Choosing Your Creative

Let's return to the Ads Create page. As a quick reminder, we got here by using the drop-down arrow in the upper right-hand corner and selecting "Create Ads". Now, earlier we talked through the objectives that are available to us. For this course, we'll be focusing on the clicks to website objective, but you'll be able to apply the same principles to any of the other objectives. We are going to use the clicks to website objective because it requires the most effort to configure, which is great in order to explore all the options Facebook provides. So to start, I'll select send people to your website.

We have the option to enter the URL that we are promoting. We want to link to the page the traffic should arrive on, not the home page of our website. This is called a landing page. It is where people who click through your ads should land on your site. For example, if you are promoting a property, enter the URL of the page for the property. If your ad is designed to get buyers, enter the URL of a page on your website that talks about you working with buyers. Do not just have them go to the home page.

After you enter the URL, the page will refresh, and Facebook is going to automatically pull images and assets from this URL. At least, it's going to do its best. It usually grabs your logo and maybe an image or two from the web page. It might not work properly if you are using custom tracking codes from Google or another third party. But typically that will not be the case, so you should be fine.

Let's type in the URL that you want to promote and then select enter. So the page refreshes, and now we're going to start configuring this advertisement. As we scroll down, you will see information related to the ad, such as demographics and how much you want to spend. We are going to go over that later. For now, let's look at the images.

If it does pull an image, it's important to double-check that the size meets the requirements. To do that, you will look in the lower left-hand corner of the thumbnail. This image is 1050 by 700. We can compare that to the recommended image size, which Facebook has conveniently listed. As you can see here it says 1200 x 628 pixels. If the size of your image is smaller, Facebook will downgrade the type of ad that's available to you, meaning you won't get the results you desire.

Let's enter a second URL that is a different page on the site, and it will pull a different image. You'll notice that in the second image, there's an icon in the lower right-hand corner.

That icon tells me that this image is not acceptable. If I hover over the icon, Facebook alerts me to what the issue is. It is telling me that ad images with text that takes up more than 20% of the image may not be approved. This is a very big deal to Facebook. As you can see, if we scroll down they state it again in a big banner at the bottom.

Use the largest image possible. Typically that's double the recommended size, as this will not only ensure that you get the largest advertising unit possible, but it will also display the image in high resolution, which is important for newer computers and devices with retina displays. The largest image possible will increase the value of your advertising spend, which is always a good thing. Each image that is presented, or that you choose to upload, will become an advertisement. You can have up to six images, meaning this particular campaign will have six advertisements associated with it. They will all run simultaneously. However, you can edit them individually later.

When starting out, I recommend that you select one or two images to keep things simple for yourself. Use two different images as a way to compare them to each other and determine which concept works best.

If you would like to change the image, hover over it and choose the X in the upper right-hand corner. Doing so will remove the image.

Let's choose a new image. We can choose Upload Images, Browse Library, or Search Images.

- Upload Images refers to images on your computer. If you have an image you'd like to use, be sure it meets the recommend image size listed, as we discussed.

- If you select Browse Library, you will get a new pop up window. This section contains images uploaded previously in the Ad tool or images you've included on your Facebook page. There is a helpful filter at the top of the page which will let you toggle between the types.

- You can also use free stock images, which is actually a fantastic option because you can have beautiful images that you know will conform to Facebook standards. That can save you a lot of time and frustration.

When looking for the stock images, we can enter our search terms in the top bar to find related images. I am going to type in the word "property". Facebook automatically starts searching. Look at these great images!

Let's also try searching words like "house", and, while we are at it, why not try the phrase "real estate agent". I will talk more about choosing a great image in a later video, so be sure to review that. Do not be afraid to use generic stock images. There are so many images to choose from that you will have no problem finding an image that fits your professional persona. These are high-quality images that will look great-in fact, chances are they will look better than images you take on your own.

Once you've selected your fantastic image, choose Done to exit this window. One last thing you want to do is double-check the position of your image. You can do that by selecting the Reposition Images option at the bottom of the screen. Here we can click and drag this window to select the appropriate alignment. And in the upper right-hand corner, we'll get a preview of how that image will appear.

Once you're satisfied with the positioning, choose Done in the bottom right. At this point, you are lightyears ahead of your competition, and we are not even close to done! When you are done with this course, it is going to be incomprehensible how agents function without this knowledge.