What is Facebook Canvas? 7 Facebook Canvas Best Practices

You can use Facebook’s advertising program to help new leads discover your business and get to know your brand. Facebook Canvas ads, a format of Facebook ads, is one of the best ways to create an immersive and engaging advertising experience for your audience.

On this page, we’ll discuss Facebook Canvas and provide you with seven tips for creating impactful canvas ads on Facebook. If you need help setting up your social advertising campaign, call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about creating an impactful Facebook canvas ad.

What is Facebook Canvas?

Facebook Canvas ads, now known as Instant Experiences, are immersive ad experiences on Facebook’s platform. When a user clicks on these ads, it takes up the entire screen and creates an interactive ad experience. These ads are only available for mobile device users.

These canvas ads on Facebook deliver a microsite-like experience. When your audience engages with them, they become a part of the advertisement experience, rather than just seeing it. This immersive format is what makes these ads Instant Experience ads.

Facebook Canvas ads load instantly, and Facebook wholly hosts the ads. It allows people to access your ads faster and become a part of the experience without having to wait for content to load.

Like any other Facebook ad, you can set goals to strengthen your brand, promote products, earn new customers, or drive mobile shopping sales.

Facebook Canvas ad specs

You have many opportunities to develop a creative advertising experience with Facebook Canvas ads. These ads enable businesses to tell stories and showcase their products, services, or brand.

So, what are the Facebook Canvas ad specs? Here’s a list of what you can include in your ad:

• Text
• Images
• Video
• Carousels
• Product feeds
• Clickable buttons (including call-to-action buttons)

These are the elements you can use for your immersive advertising experience. Facebook enables you to use any combination of these elements in any format. It allows you to create an advertisement that fits better with your brand and business.

You can have users swipe through a carousel of images, tilt to view panoramic images, zoom in to see the details on a product, and more. The Facebook Canvas ad specs are expansive to allow you to create the best ad experience for your audience.

7 Facebook Canvas best practices

Are you ready to start creating a more exciting ad experience for your audience? If so, Facebook Instant Experiences are great to help you build a narrative for your brand and products.

Let’s take a look at seven best practices for building awesome Canvas ads on Facebook.

1. Choose the first component of your ad sensibly

First impressions have a lasting impact on your audience. It can determine whether they interact with your ad or close out of it. If you want to make a positive first impression, you must choose your first ad component wisely.

Your audience doesn’t see your whole ad experience at first. When your audience views the ad, they will see the first image, which will guide them to the rest of your mesmerizing Facebook Canvas ad. You want to choose an image or video that is captivating and engaging.

It should immediately grab your audience’s attention and make them want to learn more. You want your audience to keep scrolling to see the meat of your ad. If you want your ad to be effective, you must give your audience a compelling reason to keep interacting.

You can tell them a problem you can solve, write an engaging hook line, or create a feature video or image that “wows” your audience. All these practices will help you create an impactful first impression with your Facebook Canvas ad.

2. Focus on having a single message with your Instant Experiences

Instant Experiences paint a single picture on a canvas. Your audience should look at your ad and know the core message. If you want to be successful with Canvas ads on Facebook, you must know the central message of your advertisement.

Every ad you create has a purpose. Whether it’s to build brand recognition or earn new customers, you create your ads intending to achieve that goal. Your ad message reflects that goal.

When you create your Facebook Canvas ads, you want to focus on a single message that aligns with your advertising goal.

Let’s say your advertising goal is to build brand awareness. When you compose your Instant Experience, your message focuses on the quality of your brand. You showcase the value in choosing your brand by highlighting the perks of your business.

If you were focusing on sending the message of having a top-notch brand, you would choose images, video, and text to support that message. You could showcase some top products, highlight the features that make them better quality than competitors, and show why your brand is trusted.

Even though these slides cover different aspects of your brand, they still relate to having a quality brand. When someone walks away from your ad (or even converts), they should feel that you have a quality and trustworthy brand!

One of the most valuable Facebook Canvas best practices is focusing on having one message with your ad. You will create an ad that is more cohesive and works better for achieving your business’s goals.

3. Stay visually-focused with your Facebook Canvas ads

As you read more about Facebook Canvas best practices, you will find that visuals are a crucial component to having a successful ad. The point of Instant Experiences is to have an immersive and engaging experience that sucks your audience into your ad. Visuals are the best way to captivate your audience and get them to engage with your ad.

You want to use a combination of high-quality images and videos. You’ll also want to include short, descriptive pieces of text to further enhance your visuals. These visuals are an opportunity for you to use highly captivating visuals to pull your audience into your ad.

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Pick your visual elements wisely. You want to focus on images and videos that will enhance your message while keeping your audience’s interest. These visuals should be unique to your business and have a particular style reflective of your brand.

Don’t use stock photos. These ads are an opportunity for you to showcase your business and your brand. The images should be professionally done and high-quality, whether you take your photos in-house or hire a professional.

Videos are an excellent option for Canvas ads on Facebook. They quickly catch your audience’s attention and keep them engaged longer. In general, users spend 88% more time on pages with videos, so you can infer that they will spend more time on your ad if you integrate videos.

By choosing the right visuals, you’ll create a better Facebook Canvas ad for your audience. You’ll make it more visually interesting for them, which will keep them engaging with your ad longer.

4. Guide your audience through your Canvas ad

If you want to keep your audience engaging with your Canvas ad, you must guide them through it. Your audience won’t know what they are meant to do if you don’t tell them how to do it.

Instant Experience ads have multiple different functions you can use. You can have users swipe up, down, left, and right, zoom in and out, and more. If you don’t tell your audience how to interact with your ad, they won’t know which motion they are meant to use with your ad.

The ability to swipe and zoom is what makes Facebook Canvas ads so impactful. Your audience doesn’t just stare at the ad, but rather, they interact with the ad. This keeps audiences interested in your ad’s information for a longer period of time.

You’ll want to use both textual and visual clues to help guide your audience. You can use arrows and dots to help guide your audience to swipe in specific directions. You can also use phrases like “Swipe left to see…” or “scroll down to…”

By guiding your audience through your ad, you’ll keep them interacting with your ad longer. It will help you produce better results with your Facebook Canvas ad.

5. Keep your ad fresh and change it up

Facebook Canvas ads are compelling for engaging your audience. Since these ads have a powerful impact on your audience, you may find yourself wanting to run multiple Instant Experience ad campaigns. If you choose to run various Canvas ads, make sure you keep them fresh and change them up.

Many companies fall into the trap of using the same format for their Instant Experience ads. If you keep it in the same form, it won’t make it interesting for your audience, especially if they’ve seen your ads before. To get the full effect of these ads, you must change the format to keep it fresh.

The combinations are near endless with Canvas ads. Since you can add different headers, buttons, text, visuals, and motions, you can create a brand-new ad each time. You can change up the format to make advertisements more dynamic for your audience.

By keeping your ad format fresh, you’ll create a great, immersive experience each time.

6. Integrate a CTA button into your ad

With any advertisement, call-to-action (CTA) buttons are an essential part of getting your audience to take the next step. If your audience loves what they see in your ad, you want them to get in contact with your business, learn more, or buy your products. With Instant Experience ads, you’ll want to integrate a CTA.

While there isn’t specifically a CTA button, Facebook enables advertisers to add clickable buttons. Since these buttons are highly customizable, you can make it into a CTA for your ad.

You can change the color, text, and site link for these buttons. It’s an easy way for you to create a CTA that guides your audience to a product page or an informational page to learn more about your business.

If you want to see success with your ad, you should always have a CTA on your last slide. If people enjoyed your ad and want to take the next step, they will need guidance once they get to the end of your ad.

You may also want to consider adding CTA buttons in other places, too. Someone may want to convert halfway through your ad and not continue looking at the ad to get there. In this case, you may want to consider adding a CTA button towards the middle, too, to earn those conversions.

Clickable CTA buttons are one of the most effective Facebook Canvas best practices for driving conversions for your business. If you want to see successful results from your Instant Experience ads, integrate CTA buttons into your ad.

7. Test your ads to ensure you’re putting out the best ad copy

Canvas ads on Facebook offer many opportunities for customization. If you want to put out the best version of your ad, you should consistently test your ad. Testing your ad allows you to see which elements are more effective at driving results for your business.

When you test your ads, you can test multiple elements to see which items perform better for your ad. You can check your images, videos, text, and buttons. It’s a great way to help you put out the best advertisement for your business.

By testing your ads, you will put out the best ad copy for your audience. You will create a better Facebook Canvas ad that drives more leads and conversions for your business.

Start creating immersive Facebook Canvas ads today

Facebook Canvas ads are an excellent opportunity for your business to tell a story. You can engage your audience and get them invested in your brand. If you’re ready to create Facebook Instant Experiences, WebFX can help you generate more captivating Facebook ads.

At WebFX, we have a team of over 200 experts that will bring their knowledge and expertise to your campaign. We’ll help you create a customized social media ad campaign that will drive more valuable results for your business. Our team will help you integrate beautiful visuals, create compelling text, and utilize buttons to increase engagement on your ads.

If you’re ready to start creating more engaging Facebook ads, contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about creating immersive Facebook Canvas ads for your business!