3 issues with flexible formats

These three things bother me with flexible formatting…

Flexible format allows you to submit images or videos of up to 10 ads.

Some advertisers have the option to create up to three creative groups in their ads.

This is a modern version of dynamic creativity and I’ve been successful in it. But three things about it drive me crazy.

question

These three are important setting options, and are basic basics when creating standard single image or video ads. But they don’t have a flexible format.

1. You cannot customize through placement.

This is nonsense. I spent a lot of time making sure the ads were good everywhere. With a flexible format, you just need to hope it can.

Basically, you need to provide an image or video that can be cropped for any standard aspect ratio. This could mean 9×16 or 4×5, where all important information belongs to a safe area.

I see. Customizing 10 images and videos at a time for placement or placement groups can be a nightmare. But it is also annoying to have no such control.

2. You cannot set thumbnails for your video.

Again, I always customize.

But with a flexible format, it is chosen for you.

If you’ve ever created video ads, you’ll know that these automatic thumbnail images usually need to be overwritten. Even if you don’t upload unique content, Meta often chooses a meaningless location in the video.

3. You cannot turn off the Personal Advantages + Creative feature.

You can turn them all on or open them all on, but nothing in between.

I’m not anti-enhanced, but I also know that not all of these features are relevant or desirable for every unique ad. When creating manual ads, I will continue with most enhancements, but I may turn off a pair.

However, for flexible formats, there is no such ability to select the enhancement individually. This may be considered a “simple” button, but it won’t be useful at all for advertisers who think about some of them. There are no options, I just turn them all off.

Need improvement

Flexible formatting is a great feature, but it may be much better. Given the nature of how it works, controlling these things can be more difficult, but without customization, the meta needs to at least better automatically select options.