It seems like Facebook has been rolling out new features left and right lately, from Google Tag Manager Integration to Dynamic Creative Ads and now Messenger Ads.

These ads were made available to advertisers in Australia and Thailand earlier this year and are now available to some advertisers in most countries and are rolling out gradually. If you’re working in Power Editor you’ll start seeing the following notification:

What are Messenger Ads?

Messenger Ads are ads that show on the Home tab of the Facebook Messenger App, so they’ll only appear to Facebook mobile users :

You can specify one of three destinations for these ads — your website, an app or a Messenger conversation — and this is done during the ad creation process. If you choose a Messenger conversation as your ad destination, you can set up customized messages for the customers’ initial interaction points:

There are three formatting options: Text & Image, Text & Video and Text Only. You can even add the customer’s name into the message by choosing the Add Personalization option.

There are two options for Customer Actions: Suggested Replies or Buttons. If you choose Suggested Replies, you can enter customized text that customers can click on:

If you choose Buttons as the Customer Action, you can either designate your website as the button click destination or you can use it to prompt a bot response using a payload:

What Campaign Objectives are Compatible with Messenger Ads?

Messenger Ads are available for any of the following campaign objective types: Traffic, Conversions, App Install, Reach, Messages and Brand Awareness.

The Messages objective was launched in September:

Advertisers who choose this objective can not only open conversations with customers through a click on Messenger Ads, they can also re-engage customers in existing conversations with sponsored messages. If this feature is selected, Facebook will automatically create a custom audience of users who have interacted with an advertiser’s page in Messenger. Advertisers are able to add additional targeting to this audience, but the minimum audience size is 20 people.

Where Do You Access Messenger Ad Placement?

Simply scroll down to the Placements section within an ad set’s targeting and choose either “Automatic Placements” or “Edit Placements”. I generally choose Edit Placements and break out my ad sets by device. If you choose the Edit Placements option, you’ll have to manually click to add the Messenger Home ads, as well as the Facebook Feed since Messenger isn’t currently available as a standalone placement:

How Do You See Messenger Ad Performance?

You can see performance for these ads in Ads Manager. Simply select the Breakdown button in your report, then choose Placements:

You can track conversions from these ads, and see them through the Customize Columns option, then just select the associated pixel:

In Conclusion

Since this ad type is still being rolled out, Facebook is warning advertisers to expect low delivery for now. I have yet to test this placement in our accounts, but I think the potential is great especially for businesses whose model could benefit from the Messenger conversation option.

Have you tried out Facebook Messenger Ads? We’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences in the comments!