Strengthen your Stories ads strategy
Creative
Your ad creative is a critical piece to consider as you set your Stories ads strategy. There is no substitute for testing and experimentation, but there are a few key things to keep in mind when designing for this unique environment and your specific objective.
Think Stories-First With Interactivity
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Quick tip: Add a polling sticker to your Instagram Stories ad.
60% of businesses on Instagram Stories use an Instagram Stories ad interactive element every month, including a location tag, @mention, polling sticker, etc.1
Interactive elements in organic Stories, like the emoji slider and question sticker, offer a fun way for people to engage with one another. People and businesses alike have been enjoying using interactive stickers to engage directly with their followers. To reach your audience with ads that are as engaging and native as organic Stories, you can use the polling sticker in Instagram Stories ads. We recommend using the polling sticker when you want to:
- Encourage people to engage directly with your Stories ads a little longer: The polling sticker increased 3-second video views in 9 of 10 beta campaigns1
- Test its impact: App developer Next Games' polling sticker ad drove 40% more app installs of its new game compared to the same ad without a polling sticker 2
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Success Story: Discover how Yoga International used Polling Stickers in Stories to generate 3,510 new trial memberships.
Tap & Hold
Tapping and holding is a popular interaction that Stories viewers take in order to view content longer and delay advancing to the next story. You can take your ad to the next level by “gamifying” your creative with “tap and hold”, creating an interactive experience your audience can play with.
Native Elements
You can play and experiment with native elements like stickers, GIFS, and camera effects. You can also think about the organic behavior and how it could be used in your ad to create eye-catching creative that feels native to the platform
Screenshots
You can play with screenshots, a native behavior that people do organically in Stories. Turn it into a competition to engage directly with your customers or let them use your screenshot to post in their own Stories.
When you want to go beyond a traditional Stories ad and showcase more content, you can consider the carousel format. Carousel ads allows you to showcase additional images or videos within a single ad, each with its own link, and allows your audience to dive deeper and learn more about your brand. With more content comes more opportunities to interact with your audience.
We recommend using carousel if you want to:
- Highlight different products
- Showcase specific details about one product, service or promotion
- Tell a story about your brand that develops across each carousel card
For Brand Objectives, you could try using our Native Stories Carousel, where the additional content automatically appears. This could help capture attention for longer, with no additional action from the viewer required.
For Direct Response Objectives, you might consider the Expandable Stories Carousel, which allows people who are interested to opt to view your additional content.
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Success Story: Discover how Conde Nast used carousel ads in Stories to achieve 4-% higher conversion rates vs. their campaign average.
Go deeper on carousel, and other Stories ads specs, here.
Creative Considerations
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Quick tip: Design with our proven creative considerations in mind
A key driver of campaign performance on mobile, is creative, and with Stories this couldn't be more true. According to a Nielsen Catalina study, 56% of a brand’s sales lift from digital advertising can be attributed to the quality of the creative. The gap however, between really good and really bad ads remains significant – especially on mobile. On TV – quality is fairly consistent across the board, but on mobile there is a significant difference in advertising’s perceived quality.
When optimizing creative, it helps to think through the lens of three different categories: Approach, Brand, and Design.
Approach: What specific creative strategies should I consider to drive effectiveness?
Brand: How should I integrate brand elements and value proposition to drive impact?
Design: How can I design creative elements in my ad to maximize impact?
Facebook's Creative Shop and Marketing Science teams ran a number of tests to determine the impact of creative elements on effectiveness and driving business outcomes. Based on that research, we've landed on some key creative considerations to keep in mind when designing an ad for Stories:
“What specific creative strategies should I consider to drive effectiveness?“
We Recommend to:
Create For Stories-First
Take a Stories-first approach or secondarily, Stories-optimized approach whenever possible. We define Stories-first as a fullscreen vertical asset designed specifically for Stories with creative considerations in mind, and incorporates the Stories consumer experience, design, and/or the creative tools. For example, using natural tap and hold interactions to pause the ad or the interactive polling sticker. Stories-optimized is originally a non-fullscreen vertical asset that was repurposed from other placements for Stories. In majority of our tests across brand and direct response campaigns, a Stories-first approach was found to drive the best results.
If you need to repurpose assets and take a Stories-optimized approach, be sure to:
Add short context and/or a caption to help clarify your value proposition
Use native elements wisely; don’t create clutter
Don’t lose critical information when cropping/zooming existing assets
Keep Attention With Speed
We know people tend to consume Stories faster than feed posts.
Think about speed within your narrative as an opportunity to capture and keep attention from the first frame
Use Multiple Scenes
Two (or more) scenes are better than one - For more complex Stories, quick, multiple “chapters” led to more effective campaigns. Top performing ads had shorter scenes - on average 2.8s per scene vs. 4.1s for lower performing ads 5
Be judicious about the length and narrative arc of individual scenes, so that you’re allowing on-the-go states to take in as many chapters of the Stories as possible
Focus on bit-sized and fast-paced narratives in your creative
Enhance Your Static Ad With Motion
Motion can be used to give more context or detail to a product, or to share a detail of a product that is not possible with a static image. When using motion to add texture to your ad, there’s a 76% chance that the ad will perform better for purchases when compared to a static image.6
Consider adding slight motion when you have a static asset
Try to include persistent branding, bold headlines, product-focused imagery/motion, short copy, and place emphasis on CTA
Try it out
Based on our research, some findings are inconclusive and are places where we’re still testing and learning, and recommend you to do your own experimentation. Some areas where we’ve seen mixed results and encourage more testing on, include:
Mobile-Shot vs. Studio-Shot
Maintaining authenticity while keeping a natural "DIY" style approach with stickers, logos and native typography can help attract attention. Depending on your focus, strategies may vary.
Brand Focus:
Ad recall: There is a 78% chance of mobile-shot ad driving higher ad recall than studio-shot. ads.7
Brand awareness: There is a 97% chance of studio-shot ads driving higher brand awareness than mobile-shot ads.7
Intent: There is a 80% chance of mobile-shot ads driving higher intent than studio-shot.7
Direct Response Focus:
View Content: There is an 84% chance that a mobile-shot asset outperforming studio-shot for View Content8
Purchase, App Install and Checkout: There is a 63% chance a mobile-shot asset outperforming for purchase, app install and checkout when compared to a studio-shot asset. 8
Mix & Match Video and Static
Help your story come to life through multiple formats within the same campaign. We found that there is an 86% chance of campaigns with mixed format assets driving better performance metrics9
Consider expressing your message through video and static formats to capture attention and drive conversions
Note that we believe it’s best to focus on optimizing creative for the Stories environment overall (fullscreen, etc.), as it’s consistent across our Stories ad platforms, and we encourage you to run across all platforms to see the best results. We do not recommend building for an individual Stories ad platform at this time.
“How should I integrate brand elements and value proposition to drive impact?“
We Recommend to:
Begin With Your Brand
Get your brand in as early as possible. Top performing ads integrate branding and key messages at the start.
Title cards, logos, and utilizing brand storytelling upfront will all help support recall
You can try things like leading with shots of your products against vivid backgrounds or using text captions/overlays to emphasize key messages at the outset
Design With Your Objective In Mind
Focus on people or product based on your objective
People-focused creative performed significantly stronger for brand metrics 75% of the time so if you're trying to influence brand metrics, utilize people with your brand or product 4
Product-focused creative drove better lower funnel metrics 73% of the time 4 so if your goal is to drive direct response outcomes, keep the focus on the product or service at hand
Limit Price Inclusion
We saw a 93% chance of creative without price performing better than a creative with price for view content objectives10
However, if the price of the product surprises them positively (great promotion, lower price than expected), then they might be interested in engaging further
Consider excluding price unless it offers clear benefit, as creative with prices can be perceived as disruptive or too “pushy”
With Price Listed
With No Price Listed
“How can I design creative elements in my ad to maximize impact?“
We Recommend to:
Pair Text With Creative Focal Point
There is a 75% chance your creative will perform better when text is centrally placed for add to cart objectives.11
Ensure text does not cover crucial information and pair with key shot or frame of person/product to draw attention to focal point
Enhance With Sound
Add music or voiceover to help drive action. Ads that utilize sound (voice over or music), had a higher conversion rate 80% of the time12
Consider using sound, such as music, as a creative tool to enhance the value proposition of your creative and drive conversion, or voiceover when you have more information to share
TRY IT OUT
Additional testing and experimentation recommended:
Avoid Unnecessary Stickers
No matter the format, when used well stickers can draw attention to the product and help make the ad feel more natural in the environment and feel less like an ad. When used poorly, stickers can take people’s attention away from the product.
For static creative, there is an 87% chance of creatives without stickers delivering better conversion results than with stickers13
For video creative, 83% of videos using stickers performed better for conversion objectives13
Low Performing Sticker
High Performing Sticker
Call Your Audience To Action Strategically
Emphasize the call-to-action to drive results - Highlighting the call-to-action drove significantly more conversions for 89% of the studies we tested.13
Consider adding emphasis to your CTA that aligns to your campaign objective. For example, Swipe Up or Learn More as this re-emphasis can help drive actions Find creative “on brand” ways to draw attention. For example, using hearts for a dating app
Land Takeaways With Text Overlays
We’ve seen mixed results for advertisers using text overlays on Stories creatives.13
Consider using text to provide additional context for the ad or highlight key benefits and features of the brand. Test what methods work best by using the right amount of text while maintaining a focal point.
Low Performing Text
High Performing Text
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Success Story: See how wine brand Jacob’s Creek used short-form, product-focused video ads with clean branding to drive a 12 point lift in brand awareness.
Creative Inspiration
Stories is a creative playground to bring your brand to life through. Check out what others are doing for inspiration:
Compelling creative is key no matter what objective you're driving towards. To get your creative juices flowing, and see how global brands are using sound, text overlays, and more, head to our inspiration gallery.
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Success Story: Check out how a luxury fashion brand used split testing to compare performance of “polished” ad creative—featuring traditional, high production-value shots—with creative that used organic Instagram Stories effects like rewind and Boomerang.