5 Ways to Optimize Your Ad Creative for Mobile

Facebook Business

July 18, 2019

In a recent study, we took a look at audience attention on our mobile platforms and saw that people’s eyes fixated longer on video ad assets compared to static assets. “Video in Mobile Feed" by Kantar Media, Facebook IQ-commissioned research, UAE and UK, May 2017 This means video ads are a great opportunity for businesses to capture attention and drive brand awareness as well as conversions. But in order for your video ads to be most effective on mobile, they need to be optimized for the mobile viewing environment, so we put together some tips to help you easily adapt your existing assets for mobile.

1. Turn static images into video ads with slideshow

Slideshow makes it easy to create lightweight video ads from images you already have without any additional production investment, so they’re quick and affordable to create. You can create a slideshow ad in minutes right from your phone or desktop from images you have or you can choose from a selection of free stock images, rich video-editing tools and a wide range of music. Slideshow ads are also ideal when you need to reach people on slower connections, like in emerging markets, since slideshow ads load quickly and play well on any connection speed.

2. Trim your video to match consumption behavior on mobile

People flip through content quickly on mobile, so it’s important for your video ads to match this fast consumption behavior. If you have videos that are longer in duration, like a 60-second product demo or how-to video, you can repurpose these by using the video trimming tool to select the most important 10-15 seconds. Shortening your video ads will not only optimize them for how people consume content on mobile, but will also ensure your video ads are eligible for placements such as in-stream.

3. Crop your video to fit the mobile screen

Since people typically consume content on mobile while holding their phone vertically, it’s important to take advantage of the vertical screen space by creating 9:16 video ads. And formatting your video ads to fit the vertical screen space is now easier than ever with the automatic cropping tool in Ads Manager, in which our scene detection technology identifies the focal point of a non-vertical video on a frame-by-frame basis and automatically crops the video to the aspect ratio of the your choice. Check out this guide to see which aspect ratios work best with each placement.

4. Create assets that work with sound on and off

Since video viewing happens at different parts of the day in various settings, we know people enjoy having the ability to watch with or without sound. That’s why we recommend using subtitle to help deliver your message when people are watching with the sound off. In the Video Creation Kit, you can layer text assets on your video to guide viewers through your story arc and communicate your business messages seamlessly in the mobile environment. The Video Creation Kit offers templates suited for common marketing objectives like driving product discovery and showcasing multiple product benefits. You can also use the Video Creation Kit to turn static assets into video ads as well.

5. Bookend with your brand

Since people flip through content quickly on mobile, be sure your brand or business message is prominent at the beginning and/or end of the video, to help drive higher brand awareness and ad recall. Including your brand at the beginning of your video will give it a better chance of being seen and including it at the end will help keep your brand top of mind as people move on to other content.

For more inspiration and information on how to create effective mobile video ads, check out the inspiration page.

Explore more resources for creating successful video ads on our platforms.

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