On 21 Just 2014, Facebook announced that they are rolling out a new design for the ads shown in the right hand column sidebar on Facebook. This is how they will look:
As you can see from this image, the ads will be a lot larger – up to 3 times larger in fact. As they will be larger there will also be fewer ads shown in the sidebar.
So what does this mean for you if you are advertising on Facebook?
Your ads in the sidebar will now have great greater exposure. If you have had troubles in the past with your Facebook ads converting from the sidebar than this will definitely help. But because there will be fewer ad spaces there is also going to be greater competition for these spots which means higher advertising costs.
In the past, the Facebook Ads in the sidebar were not subject to the 20% text rule. This is now also changing, and you will be limited to using only 20% of the image in the ad as text. So no more than 20% of the image can be text based. This rule won’t be enforced immediately though and will apply to all new ads created from 1 August 2014.
I would love to hear your thoughts...