What are Carousel Ads and why should advertisers try them?

Among hundreds of thousands of competitors, it is difficult for a brand to stand out. Some businesses are even willing to spend billions of dong on marketing. So is there any way to promote that is both effective and economical? Currently, social networks such as Facebook and Instagram provide impressive advertising solutions at low cost.

Carousel Ads on Facebook and Instagram are a powerful support tool for businesses’ marketing campaigns. With rotating ads, the marketing space is expanded, allowing businesses to tell brand stories, introduce products in an eye-catching and creative way.

1. Overview of Carousel Ads

1.1 What are Carousel Ads?

Carousel Ads are a form of advertising that combines multiple videos and images into one ad. Carousel Ads are most popular on Instagram and Facebook, where businesses can showcase multiple images and videos to improve conversion rates or sales. (Source: Sprout Social)

Carousel ads have attractive, visual content, so it is undeniable that they are a great way for businesses to promote their brands, drive traffic to their websites and increase CTR.

1.2 Carousel ads on Facebook

With Facebook Carousel Ads, businesses can introduce up to 10 images or videos in one ad, with a separate link for each image/video. Thanks to the additional marketing space, products stand out with full details. Not only that, businesses can tell their brand story vividly.

Facebook can optimize the order of images, based on the effectiveness of each tag. If your business wants to tell a story in sequence, you can opt out of automatic optimization.

• Facebook Carousel Ads Specifications:

Number of Cards:

+ Minimum number of cards: 2

+ Maximum number of cards: 10

Image Features

+ Format: JPG or PNG

+ Maximum file size: 30MB

+ Text ratio: less than 20%

+ Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 pixels

+ Ratio: 1:1

Video characteristics

+ Format: MP4 or MOV

+ Maximum file size: 4GB

+ Maximum duration: 240 minutes

1.3 Instagram Carousel Ads

Instagram Carousel Ads are placed in Instagram Stories and reach your target audience through a seamless story, multiple products, or a sequential series of descriptions. Businesses can adjust and change the number of cards to optimize effectiveness. Users can view 1 – 3 cards before seeing the “Expand Story” option to view the remaining cards.

• Instagram Carousel Ads image/video size:

Image

+ Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels

+ Ratio: 1:1

+ Format: JPG or PNG

+ Maximum image size: 30MB per image

+ Number of images: 2 – 10 images/ 1 ad

Video

+ Resolution: minimum 600 x 6000 pixels and maximum 1080 x 1080 pixels

+ Aspect ratio: 1:1

+ Format: MP4 recommended

+ Maximum video size: 4GB per video

+ Maximum duration: 60 seconds

+ Quantity: 2 – 10 videos/ 1 ad

2. When should you run Carousel Ads?

Here are the golden times for businesses to take advantage of the strengths of carousel ads:

2.1 When businesses want to advertise multiple products

Carousel Ads will help businesses save maximum costs when they want to advertise multiple products at the same time, usually products with the same characteristics. Each product is located in a card, including a link to the landing page of that product. This helps customers have more choices, increasing the click rate for the website.

2.2 When a business wants to introduce a product in detail

Businesses use carousel ads when they want customers to understand more about their products. Each business card will show details of the parts or special aspects of that product.

2.3 When businesses want to attract user interaction

A long, engaging story of the business will attract users to swipe to see more, increasing their level of interaction on the ad.

2.4 When businesses want to explain the process

Businesses increase customer trust and attract more interaction through step-by-step images/videos to produce or use that product/service.

3. Why should businesses run Carousel Ads?

3.1 Carousel ads are more attractive than single image/video ads

Multi-product ads will attract customers’ attention more than regular ads. Businesses can introduce multiple products and services in one ad. Carousel Ads can display 10 products with product descriptions, prices, and CTAs to help customers make decisions and make purchases more easily.

The goal of marketers is to find ways to attract users’ interest and attention. Through Carousel Ads, this goal is easier to achieve. The rotating ad templates are user-friendly but do not overwhelm the ad or confuse buyers. The quality of advertising is improved, highlighting the attractiveness of the product through images and videos with attractive content.

3.2 Cost-effectiveness of Carousel Ads

Many people still mistakenly think that advertising multiple products with Carousel Ads will cost more. However, in reality, the cost of carousel advertising is only at a low average level. The cost per click (CPC) for Carousel Ads is lower than that of conventional single image advertising.

Not only that, carousel ads on Facebook are displayed strategically, effectively but not wastefully. If you have a small advertising budget, Carousel Ads is the ideal choice.

The cost of carousel advertising depends on many factors such as target audience, content, ad display time, etc.

3.3 Flexible carousel advertising

Thanks to Facebook’s detailed reports, businesses can track whether the advertising link is effective or not. Then, let Facebook optimize those links for higher ad engagement.

Carousel ads allow you to integrate 10 call-to-action buttons for 10 images. This means you can diversify your calls to action to visit your website, download your app, or participate in promotions and newsletters.

4. 7 Great Carousel Ad Ideas for Businesses

4.1 Highlight a Product/Service

In addition to multi-product advertising, carousel ads can also be applied in cases where businesses only want to market a single product.

Tieks by Gavrieli has used a multi-image layout to highlight the features of its women’s ballet flats. Each image describes a detail of the product.

But the most notable is the way Tieks has used to convey the content. Every detail of the shoe where the woman’s hand touches is magnified. This encourages viewers to use their fingers to click on the image.

4.2 Instructions on how to use the product

Another way to advertise a product using Carousel Ads.

Tyme Hair is a company that produces a 2-in-1 hair straightener. To guide customers on how to transform their hair easily and perfectly with this product, the company used a carousel ad, each step corresponding to an image.

4.3 Introduction to Mobile Apps

The music streaming app publisher Deezer has created a carousel ad for the Mobile App to highlight the app’s features.

Each image represents a feature of the app, briefly and interestingly summarizing the experiences that users can enjoy with this app, encouraging users to install the app.

This form of advertising has helped Deezer reduce 50% of the cost per click and 60% of the cost per install compared to other advertising channels.

4.4 Share articles from business websites

If your business provides a service, can you take advantage of carousel ads? These businesses can use Carousel Ads to introduce the services they provide in an easy-to-understand way.

Precision Nutrition ran carousel ads with 3 article links from the website. The content of the articles is about the topic of healthy diet for athletes.

Thanks to this form of advertising, the company has received 6,000 newsletter subscriptions, the cost per customer is reduced by 50%, and the click rate is increased by 50%.

4.5 Telling the story of the product

Carousel Ads help businesses express their stories more attractively and engagingly.

Pura Vida Bracelets is a company from Costa Rica that offers handmade bracelets. To increase online sales, Pura Vida ran carousel ads that featured photos of people living on the beach. In the photos, the business cleverly incorporated its colorful handmade bracelets. And as a result, after just 2 months, the company’s online orders increased 4 times.

4.6 Telling customer stories

Project Repat is a unit specializing in turning old T-shirts into a unique blanket brand new. With the motto of always putting the customer at the center, the company created a carousel ad that included images of customers using the company’s products. The advertising campaign helped Project Repat get great results, the company added hundreds of meaningful photos from customers.

4.7 Introduce product categories

The top advantage of carousel ads is that they allow businesses to introduce multiple products at the same time.

Fashion website Women’s clothing in Taiwan – BAI*白媽媽 increased website traffic by using Carousel Ads for product categories. As a result, website visits and online sales increased significantly. In particular, the return on advertising spend has increased by 2.5 times.

Carousel Ads is the best advertising method to raise customer awareness of brands and products in many aspects. At the same time, increase traffic compared to conventional advertising. If your business is interested in this form of advertising. Contact Adsmo for quick consultation, quotation and detailed planning.

See more:

• What is Digital Account?
• What is Digital Marketing?