ADVERTISING WITH FACEBOOK CANVAS ADS

Facebook Canvas is a tool that allows for the creation of immersive and instantaneous mobile advertising experiences. Designed to complement the social experience of Facebook, Facebook Canvas keeps users within the app and allows for social media marketing that engages audiences on a deeper level.

Specifically, Facebook Canvas allows businesses to generate full-screen multimedia advertising experiences, with text, images, animations, videos, carousels, tilt to view images and product feeds. These advertisements load in app, creating a experience much like any other Facebook native content. This is also very similar to Facebook’s Instant Articles program, which natively hosts certain publishers content.

Users who click on the ads receive branded content that is pre-cached, so loads instantly. This creates a seamless in app experience, rather than having viewers waiting on external browsers to load content after it’s clicked on. Given that the content is already cached, more engaging multimedia content is easier to deliver and more likely to be seen and engaged with.

Businesses wishing to use Facebook Canvas can start by going to Facebook’s Power Editor or by selecting ‘Publishing Tools’ from their page, clicking the option for Canvas, and selecting ‘create’. From here you can name your Canvas, add components like themes, headers, photos, product sets and videos; among others.

While there are some requirements for length, dimensions and formats; for the most part this process is quite customisable. Once you have customised your Canvas, you can create your campaign with objectives and aims much like any other Facebook advertising.

Businesses like ASUS, Coca Cola, BMW and Marvel have all used the tool as part of their Facebook advertising strategy; with Facebook reporting more website traffic for those brands and significantly higher views on their ads, as well as a longer average time spent looking at the ads by users.

According to Facebook, Canvas offers “complete creative control to achieve any objective”, and the ability to create compelling and visually stunning branded messages specifically tailored for the mobile experience is perhaps the biggest benefit of Facebook Canvas for businesses that are advertising on Facebook.