Facebook Poll Ads: Best Practices & Ad Specs to Get Started

Engaged social media users often want to play a more important role across the medium. They want to be included in major decisions brands are making. So brands are making both of these things possible. From GIFs, lives, reactions, emojis, face filters, augmented reality, and playable ads, digital advertising on social media is evolving from one-way communication to an ongoing dialogue between brands and consumers.

In March 2019, Instagram invited businesses to start interacting with people more closely by adding the polling sticker to Stories ads:

In open beta, the new Instagram Stories ad format:

• Increased video views by 3-seconds on average
• Achieved a 20% lower cost-per-video-view
• Drove 40% more app installs

Following the adoption and success of Instagram’s new interactive ad, Facebook Ads decided to offer the same polling capabilities on their platform. Enter Facebook Poll ads.

What are Facebook Poll Ads?

Poll ads include a question with response options in a video ad campaign, providing an interactive experience that allows users to express their thoughts and preferences. The new ad format displays in the Facebook mobile News Feed:

How and why to use Facebook Poll ads

Brands can use Facebook Poll ads to:

• Learn what products, services, or content would appeal the most to their viewers
• Collect information to develop new products or services, and improve existing ones
• Ensure they have a market based on consumers’ wants, needs, and pain points
• Build stronger, more personable relationships

Facebook video poll ads inspire increased engagement, interaction, brand awareness, and conversions. That’s because more engagement happens as a result of delivering content consumers crave — and the more engagement and interaction a user has with a brand, the more likely they are to keep the brand top of mind and make a purchase.

In fact, during beta, 5 out of 9 brand lift studies showed that poll ads increased brand awareness compared to standard video ads.

Eric Eckstein, Senior Director of digital marketing at E! Entertainment explains how and why E! used the new format:

E! continually seeks deeper ways to connect with viewers. The launch of Facebook Poll ads was an exciting opportunity for us to use media in a fun and interactive way ahead of the Season 4 premiere of Total Bellas. Giving fans an opportunity to engage with the show helped us create meaningful interactions that drove success throughout the season.

Ad specs

Since poll ads are mobile video ads with polls added, they follow standard mobile video ad specs.

Design Recommendations

• File type: Most file types are supported, however, H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan, and stereo AAC audio compression at 128kbps+ are recommended.
• Video ratio: 9:16 to 16:9
• Recommended resolution: Upload the highest resolution video available that meets file size and ratio limits, without letter or pillar boxing (no black bars)
• Video file size: 4GB Max
• Captions: Optional but recommended
• Sound: Optional but recommended
• Text: 125 characters
• Video thumbnail images that consist of more than 20% text may experience reduced delivery
• Vertical videos (with aspect ratio taller than 4:5) may be masked to 4:5
• Link headline: 25 characters
• Link description: 30 characters
• Objectives:
  • Brand Awareness
  • Reach
  • Traffic
  • App Installs
  • Conversions

Technical Requirements

• Video duration: 1 second to 241 minutes
• Video dimension: At least 120 pixels by 120 pixels
• Video size: 1MB to 26GB
• Video aspect ratio: 100×400 to 400×100

Best practices for video poll ads

Poll ads also follow many of the standard mobile video ads best practices, in addition to some specific to polling:

Keep videos short

People are more likely to watch until the end if your video ad is 15 seconds or less. Video ads 15 seconds or less are also eligible for Instagram Stories and Facebook in-stream placements.

Capture attention quickly

The most compelling part of your video should be within the first 3 seconds to grab and hold interest.

Feature your product or brand message early

Just as you want to capture attention quickly, you should showcase your brand identity quickly to increase brand awareness:

Use vertical or square video

Most people hold their phones vertically so choose a vertical or square aspect ratio to cover the most screen area.

Design for sound off

People often watch videos with sound off, so use text, graphics, and captions whenever possible.

Keep polls short

Shorter poll questions tend to perform better because users can easily engage with the poll, without detracting too much focus from the video.

Make polls meaningful

Ask questions that have meaningful answers, instead of just “Yes” or “No.” If your question requires a yes/no answer, make the language more engaging (“Yes, without a doubt!” or “Absolutely no way.”):

Avoid trivia questions

Trivia-type questions tend to attract lower engagement.

Do not “bait” users

• Like/react baiting: Asking people to react to your post
• Comment baiting: Asking people to comment with specific answers
• Share baiting: Asking people to share the post with their friends
• Tag baiting: Asking people to tag their friends
• Vote baiting: Asking people to vote using reactions, comments, sharing, or other means of representing a vote

Direct traffic to a landing page

While adding URLs for each choice is optional, it’s best practice to give users somewhere to go after voting on your poll:

For the best results, send traffic to dedicated landing pages since that is where conversions happen.

How to set up poll ads

To add a poll to your video ad:

1. Go to Ads Manager and click Create.
2. Choose an objective that supports Poll Ads (Brand Awareness, Reach, Traffic, App Installs or Conversions) and click Continue.
3. Choose targeting, placements, and budget and click Continue.
4. Under Format, upload a new video or select a video from the media library.
5. Click Add Poll.
6. In the Creative Editor, enter your Poll Question, along with Choice 1 and Choice 2.
7. Optional: Add destination URLs for Choice 1 and Choice 2 (Note: A URL must be added for both choices, not just one).
8. Click Save.

Your Facebook poll ad will appear on the mobile News Feed based on your targeting and placement settings.

To view responses to your poll:

1. Go to Ads Manager.
2. Select the campaign, ad set, or ad you want to see poll responses from.
3. Click View Charts.
4. Select the time range you want to see poll responses from.
5. Below Interactivity Results, choose Facebook Mobile News Feed from the dropdown menu.

You will be able to view Reach and Poll Responses.

Inspire engagement and conversions with Facebook Poll ads

Add a question and response options to your Facebook video ad campaign with poll ads. By providing an interactive, engaging experience that allows users to express their preferences, you’re improving campaign results all the way from brand awareness to conversions.

No campaign is complete without a dedicated landing page to earn the conversion. Request an Instapage 14-day free trial today to see how Instapage can help you create those relevant landing pages at scale.