How to: Create a Collection advert on Facebook

Facebook is the number one social network on the planet. Admit it, how many hours have you spent watching videos of skateboarding cats, tennis-playing dogs and guides showing you how to bake amazing cakes in just 5 simple steps? Whether you like cats, dogs or baking, we’ve all succumbed to it as some point…

But apart from offering a little escapism and the chance to connect with friends and colleagues, Facebook is also a fantastic platform for advertising. For holiday parks and campsites, Facebook advertising is a brilliant way to drive traffic to your site, create awareness of your brand and increase conversions (and bookings) online.

One of the latest ways Facebook aims to help you do this is through its Collection adverts. These new, dedicated shopping adverts are designed to, generally, catch the eye of users and offer a better mobile shopping experience to those who are interested in your (or similar) products.

Traditionally, clicking on a Facebook ad in your newsfeed would you take you off to that company’s dedicated website or product page where you could learn more and/or purchase. Where Collection ads differ is that they bring those off-Facebook experiences back inside the social network.

Collection ads are, essentially, a product catalogue that links to a final point of sale on your website. For holiday parks, this is quite a neat feature. Rather than trying to cram in every last bit of detail on all your various accommodation types into a small ad, with Collection you can take your time and list up to 40 different products (or accommodations, or whatever), with descriptions and prices. Your point of sale will, undoubtedly, be a link to your online booking pages.

A collection ad will appear in a user’s newsfeed, highlighted by a large photo, a brief headline and four product photos. When you click on the ad things get interesting. The ad takes over your screen in what Facebook calls a ‘full-screen canvas’. The user is then totally immersed in the products (i.e. your holiday park’s offering) in the Collection. It also loads instantly as it is hosted within Facebook.

Creating your Facebook Collection ad

We think they are a great new way to engage with your audience and now we’re going to show you how to create one for your park.

1. Before we start it is important to note that Collection ads are only available on mobile and for one of two Facebook objectives – traffic or conversions. If you choose Traffic as your ad objective you will be charged on the number of times someone clicks on the initial ad to open your catalogue. If you choose Conversions then Facebook will aim the ad at people it thinks are most likely to buy. You will be charged on the number of times the ad appears in people’s news feeds.
2. For our example we want people to go on and book, so we’re going to choose Conversions.
3. Create your audience in Ad Manager (as you normally would); add in the location you want to target and be specific! If your ad is all about short breaks and you know people only come from within 100 miles of your park for short breaks then narrow your target audience to people living within this area… And don’t forget to add interests (it could be Cornwall, staycations, holidays in the UK). Just try to be as targeted as possible – the scattergun approach simply doesn’t work and your budget will be spent very quickly.
4. Once you have done the above you will be taken to the next page where you choose your ad format. Select Collection on the far right.
5. The box below, entitled Full Screen Options, is now down to your preference and objective, with three options available – Get New Customers, Showcase Your Business or Sell Products. In our case, we are advertising a park with a lot of different accommodation types so we want to go for ‘sell your products’ and display all our different accommodation offerings in a catalogue.
6. There will be a template already in place here and you can simply swap out the images and overwrite the text with what you want to say.
7. The wizard is very intuitive; it’s very easy to say exactly what you want and see where to put it. Put your main, hero image in place added in your headline and into text. This is the space that’s going to entice people to click and open the ad, so this is the place to where you encourage people to explore and shop.
8. Once you’ve completed this top section scroll down and add in your products, once at a time. There’s dedicated fields for name (i.e. holiday lodges), price and a destination URL – this can be a link on your own website.
9. Repeat this process for each accommodation you want to list – remember to use eye-catching images where you can!
10. At the bottom of the wizard you will see an section entitled Fixed Button. This is where you put in your point of sale link. In our case this is the link to the park’s online booking pages
11. When you’re happy, click preview on mobile and you’ll be sent a link to view the ad on your phone. When you’re happy click ‘done’ and that’s it!

Want to know more? For some great advice on Collection ads, take a look at Marketing Land’s article here. If you want help marketing and promoting your holiday park or campsite talk to us today on 01726 418118 and let us help you reach new customers.