Facebook: How to get a second link in your ad

   creative / design / facebook / online advertising      Posted on September 7, 2011 by Amy

When we were trolling around Facebook last week, we noticed a clever Facebook ad we were inspired to share.

For effective Facebook ads, many experts suggest, among other things, using colorful images, including demographically appropriate people to stand out against Facebook’s blue and white background. And that’s generally good advice.

The ad for Beck’s Beer took another interesting approach. It looks like they were trying to drive two actions with their ad:

• Encourage downloads of their free app while
• Increase likes of their Facebook page

In Facebook’s current structure, it’s not possible to both point to a Facebook page and also point to an external URL with the same ad. You’d need to run the same ad twice with two different destinations.

What the Beck’s Beer ad did was clever. It ran an ad that linked to a page within Facebook and encouraged likes. At the same time, it replaced the image with an appropriately sized QR code, and described the QR code with the copy.

Would be interesting to know how many folks were inspired to scan the QR code and download the free app. While QR code usage has risen, its penetration remains small. A recent Lab43 survey found 56% of respondents were unfamiliar with QR codes. That said, among those who were familiar with QE codes, 46% scanned them to obtain some kind of a discount and another 43% scanned them simply to satisfy their curiosity.

So while we don’t know how well the ad worked in this case to drive each of the two goals, it’s an interesting idea to test in your next campaign. If you do try it, please let us know how you fare!