99% of Top Brands Boost Sales with Reels Ads – Here’s How You Can Too!
The digital landscape is undergoing a seismic shift as AI-powered conversational commerce transforms how businesses engage with consumers. At Meta’s recent "Business Messaging Marketing Summit" in Taipei, executives revealed staggering statistics - over 1 billion people now use Meta platforms weekly to connect with businesses, with one-third of Asia-Pacific consumers messaging brands every week. With the rise of short-form video content, Reels ads on Facebook Ads and Instagram offer a dynamic way to capture audience attention and drive measurable results. Recent case studies from brands like Frankly, Manulife Philippines, and Nespresso Korea highlight the transformative impact of integrating Reels into their Facebook Ads strategies. These brands achieved significant lifts in purchases, ad recall, and customer acquisition by leveraging Meta’s Reels Creative Essentials. This blog delves into the best practices and strategic frameworks for advertisers to harness the full potential of Reels ads.
I. The Rise of Reels as a Dominant Ad Format
Reels have become a cornerstone of Meta’s advertising ecosystem, offering brands a visually engaging way to connect with their audiences. The format’s full-screen, vertical design is optimized for mobile viewing, making it ideal for capturing attention in a crowded digital space. Unlike traditional static ads, Reels combine entertainment with storytelling, allowing brands to showcase their products or services in a more relatable and spontaneous manner. The success of Reels lies in their ability to align with how users naturally consume content—quick, immersive, and often sound-on. For advertisers, this means higher engagement rates and better ROI compared to conventional ad formats. Meta’s Reels Creative Essentials provide a blueprint for creating high-performing content, emphasizing technical guidelines like the 9:16 aspect ratio, safe zones for text, and hooking viewers within the first three seconds. By adhering to these principles, brands can ensure their Facebook Ads resonate with their target audience and drive meaningful results.
II. Case Study 1: Frankly’s Success with Reels Ads
Frankly, a South Korean skincare brand, demonstrates how Reels ads can effectively drive purchases and reduce acquisition costs. The brand’s goal was to increase revenue and acquire customers more efficiently, prompting them to test Reels alongside their usual photo FB Ads in Advantage+ shopping campaigns. By following Meta’s Reels Creative Essentials, Frankly created vertical videos that highlighted product features while maintaining an entertaining and relatable tone. The results were staggering: a 43% increase in purchases, a 30% reduction in cost per acquisition, and a 38% boost in return on ad spend. These metrics underscore the effectiveness of Reels in complementing traditional FB Ads and enhancing overall campaign performance. Frankly’s success also highlights the importance of A/B testing and leveraging Meta’s automated tools like Advantage+ placements and campaign budgets. These features enable advertisers to optimize ad delivery in real-time, ensuring the best-performing creatives receive the most budget allocation. For brands looking to replicate this success, the key takeaway is to embrace Reels as a core component of their Facebook Ads mix and prioritize creative best practices to maximize impact.
III. Case Study 2: Manulife Philippines’ Storytelling Approach
Manulife Philippines utilized Reels to humanize its brand and engage with younger audiences, especially millennials and Gen Z.The insurance company’s campaign focused on storytelling, featuring real customer experiences to illustrate how its products helped individuals achieve their life goals. By diversifying its creative approach with a mix of 45-second and 15-second videos tailored for Reels and Stories placements, Manulife achieved a 24-point lift in ad recall and a 4-point increase in top-of-mind awareness. The campaign’s success was rooted in its ability to resonate emotionally with viewers, demonstrating the power of authentic storytelling in Facebook Ads. Manulife also adhered to Meta’s Reels Creative Essentials, ensuring its videos were vertical, mobile-first, and designed to hook viewers immediately. The brand's utilization of Meta’s brand lift study further authenticated the campaign’s efficacy, providing actionable insights for upcoming initiatives. For advertisers, Manulife’s case study underscores the value of creative diversification and the importance of aligning FB Ads content with audience preferences. By combining storytelling with Reels’ immersive format, brands can foster deeper connections and drive higher engagement.
IV. Case Study 3: Nespresso Korea’s Product Launch Dominance
Nespresso Korea’s launch of its Starbucks-collaborated Vertuo coffee system showcased the potential of Meta’s Moment Maker package, which combines Reels, video, and other FB Ads formats for maximum impact. The campaign aimed to dominate share of voice during the launch period, achieving a 15-point increase in ad recall and a 5.1-point lift in purchase intent. By using Moment Maker, Nespresso made sure its ads were shown across Facebook and Instagram placements, such as Feed, Stories, and Reels, to create a unified and highly visible brand moment. The campaign’s creative assets highlighted the product’s unique features, such as barcode brewing technology, while encouraging clicks to the brand’s website for purchases. Nespresso’s partnership with Meta’s collaborators, including digital agency Incross and media planner TBWA, further enhanced the campaign’s reach and impact. This case study illustrates how Reels can be integrated into broader multimedia strategies to amplify product launches and achieve measurable business outcomes. For advertisers, the key lesson is to explore Meta’s bundled solutions like Moment Maker for tentpole campaigns, ensuring a seamless and impactful audience experience.
V. Best Practices for Reels Ads: Technical and Creative Guidelines
To maximize the effectiveness of FB via Reels, advertisers must adhere to both technical and creative best practices. On the technical side, videos should be formatted in a 9:16 aspect ratio to fill the mobile screen entirely, with all critical text and imagery placed within the safe zone to avoid obstruction by the Reels interface. The first three seconds are crucial for capturing attention, so brands should front-load their most compelling content to hook viewers immediately. Creatively, Reels should prioritize entertainment value, using visual effects, music, or storytelling to engage audiences. The content should feel unpolished and spontaneous, aligning with the organic feel of user-generated Reels. Additionally, A/B testing is essential for refining Facebook Ads performance , allowing brands to compare different creatives and placements to identify what resonates best with their audience. Meta’s Advantage+ placements further enhance optimization by automatically distributing ads across the most effective channels. By combining these technical and creative principles, advertisers can create Reels that not only capture attention but also drive meaningful conversions and brand lift.
Topkee’s TAG precise audience strategy enhances this by tracking user behavior across platforms, enabling advertisers to deliver hyper-relevant creatives tailored to segmented audience lists. Topkee’s creative content strategy further refines this approach by segmenting audiences based on interaction data, transaction history, and source channels, allowing for customized creatives that address specific audience preferences. Topkee’s call tracking and AG return features also bridge online and offline conversions, attributing call-based interactions to specific campaigns for holistic performance analysis.
VI. Strategic Framework for Implementing Reels Ads
Implementing Facebook Ads effectively via Reels requires a structured approach, starting with setting up product catalogs and online shops to enable seamless e-commerce integration. Advertisers should then select ad types—such as dynamic ads, Reels, or video—based on their campaign goals, whether it’s awareness, consideration, or conversions. Audience targeting is another critical component, with options like Custom Audiences and lookalike audiences enabling precise reach. For instance, brands can retarget website visitors or expand their reach to users similar to their high-value customers. Finally, measuring performance through Meta’s analytics and brand lift studies provides insights into ad recall, purchase intent, and other key metrics. This data-driven approach ensures continuous optimization and maximizes ROI. By following this framework, advertisers can systematically integrate Reels into their marketing strategies, leveraging Meta’s tools and best practices to achieve their business objectives.
Topkee’s TTO marketing tools streamline content customization by tailoring creatives to segmented audiences and automating fatigue management through scheduled refreshes. The TM tracking module monitors creative performance in real time, enabling data-driven adjustments to maximize click-through rates. Additionally, TTO’s topic management extracts high-impact themes from brand assets to sustain creative relevance.
For conversion strategies, Topkee combines Facebook’s advanced targeting (e.g., custom audiences) with its own similar-audience expansion tools, identifying high-potential users based on shared traits with existing customers. Augmented reality ads and immersive formats further enhance engagement, while call tracking measures offline conversions tied to campaigns.
Conclusion: The Future of Visual Storytelling with Reels
The success stories of Frankly, Manulife Philippines, and Nespresso Korea demonstrate the transformative potential of Facebook Ads via Reels across industries. By combining technical precision with creative storytelling, brands can unlock new levels of engagement and conversion. As visual storytelling continues to dominate digital advertising, Reels offer a versatile and impactful format for connecting with audiences. Advertisers are encouraged to embrace these best practices and explore Meta’s evolving ad solutions to stay ahead in a competitive landscape. For those seeking tailored guidance, partnering with Meta’s experts or business messaging partners can provide additional strategic support. The future of advertising is immersive, interactive, and driven by innovation—Reels are just the beginning.
