by Catherine Tricker | Updated Jan 20, 2022
Are you struggling to spark engagement on your Facebook and Instagram ads? You’re not alone.
In our highly saturated social advertising market, compelling ad copy and captivating imagery or video is no longer a guarantee for engaging your target audience.
Without breaking the budget on a professionally produced piece of content that many users will still scroll past, how do you break through the noise and grab your audience’s attention?
Interactive Content!
Introducing interactive content into your ads will help draw in users and spark engagement. Interactive ads allow your audience to select an option and actively engage, leaving users feeling as though their input was important and needed.
So how can you create interactive content for your social ads?
Luckily, Facebook and Instagram make creating interactive content easy through interactive poll ads.
Facebook and Instagram Poll Ads
Poll ads include a question and response options, creating an interactive experience for your audience to express their preferences and see how their response matches up to their peers. Poll ads generate engagement through active response and spark conversation through further discussion around poll topics and responses. This increase in engagement and conversation creates more human interaction between you and your potential customer, while differentiating your brand experience from competitors. Additionally, the Facebook algorithm prioritizes posts that receive more engagement leading to increased reach and lower costs for your advertisement.
To truly draw in your audience, generate responses and get more people talking, poll ads should be tailored to a specific target person asking a question that resonates with the persona, allowing audience members to identify with one response or the other.
Need help identifying your target persona? Download the Digital Utopia Methodology Blueprint to better identify your target persona and the role your brand plays in his or her life.
How to Set Up Interactive Poll Ads
Currently, poll ads are available in two placements, Facebook Mobile Newsfeed and Instagram Stories, within four campaign objectives: Reach, Brand Awareness, Traffic, and App Installs. For Facebook Mobile Newsfeed, poll ads are only currently supported through video. For Instagram Stories, poll ads can be either a video or an image in full screen (9:16) format.
Poll ads are created at the ad level within the Ads Manager. To create a poll ad for Facebook Mobile Newsfeed, upload a video asset and select “Add Poll.” By selecting “Add Poll” you will be prompted to create your poll question and responses.
To create a poll ad for Instagram Stories, you need to ensure the only placement selected for the ad set is “Instagram Stories”. Once you’ve uploaded a full screen (9:16) assets, select “Add Interactive Poll”
Once the interactive poll ads have been created, you have the option to add URLs. For the Mobile Newsfeed poll ad, you can add different URLs for the webpages you want users to visits when they vote Options 1 versus Option 2. For Instagram Stories poll ads, you have the option to add one URL for the webpage you would like to send people regardless of which option they select.
Monitoring Poll Ad Performance
To view the results of your poll ad, navigate to the Ad Set level within Ads Manager and select “View Charts” for the ad set containing your poll ad. The interactive poll results show the reach of your poll ad, number of responses, and breakdown of responses for each choice.
Looking beyond the metrics available in Ads Manager, the poll ad results can also provide important data about your target audience. Depending on the question asked in the poll, the responses provide insight into audience preference, demand or even sentiment around current products or services your business may offer.
Don’t wait to start engaging with your audience with interactive content. Boost your ad engagement by asking your questions that catch their attention and encourage an active response. Be strategic with the questions you ask to ensure you’re aligning with your audience and gathering valuable information about your target market. By creating more interactive ads, your brand will catch more eyes in the highly saturated social ad market, establish more human interaction with potential customers, and stand out among competitors.
Download the Digital Utopia Methodology Blueprint to better identify your target persona and the role your brand plays in his or her life.
