Quora Ad Formats and Specs

quora may not have the most ad formats
for a paid media channel
but they do have some very specific
guidelines and restrictions on what you
can and cannot do
within the ad itself so in this video we
will cover the creatives that you will
need
if you want to use images within your
ads as well as the ad copy guidelines so
you know what you can
and cannot do now i probably made it
seem like it's very limiting but that's
also not the case
so we'll go over some tips and tricks on
what we used within our core
ads for our clients that have seen some
great success
i am in the core ads interface and if
you look at the blue bar on top
we see that we're in step three actually
creating an ad so i've already gone
through the campaign and ad set creation
process we're not going to cover that in
this video and this is going to be
exactly what you see when you go into
create a new
ad since this is a business account
they've already pulled my business name
within the creative
we see it says paid media pros and then
if we look to the preview off to the
right we see it's already there on the
top of the ad
now going back to that middle column we
see the format there are three formats
image ads text ads and promote an answer
i am not going to cover promote and
answer ad formats in this video for two
reasons
one it's the least common ad format and
if you're just starting off with quora
ads odds are
it's the format that you're not going to
be using right away and two
we already created a video about
promoted answer campaigns
and that video covers everything about
what promoted answer campaigns are
and how you can use that partikular ad
format within your marketing strategies
so again check out that video if you
want to learn more about promoting an
answer on quora
so the two remaining formats text ads
and image ads
these are going to be the main two ad
formats you use within quora
we see image ad is going to be the
default one highlighted and that is the
ad format i highly recommend using but
i'm going to start with text ads that's
going to be the most simple ad format
that you can run
after i clicked on text ad if you notike
within the preview off to the right a
few spaces that are reserved for images
disappeared
it says there right in the description
it's an ad showing just text no images
if we scroll down to where we can start
optimizing the creative i already said
the business name was filled in so then
we can jump to the headline
headlines in quora can be 65 characters
long
i went up and i copied the tagline from
our website and i'm just going to paste
it in here now i pull this tag line as
our headline
for a reason because this headline
violates two rules within quora ads the
first one is called out even though i've
been calling them headlines
you see cora calls them headline
sentence so there needs to be some sort
of punctuation
at the end of your headline whether you
use a question mark to kind of blend in
with the format of quora
a period or an exclamation point we see
over here cora has a suggestion
and in their suggestion they just want a
period at the end of that last word
so if i accept it we saw my character
count went from 10 remaining to 9
remaining so it will count towards your
total but it has to be there
and even though it's not getting flagged
most likely this ad will get disapproved
after i submit it that is because
my headline is using title casing in
title casing
every main word within your ad headline
is capitalized
ppc is different because that's an
abbreviation but videos advertisers any
level experience advertisers do this in
a variety of channels but that's not how
most people
write their sentences we're just used to
that because we work in advertising
so then what i'm going to need to do is
update my headline
to look more like an actual sentence now
another thing that core is going to
recommend within their guidelines is to
avoid
uncommon abbreviations and i do have ppc
as an abbreviation for this one i would
try letting it run
ppc is common within our industry and
there are a lot of marketing and
advertising topics on the platform
but if it gets flagged i might have to
go in there and update my headline
sentence one more time
after the headline sentence we have the
main body text
similar to your ad description in google
ads or microsoft ads
or your primary text on facebook so a
body text within cora
can be 105 characters long and just like
the headline sentence
you have to use proper punctuation and
you also have to avoid the title casing
so i'm just going to paste in more copy
from our website now we have the brand
name in there we have the youtube brand
name in there so it looks like there's
some excessive capitalization within my
body text
but i'm still not capitalizing every
single word within this body text
so i know this one will still get
approved and then the last part of a
text ad
is going to be the call to action we
don't get to customize so we have to go
to the drop down
let me scroll down a little bit and i'll
slowly go down so we can see all the
options
that we currently have within quora
there are a few unique options
but we see a lot of the common ones sign
up free trial
learn more start now but we're a youtube
channel so i'm going to pick my favorite
watch more and then of course you would
need your url
normally i would add all my tracking
parameters added to the url
they don't have a separate parameter
template so you would have to add it to
each landing page url
but i don't need to do that for this
video and that's it for a text ad format
if we look at the desktop preview it's
pretty basic same thing if i go up and
switch to mobile preview
text ads will appear on your question
and answer pages as well as the other
main feeds on the homepage
specific topic feeds and the core
newsletter that is emailed out to users
so they'll blend right in because the
image elements are removed from this
format
there's no strong eye-popping image that
can capture someone's attention so that
is why i've always preferred
image ads since the day they were
released but a space for an image right
next to my brand name and the sponsored
mention
popped up that is going to be the space
for our company logo
and then besides your company logo you
can add a main or hero
image i want to switch back to the
desktop preview before we move on
and then let's scroll back down to the
creative all of the character accounts
for an image ad
are the same as a regular text ad 65
characters for your headline
105 characters for the body text
underneath the call to action
there we see the two ways that we can
add images the first is your main image
or hero image
and underneath the selector button we
see the aspect ratio is 16 by 9
and the minimum size needs to be 600 by
335 pixels
the only accepted formats for an image
is a ping
or a jpeg so that means animated gifs
are not allowed
there will not be any movement on your
ad so i'll choose a few different images
first
just so you can see how it would look
within the previews i don't know the
exact dimensions for this image but we
clearly see that it's a longer wider
image
so because of that cora framed a little
bit above and below the image
to slightly square it up a little more
if i go and pick a different one
which we can easily edit and this one i
took just from our youtube channel
banner
this image is closer to the 16x9 aspect
ratio that cora recommends
so because of that there's no extra
spacing in between i still tell my
clients to use
the ad size that's typically done on
facebook and linkedin
and that is the 1200 by 628 it also
makes it easier to get creative from
client if they don't have to make any
different dimensions and they're just
using the same ones that they're already
using on the other platforms
but we see in this image there is text
on the creative
core does not have any text rules for
the images that you use
so if you want to have a specific
message on the image that's going to
complement your body text and your
headline
you're completely free to do that and
you do not have to worry about the ad
getting rejected
because there's too much text on the
image so for now i'm going to just stik
with that image and let's move on to the
logo
while the logo up top is a circle you do
need a square
image and the recommended size is 500 by
500 pixels
i know we have a square image that's 569
by 569 so let's see how that one looks
there's a preview of what the logo would
look like and cora says your ads cannot
run until the logo has been reviewed and
there's a link to the ads images
policies when you're setting up to see
why
this logo could be reviewed the biggest
reason is that the photo could be too
blurry i've had that happen plenty of
times where clients can't get me logos i
have to try to take one
off of their website myself and it's not
in a good dimension so we just had to
recreate it anyway
extremely common but other reasons are
the image is inappropriate
it's controversial you're putting
misleading information into the logo
things like that hopefully our faces
aren't controversial
so i'm just going to save this logo and
there we see it's pending review
once it is approved we will see it in
the preview off to the right side
and after the desktop preview we can
look at the mobile preview you see in
the mobile preview for my main image
they had to add some additional spacing
so if i don't like the way that looks i
can go back and change my image so it
looks good on both desktop and mobile
image ads will have the same placements
as text ads
we mentioned home feeds topic feeds but
there are certain placements
like the core newsletter that are text
ad only
you select your devices at the ad set
level so you can choose if you want your
ads to be shown
on mobile desktop you can definitely
choose both but then there's an extra
toggle button
if you want to expand the placement to
the core newsletter
so if you are doing that setting at the
ad set level even if you're creating an
image ad quora will automatikally
convert your image ad to a text ad
if it is eligible to show up on the
newsletter and even besides that you can
see this warning
under the preview that your ad could be
displayed in a text only format
for performance optimization purposes so
even though we're creating an
image ad it's not guaranteed to be an
image ad
every time so now we know the specs for
the main two ad formats within quora
let me give you some tips and show you
some strategies that i've used on
previous accounts that have helped
boost our click-through rate on quora
i'm on cora and i found this specific
question
what crm software is best for a small
startup so let's say
my client is a crm solution for small
businesses or startups
one of the targeting options for cora is
to target specific questions
so we see right under that question
there is an ad
i can try to put an ad in that spot and
if i know exactly where my ad
is going to be placed because i have
that direct question targeting control
i can tailor my ad message to speak to
users on this exact page
i can then craft my headline message to
speak
to users on that specific page remember
the question was
what crm software is best for startups
if i know one of the ad
placements could potentially be right
under that question i can let users know
get the most powerful yet affordable crm
for startups
people go to quora to research get
answers
find a solution to their questions it
pretty much is a question and answer
site so i want my ad to answer those
questions
now question targeting can be great
because it can be
that specific however question targeting
can also be
too specific sometimes that you don't
get any volume so you may have to use
some of the other targeting options to
expand your reach
and to get a better understanding of
what targeting options are out there for
quora
you can check an updated targeting video
that we made earlier this year
questions in quora are categorized into
higher level topics
and you can target those topics either
contextually when the user is on those
pages
at that moment or you can do more
behavioral targeting
people have interacted with questions
and answers within those topics at some
point within the past 30 days
when you target topics you're not going
to know exactly
which questions your ads are going to
appear on yes you can do some research
look at those topics and see which
questions appear but you're not hand
picking those exact questions
here's another random example someone's
looking for must-see things to do
when visiting dublin ireland and if you
look at related questions
similar tours looking for things to do
within ireland so let's say i'm a travel
agency
and i can get people going back to
ireland i might not
target this specific question i might go
for
broader topics or i might go after some
behavioral targeting
and go after users who are looking up
travel related questions related to
ireland
since i know what that user has done in
the past and i'm targeting that previous
behavior
i may consider creating an ad like this
i love creating headline sentences that
are actual questions
it really fits the core platform of a
question and answer site
so even if the user is not on a question
or topic
related to traveling to ireland i still
know that they're interested because
they've shown that behavior in the past
on the platform
so i might want to trigger that feeling
in their head again looking for an
ultimate travel package to ireland and
then i'm hitting them with a gorgeous
picture
playing on the emotions and the intent
that they're originally researching
to try to entike them to click on my ad
and book a trip
sometimes for my clients i will target
the competitor topics if it's a large
enough company
and then have a headline sentence along
the lines of are you sick of poor
customer service
are you looking for new options for your
xyz
you get the point undermining them a
little bit to make my clients brand
look better i'm looking to steal market
share away from my competitors
to my client but i'm planning a seed
with a question in that user's head
to capture their intention and engage
that user to click on my ad
and that is my goal from a first touch
point if they've had no interaction with
my brand before
i'm just trying to be as engaging and
helpful as possible that's where i've
seen the best performance from cora from
the very top of funnel now i changed the
image no i don't work for expedia never
have i just pulled one example of the
first travel
company i could think of but if i'm
retargeting to users i've known
they've already been to my website
they've interacted with my brand before
and i know that from certain audiences
then i might switch up my ad creative or
my image
to really focus on my brand i'm looking
at it as if they have no previous
interaction with my brand before
i'm focusing on engagement building
trust building
interest for my retargeting audiences
that's when i feel more comfortable
adding my brand logo
to an image just so they're already
familiar and hopefully it sparks
another fire to get them to come back
and actually book but just like
anything we do in advertising test it
test out your variety of different
headlines
test out different image creatives and a
combination of both
but since we can get really specific
with our audience targeting on quora
make sure that your message and your
creative matches who you're targeting
remember they're here for solutions to
their problems or to get answers to
questions
be that helpful solution that is where
you're going to see the best performance
for your quora ads thanks for watching
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