One of the biggest advantages of advertising on Facebook is its strong incorporation of native advertising within the Newsfeed. Native ads appear and function like organic content, typically generating higher click-through rates than standard banner ads.

There are two key ad types that allows marketers to place advertising within the Newsfeed – Sponsored and Unpublished posts. So, when should you choose one over the other?

In this post, we’ll examine the advantages and use cases for each.

Sponsored Posts

Even with the most compelling content, your company’s organic page post may only be seen by 6% of your fan base . Taking an engaging organic post, and sponsoring it, can greatly extend the number of Facebook users who will see the post.

Benefits of using Sponsored Posts

1. Increase your ads reach

• Show your content to fans who haven’t interacted with your page in a long time.
• Display to friends of fans of your page.
• Extend your message to a new audience.

2. Encourage engagement

• Prompt on-page actions such as likes, comments and photo views.

3. Include social influence from fans of the page

• Display ads with Social Impressions .

Unpublished Posts

Your company page can look pretty spammy if you publish multiple variations of the same content to find out which performs the best. Unpublished posts allow you to test different ad permutations in the Newsfeed, without cluttering your company page.

Benefits of using Unpublished Posts

1. Great for direct responses, routing clicks to an outside destination url.

Examples:

• E-commerce purchases
• Form capture, lead generation

2. Multivariate ad message testing

• Allows you to test different ad headlines, body copy and images without spamming your company page with a new, repetitive update for every test.

3. Personalization

• Allows you to cater headlines and calls-to-action to your pinpointed, target audience.
  • Works especially well with Custom Audiences

Takeaways

Each ad type has distinct benefits and drawbacks. Choose Sponsored Updates when focusing on engagement and reach, and use Unpublished Posts for testing and driving conversions.