Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Igor Živković, iZone
About a month ago, the agency decided to play around a bit with Facebook’s new format – Canvas. For those who don’t know what it is, a brief explanation is at the end of this article.
Since we have super cool clients with super cool brands, we received on the table a campaign for the then upcoming animated Disney hit – Finding Dory.
We felt that it was necessary to move away from the classic video ads and showing trailers. Frankly, video ads continue to show excellent results, but they are something already seen and expected. The only format that we had never done before was the Facebook Canvas, and it quickly became our new playground! It was an ideal opportunity to present the movie in a new way.
The process took several days because we were not burdened by the deadline, and we liked exploring “all the things you can do”.
The day the Canvas “Finding Dory” surfaced online it was Friday. On Fridays in June everyone is going to the sea, right?! The author of this article thought the same as he was waiting for transport to Krk.
He was still here, in the sizzling Zagreb, with a lot of trial and error. How does the tilt work? Why is it so sensitive? How to make nice CTA buttons? We tried a bunch of things. We rewrote the texts over and over again until they were perfectly seated in the format, and the designers patiently analyzed pixel by pixel so the end product would be functional and attractive.
We finished the umpteenth iteration of the canvas, and finally all was in place – Publish!
One or two hours since the publishing passed and the Finding Dora Canvas had collected only five to ten clicks. Fiasco! What have we done wrong? Why no one is clicking? Did we really make such a huge miss?
The panic began. Transportation was about to arrive. “Open the power editor!” “Will you load already!?” I yell inside before the screen in front of me, which lazily – just as befits Fridays – rolled that little circle into nothing. It loaded. Look! Analyze! Test item by item…
Everything OK. WHAT IS GOING ON THEN!?
I reached for my phone and started touring our office and the one next to it: “What do you think about this one?” “Super!” said everyone…
THEN WHY NO CLICKS!?
The campaign was up for some time already, there’s enough money… OK, we made a mistake somewhere.
With this horror of a conclusion, the author of the article was already on his way to Krk. The cell phone rang. A colleague: “Hey, I know you’re on a trip but see if we can change this copy. We need to make it clear to people that this is a new format, that it’s cool, that it screams ‘awesome’!”
There’s nothing else to do, I concluded. And indeed, the Canvas on the user’s wall looks like an ordinary web click ad. Without a clear call to action and letting the user know that this is a new experience, Canvas is untapped potential. We expect that Facebook will also recognize this problem and will offer a solution for a clear distinction of this interesting and rich format.
But until that happens, we learn from our own and other people’s mistakes.
The first version of the copy (Figure 1) in our case was wrong. We placed a clear call to action in the headline, but we failed to communicate why and what to expect. What is new? What is cool? Inappropriate copy will ruin even the strongest ad format!
Figure 1 – first version of the ad
By the time this screenshot was made (Figure 1) – somewhere near Bosiljevo – If I’m not mistaken, we counted about fifty likes, and ridiculous dozen clicks! It had already been three hours since the ad was approved by the Facebook gentlemen. And there were clouds over Gorski Kotar – things didn’t bode well.
BTW, a small digression – you see the headline in Figure 1? Power Editor is a little deceiving. Namely, the ad preview showed the entire copy: “Click and meet Dory’s cute friends! :)”. Do not believe the Power Editor in ad preview! So, 45 characters can fit in the headline part, and all that comes after will turn into those annoying three dots. Good luck in trying to create hype when you have three dots at the end of your copy!
In order to avoid this kind of nightmares on your trip to the seaside, when you start setting up your own canvas, stick to those 45 characters!
Okay, back to our unfortunate ad copy. After two or three phone calls and one email, we created a new ad and run it instead of the old one (Figure 2). The new copy contained information about the new and cool experience.
Figure 2- Ad with the new copy
At that time we were still not aware of the ’45 characters’ wisdom, so the three dots are still present, but this time the text of our post is fresher. And in it, but also in the headline, we communicate that a new thing is in town and we don’t hesitate to say so.
Graph 1- engagement per ad click
As we can see from the graph above, after changing the copy, engagement finally began to give signs of life.
The sun appeared above the Krk, it would be a nice weekend in a sea of good results!
Reach, likes, clicks, entertainment for loafers, all is growing rapidly. Let’s not beat around the bushes, here are concrete results for 9 days and less than € 1,000:
Clicks: cca 10.000
Reach: cca 380.000
Likes and comments: 3000+
Half the price per click in relation to average on other campaigns.
Play with Facebook’s new features. Currently, video and canvas ads are in. They are cheaper than other formats and show excellent results versus investment. So take advantage of Facebook’s seasonal offers while you still can! :)
ABOUT CANVAS
Canvas is actually a micropage within Facebook which can be a richer ad format. If you need to tell the story without the burden of 20% text, and you don’t have an obligatory landing page, Canvas is an ideal solution. Thank you Facebook. You tore up a bunch of agency work in drafting a landing :/, and to another bunch of people you facilitated the eternal question: “OK, but where should user go after clicking?”
You see – even Facebook is playing with us, so why shouldn’t we do the same to it? :)
An official explanation from Facebook states that the reason for the development of canvas is simply the speed at which the landing pages load after users click on your ad on Facebook. Facebookers believe that the load times of these sites are frustratingly slow and that they – and here they are definitely right – very often are not designed for experience on mobile devices. In 2015, Facebook states, the average web page was three times the “weight” of those in 2011, and the slow loading time of pages is the most common reason people leave the page. (To be fair, here’s a link to the source of the paraphrase above.)
“Why Canvas?” Again we asked Facebook (who else.) Through Canvas, users can explore digital stories with delight. They can swipe through carousel of images, they can tilt panoramic images and zoom in to view the image in more detail. This way a deep and interactive experience is created, completely different than that of ordinary mobile sites. It is interesting that Canvas uses the same technology that makes photos and videos easier to load so the load times of Canvas are up to 10 times faster than of standard mobile sites.