience. It forces advertisers to really think about what will get their audience interested and hold their attention instead of continually shoving poorly-designed ads in their face.

As you can see from the diagram provided by Facebook, Canvas provides a variety of options, including scrolling, a carousel of cards, panoramic photos, and other engaging animations, all optimized for tablets and phone breakpoints.

Why do they work so well? Canvas ads have so far been successful. Average view time is up to 31 seconds and big names such as Lowe’s, Coca-Cola and Wendy’s have all utilized this new feature. Here are a few reasons why.

Interactive — These ads are designed as a journey, guiding users through your products using attractive visuals and allowing them to have control over their experience.

Non-intrusive — These ads appear only after a user clicks on the initial advertisement post on their newsfeed. This keeps them unobtrusive and keeps them in the Facebook application instead of sending them offsite.

Fully-customizable — Facebook offers a variety of tools so that every ad is unique. Whether a portfolio of images, a panoramic landscape or a video, you can build a journey based on what best represents your business. Everyone loves a good story; it’s how we engage users. Instead of relying on a flat billboard ad, Canvas ads allow a business to tell their story — no design, development or marketing experience necessary.

Mobile-friendly — Canvas ads are specifically optimized for mobile screens and are loaded in the Facebook app, making it 10 times faster than if it were loaded in a traditional browser and salvaging data use.

Should your business use Canvas? The good news is that Canvas is adaptable to almost any industry. It will be especially useful for those who with a storyline or attractive imagery of products to display. The real draw here is the dawn of a better world for mobile advertisements, and possibly advertisements as a whole. If you really want to reach your audience, accessing more information about your products and services should not be a negative experience, but should reward the user.

If you are interested in Canvas advertisements but are unsure how to get stated, our digital marketing team would be happy to help you decide how to best display your business and reach your audience on Facebook.