Facebook’s Dynamic Ads, Collection Ads are getting a pre-holiday touch-up

New overlays are rolling out for dynamic ads.

In advance of the holiday season, Facebook is rolling out a number of new features designed to help advertisers customize their ad campaigns.

The updates include an expanded set of customizable overlays for dynamic ads, holiday-specific templates and stickers available in the video creation kit and new features for Facebook’s Collection ad unit.

Here’s a quick overview of the latest updates:

New overlays for dynamic ads

Facebook’s dynamic ads, which allow advertisers to retarget users that have visited their sites, already come with overlays to highlight product prices or discounts. Now, advertisers have the option to build their own overlays and create customized frames that coordinate with holiday-specific (or other) campaigns.

“For example, if a retailer wants to create a Black Friday campaign with a product catalog, they can now create their own Black Friday overlay to more visually promote discounted products,” writes Facebook on its business blog

Two major retailers that were given access to the customizable dynamic ad overlays reported a 40 percent increase on ad spend using the decorative borders during a seven-day period.

Video creation kit additions

In July, Facebook launched a video creation kit to help advertisers quickly build mobile video ads using existing images. Facebook is now building out the kit to include holiday-specific templates and stickers that can be added to video ads. According to the announcement, the new templates and stickers will be rolling out over the coming weeks.

Updates to Collection ads

Facebook is integrating its instant storefront template (a feature of the Instant Experience ads which were called Canvas ads until last week) with its Collection ad format, making it possible for advertisers to highlight products by organizing them into groupings that can be personalized with labels such as “Suggested for You” or “Most Viewed.”

Facebook has also added an extra layer of automation for Collection ads using the instant storefront templates. Advertisers can upload a video and the template will automatically personalize the ads with products from the advertiser’s catalog.

“This makes the video creation process easier for advertisers and will help people see ads that are most relevant to them,” writes Facebook.

A portion of today’s updates — the holiday stickers in the video creation kit and the automated, personalized Collection Ads — are aimed at getting more Facebook advertisers to invest in video ad campaigns during the upcoming holiday season and beyond. According to the announcement, Facebook says Black Friday video content generated more than 450 million views during last year’s Thanksgiving weekend.

By offering advertisers an easier video creation process (with more personalization tools to customize ads), Facebook is laying the groundwork to help push its video ad business, give video creators a wider platform and drive adoption for Watch.

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Amy Gesenhues

Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.