Why mobile-first creative means everything to your paid campaign results

When it comes to running paid media campaigns, it’s sometimes easy to overlook the importance of running mobile-first creative. Whether it’s trying out different types of ad formats, considering how much text to include in your graphics or best practice technical specifications for different ad types – it can get a little cluttered and overwhelming understanding what to focus on. 

What is the best mobile ad format?

There’s tons of research out there that push the importance of video to advertising success. With a seemingly infinite amount of content out there, the most attention grabbing? Video. And with more and more users hanging out online and on their mobile devices, optimising your ad creative to be mobile-first really starts with slick audio-visual content! When running video ads, the key thing that sets the ad type apart to a static one is the ability to tie in visual and emotional cues, aiding brand recall and consumer interest if done well and optimised correctly to the platform. You can build different variations of the same video too to suit your advertising and platform-specific needs.

How to create mobile-first paid campaigns

Use analytics

Before we get stuck into the nitty gritty, make sure to do a quick analytics sweep to understand the breakdown of users landing on your site. If you have Google Analytics set up for your website, head to the section where you can review traffic statistics around device type. Is it skewed more towards mobile users or desktop? 

Depending on the type of service or products you offer, you may be surprised to realise how much traffic is actually acquired through mobile or android devices. A second step would be to head to the Acquisition section of analytics and look at the source of where traffic is coming from (Facebook vs. organic search for example). For the purpose of this article, let’s assume you’re getting some traction from your social media posts on Facebook, and want to consider putting some paid media behind your brand or organisation.

Choose your ad format

There are multiple formats you can run ads, including static, video, carousel, catalogue, reels and stories. On top of these, there are different placements you can select for your ads to show – including but not limited to – newsfeeds, search, Facebook marketplace, in-article and more, all of which require accurate specifications to be shown properly to audiences you’re targeting.

Keep it short and sweet

We know that trying to capture attention in the crazy world of social media marketing is difficult and very competitive, so make sure you’re getting the most important information across in your ad within the first 3-6 sections of a video ad. Most importantly, don’t forget that most users scrolling on social media do not have audio activated. You need to ensure you caption your video content for users with audio muted.

Check the requirements for image and video ads

However, if you decide that a static image is what  you want to use, be sure to stick to the 80/20 rule, meaning 80% of the image is visual, and 20% is text or copy based. Meaning no more than 20% of the ad should be occupied by text. The same actually applies to video ads as well. There are other advertiser compliance regulations you should follow before jumping into developing your creative to make sure you aren’t doing the work over. Review this checklist to make sure.

Review your ad

An easy way to make sure you’re correctly building your ads with the right specifications is to use Facebook’s Ads Manager preview tool. This allows you to preview how your video ad shows up when campaigns are live. Make sure you make the necessary adjustments based on placements. Is the message in the video succinct? Have you included a brand link? Have you added music or captions? Have you included your logo? When your ad ticks all the boxes, you are ready to launch.

If you’re considering running campaigns or digital advertising, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team.