Facebook Ads currently has more than 7 million advertisers from all around the world and across all industries. They know how to keep their advertisers excited about their new innovations that provide great engagement and conversions. One of these innovations is the mobile-based Collection Ads, which are a marketers' dream platform for selling eCommerce products. If you haven't heard of it, you are missing out!

Collection Ads are an ad format that lets people move from discovery to purchase in a smooth and immersive way. Each collection ad features a primary video or image with four smaller accompanying images below in a grid-like layout. Customers who tap on your collection ad to browse or learn more will be seamlessly taken to a fast-loading visual post-click experience powered by Instant Experience – all without leaving Facebook or Instagram.

They surprisingly provide high engagement and conversion rates. In this article, we will know why Facebook and Instagram Collection Ads are great and how you can set them up to attract your audience's attention, earn clicks, and drive sales.

How Do They Work?

The goal of Collection Ads is to feature multiple products in a mobile-friendly way that showcases as many items as possible at once. You will have to choose a featured image or video for an ad that will take center stage and show up extensively. Then you can select multiple products to show underneath, showing users what you offer. When users click on it, they will be taken to an extensive product feed that will show them all the relevant collections of the product. If they click on a product, they will be taken to the site or product page according to their choice.

How to Create Facebook's Collection Ads

1. To create collection ads, first, Go to Ads Manager.
2. Click + Create in the top left.
3. Choose a purpose that supports the collection format and click Continue.
4. Add your Campaign Details and Budget Optimization, then click Next.
5. Choose App or Website according to your location to attract an audience with your ad. It's better to use an app to link people directly to your product or
6. After that, select your budget, placements, audience, and optimization, then click Continue.
7. In the Identity section, select your Facebook Page.
8. Select your collection in the Ad Setup Section.
9. Customize the Instant Experience that you want to include in your section by choosing a template for Instant Experience. To build your own, you may also create a custom Instant Experience.
10. In the Creative Ad section, pick how your product will be featured in the collection ad.
11. Add your Headline, Primary Text, and Deep Link to your Website.
12. In the Ad Preview window, choose a preview option. To preview your collection ad on the Facebook app, click the arrow button, then click Send.
13. Notification to Facebook. To preview your ad on Facebook, you can open the Facebook app on your phone. Remember that this preview is for the Facebook News Feed only.
14. Add the rest of the information in the tracking section to complete your ad.
15. Click Publish to publish when you are done.

After completing all the required information, your collection ad will be ready. When anyone clicks your collection ad on Facebook, they will land on full-screen Instant Experience to see your services and product catalog.

How to Create Instagram Collection Ads

The creation of a collection ad on Instagram is not slightly similar to that of Facebook. Let's have a look.

1. You need to go to Ads Manager first.
2. Select Create.
3. Choose a purpose that supports Instagram Stories or Feed, then click Continue.
4. Choose App or Website according to your location to attract an audience with your ad.
5. It's better to use an app to link people directly to your product or service.
6. The most important thing is that Instagram supports deep link at the product level, but deep linking is not supported by other elements (CTA buttons)
7. You need to select the audience for your campaign.
8. You can edit placement for your ad on Instagram. But you should better select Automatic Placement for Optimizing your campaign.
9. You need to select Budget and Schedule for your ad and click continue.
10. Then select Collection under Format.
11. You need to choose an Instant Experience template.
12. Add details and images for Instant Experience.
13. In the Product section, you can choose Order dynamically or choose a specific order.
14. You need to select a Product Set or manually upload products from an existing Product Catalogue.
15. Then select a cover Image or Video. You can preview the Instant Experience for Instagram Stories and Feed in the window.
16. Then select Done to confirm your Instant Experience.
17. Add your headline text or/and primary text. The headline text will show in Instagram Stories, while the primary will show in Feed. To run your Campaign across Instagram and Facebook placements, better to use both headline text and primary text.
18. Click Publish to submit your ad.

Your collection ad is ready now, and it can run on Instagram. After selecting confirm, your ad will be reviewed before being displayed to your desired audience. For best use of the vertical format of Feed or Stories, the collection ad's layout may vary depending on the cover image and video if they use a 1:1 square asset or a full horizontal 16:9 asset. You can preview how your ad will look using the preview tool in Ads Manager.

Do Collection Ads really work? One testimonial of many is retail giant Sephora enjoyed a 32% return on ad spends after introducing ads powered by Collection Ads. Advertisers should not wait to find out, for this is a gold mine waiting to be harvested!