Here’s What You Need to Inspire Your Facebook Ad Design

Facebook ad design is like an onion.

Hear me out.

First of all, there are many layers to the art of designing effective Facebook ads. Just like an onion.

Secondly, you can’t skip any stages of the preparation process, just like you don’t chop your onion until you’ve removed the skin.

And finally, you’ll end up crying unless you use the tricks you’ve learned along the way. 

Just as you should peel your onion under running water, or chew gum while chopping it so your tears don’t start flowing, you should use a similar tactic with designing Facebook ads. 

You can follow the tips and best practices for designing Facebook ads in this article and fast forward to designing your next best ad. 

The importance of Facebook ad design

Why are your Facebook ad creatives so important? 

It’s simple. They’re the mechanism that entices new people into your sales funnel. 

Your ads make a difference to your bottom line because they’re the bait your potential customers latch onto - and the start of your waltz with them. 

If you catch their attention.

Your ad designs are an opportunity to woo and glamour your audience and show them who you are in a sea of other people doing the same thing. 

With the targeting restrictions we have since iOS14, your creatives are one of the major deciding factors that determine if your ad campaigns are successful. Your Facebook ad creative represents the ultimate challenge - can you make someone stop scrolling and do what you want them to?

While many design elements go into the best Facebook ad designs, the resulting creative is the gateway into your customer’s world. 

There are plenty of things to consider when designing - even planning - your Facebook ads. Here are more reasons why your Facebook ad designs are important.

• Competition is fierce - nothing is original anymore. Someone has already been there, done that, and is now selling the t-shirt. It’s harder to stand out nowadays, so you need to have a great ad design to lure your potential customers into your web.
• There’s an app for it - the amount of software available in 2024 lowers the barrier to creating visual content easily. There is no excuse for shoddy creatives anymore - mediocre won’t cut it either. Great content is being made every single day by everyone from kids to plumbers, retirees, and marketers alike. 
• TikTok - let’s give credit where it’s due. TikTok changed the shape of video content and inspired billions of users to create content using the app. This style of video content is a hit across the globe.
• Smartphones - let’s face it, you’ve got a machine in your pocket that can create just about anything with the combination of the right apps. Our phone camera technology is advancing so quickly that anyone can take high-resolution footage.

This is what you’re competing against in 2024, and this caliber of content is what users have come to expect from advertisers. 

But before the overwhelm kicks in, let’s look at your resource options…

In-house Facebook ad design vs. outsourcing

Whether you should outsource your Facebook ad graphic design work to a freelance designer or agency, or hire your own Facebook ad designer, the visual component in your ads should be done by a professional. This is a choice that only you can make - you know your business best.  Let’s look at the pros and cons of these scenarios.

In-house Facebook ad designer

Well-established businesses with the budget for additional resources

Pros:

👍 Saves you time 

👍 A designated person to do the work

👍 More affordable in the long run if you have heavy design requirements

👍 Tight management of the professional and consistent use of brand style with brand colors, copy, and fonts

👍 Being strongly connected to the business makes it easier to hit the mark and keep your finger on the pulse of your brand

👍 You can create as many designs as you want which means you can test more ads

👍 You control the task priority

Cons:

👎 Salary costs

👎 Requires time for project management and creative briefs

👎 May not be scalable if your designer has other responsibilities aside from Facebook ads

Outsourced freelance designer or agency

Usually budding businesses on a growth trajectory

Pros:

👍 Saves time so you can focus on operations

👍 You get what you pay for - professional Facebook ad designs

👍 Better chance of improving performance

👍 Faster turnaround time than if you did it yourself

👍 Easily scaleable increased work volume

👍 They have their own infrastructure and equipment that you can plug into

Cons:

👎 Can be costly, especially if paying ad hoc

👎 You don’t always control the task priority

👎 Time spent on creating design briefs

👎 Can lose the personal touch of someone familiar with the brand who works in-house

Bonus option: Solopreneur (DIY)

Pros:

👍 Keeps costs down when you’re starting out

👍 Prebuilt Facebook ad templates freely available to use to get started

Cons:

👎 Steep learning curve to design advertisements while competing against pros

👎 Extremely time-consuming and inconsistent as a result

👎 Difficult to prioritize when your business and workload grows

👎 Often inconsistent application of brand colors and styles

👎 Not easily scalable

Believe me, there are limited benefits to doing your own Facebook ad designs.

Wherever you are in your business journey may determine how you handle this vital role in your marketing. Making the right decision about investing in the creative aspects of your advertising design is key to growth. 

Now, imagine unlimited graphics for a set monthly fee. 

If you’re over the headache of designing your ad graphics, why not try Sparkle? Outsource your Facebook ad design work to the pros. Sparkle is a premium design service specializing in creating Facebook ads. 

Get your ads in 48 hours from when you send your brief - straight from the Madgicx app. Try Sparkle free for 7 days and see how it works.

Best practices in Facebook ad design

Here’s my list of the most important things to consider when designing a Facebook ad. 

1. Start with the format

While you may have your campaign idea ready, your design has to begin with choosing your ad format. What are you going to create? 

A Story or Reel? A video or still image? 

Are you driving purchases with a Collection ad? Or, giving your audience a visual taste of your products in a Carousel that links to an immersive experience? 

Your design layout is determined by what Facebook ad format you choose. And, the ad format you choose can be determined from your campaign objective. 

Do you want to boost brand awareness and get people to visit your page or website, or do you want to drive easy sales without Facebook users leaving the app? You need to know before you start.

You can choose from 6 campaign objectives in Meta:

• Awareness
• Traffic
• Engagement
• Leads
• App promotion
• Sales

And you can choose from these main ad formats:

• Images
• Videos
• Carousels 
• Collection ads

You can find a full list of every Facebook ad type known to man here if you’re curious and a guide to all the relevant ad sizes and specs.

2. Placement dictates ad design

Where your ad is shown determines how it should be presented. So, if you want your videos to show in Stories, you should ensure that it’s the right size and that the visual elements are laid out for how we hold our mobile devices and consume our content. 

Understanding the different ad placements available helps you to play to the strengths of each one when you design a Facebook ad. For example, you could use a carousel ad to give users a more immersive view of your products. Or, you can use Reels to make fun TikTok-style videos. Take a look at some Facebook ad examples.

Whether your ad shows on the Facebook News Feed, on Instagram Explore, or Reels or Stories, each ad placement has its requirements in terms of sizing and specs. It’s important to create the number of versions you need for each one in the correct size. 

As you can imagine, each placement has its advantages and disadvantages - with them being sized so differently it means your ad needs to work on all of them - they should be created in all these variations.

You should try all placements to see how your ads perform so you can learn from the data and leverage it to bring in better results in your next ad campaign.

3. Align ad design with brand and landing page

One of Facebook ad design’s best practices is to give your customers a seamless journey. You can do this by staying on-brand across all of your digital touchpoints. 

Whether you use a Facebook ad design service or you have an in-house designer, your creative team will be able to follow your brand guidelines to ensure all your ad creatives are aligned.

Why do we do this? It builds trust and familiarity among your audience, which is important if we’re asking people to buy something.

Not only should you be visually consistent on your landing pages, but your ads must reflect your brand, too. If your website looks completely different from your ad, people may think you’re scamming them. Use the same fonts, colors, and messaging to achieve this.

Creating a customer journey that maintains visual consistency across these touchpoints develops not only trust but brand affinity and reputation, too.

4. Be clear and concise

Get straight to the point. 

People gloss over and ignore stuff if it's too complicated or too hard to read. They skim at best. Or they just keep on scrolling.

A Facebook user should fully understand your value proposition when they look at your ad. 

The combination of text, images or videos, and design elements should achieve this together. However, be careful of using too much text and cluttered images with elements that hide the actual product is a no-go. If you’re creating a video, you should get your core message across in the first 5 seconds.

Here is an example of this in action.

In addition, your call to action should be clear and aligned with your core message and ad objective.

5. Mobile-first design

You guessed it, it has to be sized for mobile. 

Considering that 88% of users access Facebook from their mobile phone, the bulk of your ad views will come from a mobile device.  so you must ensure your ad is designed with this in mind. Pay attention to the sizing details and use vertical videos to improve performance. You want to make it as easy as possible for someone holding their phone to watch your full ad.

For example, using extremely small text and lots of it isn’t a good idea. 

Don’t ignore this tip - it’s probably one of the most important ones on the list.

6. Create contrast

You want your Facebook ad’s design to stand out in people’s feeds when scrolling, right? 

One way to do this is to use visually different elements like colors, fonts, sizes, shapes, styles, and textures in your designs. By using contrasting colors, you can make your ad design more eye-catching and draw people to a focal point. 

Using contrast can increase the readability of your ad design, and can help to highlight the most important information for your audience.

A great way to do this is by using contrast in your designs to make sure that any text you include is easily readable and any key visuals are clear and stand out unobstructed.

The designers responsible for thumb-stopping Facebook ads use contrast when designing their Facebook ad graphics.

You can read more about how to use contrast in this article I found. Without applying it, people won’t notice your ad - it will blend into the background.

7. Incorporate motion

Use movement when you design Facebook ads. Wherever possible, turn an image into a video with a bit of movement. You could create a slideshow video out of your images, add an animation, or make a video using easy-to-use tools like Meta’s Creative Hub, Canva, or any other Facebook ad design template tool. 

Video ads get more clicks than still images, plus they’re an average of 10% cheaper than a single image or carousel post.

8. Reduce text

Meta advises keeping your ad copy short. 

Ideally, you want to prioritize using graphics over text to convey your message when developing  Facebook ad design ideas. Keep text to a minimum and trim out any unnecessary words when designing Facebook ads. 

Only use words that help tell the story, and leave the rest for the headline or description text. In addition, you should ensure the font is clear and easy to read. Doing this helps with our next point.

9. Accessibility

Be mindful of the hearing or the visually impaired. This means including sound and subtitles in your videos. Even if your video has sound, you should still cater to people who prefer to watch with the volume off. This means adding captions or subtitles where the messaging may get lost without sound. And, you should keep your captions concise too, and edit out any fluff. 

Many people watch videos while they’re in public or commuting and prefer keeping the sound off. By adding captions, you make your ad both accessible and less skipworthy.

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10. A/B testing to analyze performance

You should always test your ad creatives.

Hands down, this may be the most important Facebook ad design best practice out there. Split testing your creatives to analyze their performance is crucial. Fortunately, we have an excellent article about creative testing explaining how to do it correctly. 

It reminds me of another cardinal rule of advertising… 

Never underestimate your audience. 

Just because you think an ad will perform well for your audience, a different format or version of that ad may yield better results. Or it may fall flat entirely. 

You can’t anticipate how your audience will respond to your ads or assume they’ll react the same way every time. 

The best way to navigate this problem is by A/B testing your creatives. The data doesn’t lie, and this is why you’ve got to study your analytics. 

Once you’ve analyzed your Facebook design variation performance and have a winner, you know which one to throw your budget at.  

Repeat the process until you have a super duper amazing ad, and scale it.

Just remember, you can only scale an amazing ad if you test your ad creatives like a mad scientist.

Looking for more tips? Check out our guide to learn how to make a Facebook ad.

Facebook ad design examples for inspiration

A good approach is to always be on the lookout for Facebook ad design inspiration. Here are some Facebook ad examples to ignite your creativity.

1. Labelly

Portable printer that prints straight from your phone.

Why it works:

• Clear and concise - the best feature is announced within a few seconds in the video and they’ve used minimalist approach with their captions
• Proof - the video shows the product clearly so people can see what it is
• Authenticity - video showing how it works

2. The Box Fashion

Fashion accessory boxes to reinvent your wardrobe.

Why it works:

• Visual messaging is clear - the image shows what they sell in an appealing way
• Boosts trust - their ad is aligned with the brand’s visual identity
• Incentivizes buying - they offer a 25% discount if you purchase on their website
• Clear and cute CTA - "Get yourself a box" is a simple a prompts the user to take action

3. Bug A Salt

A non-toxic alternative to bug spray.

Why it works:

• Minimalist text - it’s well-thought-out and playful throughout the ad which makes you want to try it out
• Bold colors - the use of color draws attention
• Clear and catchy copy - you can’t help but stop scrolling to look at it
• Sparks curiosity - the combination of copy and bright and contrasting images makes you want to tap to learn more

4. DIYgirls Interior

Why it works:

• Professional product shots - the photographs of their cushions are professionally done
• Immersive - quick slideshow video when you hover over the products shows tons of product variations
• Image variations - they use professional product images combined with lifestyle images to show the products in use
• No text in images or videos - the products have the full spotlight
• Text in the ad description - includes all the features, benefits, and selling points of the product

5. Travelstart South Africa

Download a travel agent in your pocket. 

Why it works:

• Extra space - they used the carousel format for more ad real estate to include more features in the ad
• High contrast - the design makes it easy to read and stand out in feeds
• Compelling rationale - Emphasis on finding a good travel deal as motivation to download the app

Want more examples?
- Real estate Facebook ads
- Facebook jewelry ads
- Facebook clothing ads

Looking for more inspirational ads? Browse the Madgicx Ad Library and filter by ad format, brand, and category. Stay organized, save to boards, send briefs, and launch from one place. Try out the Madgicx Ad Library for free.

Now I’ve told you how to design a Facebook ad, go forth and get started!

Whether you’re appointing a new Facebook ad designer or outsourcing to the pros at Sparkle, start today so you can begin reaping the rewards of effective Facebook ad designs. Try Sparkle for free.