Dos and don’ts of including a logo in story ads

The following article consists of Confect's interpretation of actual data. We analyze real-life marketing, advertising, and sales data using Confect's proprietary AI engine. Below, we're breaking down our findings and sharing our results so you can supercharge your future sales efforts. Click here to learn more about Confect.

Have you got a new logo that you can't wait to show to the world?

Whether you're a brand owner, digital advertiser, or graphic designer, we're sure that you take great pride in the logos you design.

At a glance, your logos can represent values, products, services, and whatever else you stand for as a brand.

But when it comes to your story advertisements, should you include a logo?

While putting your logo front and center in your ads may seem like a great idea, we've found some evidence that might suggest otherwise.

In the following blog post, we parse some of the data we've found using our proprietary AI engine to determine the dos and don'ts of using logos in story ads.

Let's dive in!

On average, a logo in content makes story ads perform 14% worse

When we talk about performance, we’re talking about how likely people are to click through and purchase something from a brand.

This is referred to as a conversion rate.

We can calculate this by dividing the number of impressions by the number of purchase conversions.

To study this type of performance, we compared ads with logos to ads without logos and found that, on average, having a logo in your story caused the ad to perform about 14% worse than ads without a logo.

Read about logos in non-story ads here.

When we think about story or reel formats, it’s easy to see how user focus is mainly placed on the visual aspects of the content itself.

In general, if a story or reel is creative and entertaining, people are likely to enjoy watching it.

However, when content is overly branded or “sales-y,” it’s more likely to stick out as an ad. And this often leads your viewers to swipe your story away into oblivion.

This is most likely why only 45% of story ads include logos.

Advertisers simply don’t want people to realize that what they see is an ad.

45% of all story ad impressions include a logo

Many marketers believe that all ads should include a logo.

The thinking here is that having a logo in an ad helps potential customers know where the product or service they're looking at is coming from.

However, we've found evidence that only about 45% of all ad impressions show a brand logo. But this also means that 55% don't.

Story ads generally show more natural, day-to-day, lifestyle-type content.

Therefore, a logo can seem intrusive, impersonal, and just to “sales-y” in this type of content.

On the other hand, 1:1 or landscape ad content is often more curated to represent branded products or services.

In this case, including a logo makes more sense, but should still only be done if you already have a well-established brand.

When viewers don’t already know a brand, a logo conveys little to no message.

So in most cases, we’ve found that including a logo will harm or have very little impact on performance.

While it might be a common belief that you should include a logo whenever and wherever possible, 45% of the ads we looked at disagreed with that sentiment.

So when, if ever, should you be using a logo in your story ads?

Generally, a logo in content hurts story ad performance, but there are exceptions

Although we found that, in general, a logo can harm story performance, this isn’t always the case.

Yes, you should refrain from using logos in your story when running competitions or launching new products.

In these cases, it’s curiosity more than anything else that motivates a viewer to click through and learn more about what they’re seeing, not your brand itself.

But when highlighting a sale or your shipping information, we’ve found evidence that including a logo can boost performance.

In fact, we found that a logo can boost ad performance by as much as 20% when promoting a sale.

And even more exciting, we found that including a logo when mentioning shipping can increase performance by a staggering 85%!

When we break it down, sales and shipping ads are targeted towards consumers who are already further along the buyer’s journey.

We refer to this type of content as being at the bottom of the sales funnel.

The people who see these ads already have the intention of making a purchase.

They’re simply in the process of searching for the best brands, prices, and deals before making a final decision!

So in this case, when a viewer sees or recognizes your logo on these types of ads, it can act as a secondary selling proposition (USP). It can also help alleviate any worries they may have about buying from an unknown brand.

Essentially, by including your logo, you're putting your business's reputation on the line.

And in the end, brands that include their logo alongside a sales or shipping ad are more likely to be perceived as authentic and trustworthy.

Let's recap what we learned!

You want to stay subtle - If you prefer subtlety over being in-your-face about advertising, then leaving out the company name or logo could also benefit you.

Do Include Your Logo If…

You are running a sales ad - If you are running a sales ad, including your logo can boost performance by 20%.
You are mentioning shipping - If you are talking about shipping times or free shipping, including your logo can boost performance by 85%.

Don't Include Your Logo If…

You are launching a new product or running a competition - Often, when content is branded, it sticks out as an ad, and users swipe away from it without further thought.

To Logo Or Not To Logo? That Is The Question

When deciding whether or not to include a company's logo in story ads, there is no one-size-fits-all answer; each situation needs to be evaluated on its own merits before making any decisions.

But if done correctly, though, including a brand's logo in story ads can help build trust with potential customers.

Ultimately, this should translate into increased sales later on down the line!

Data section

The dataset from this article is based on 1B impressions and 13.6K pieces of individual content on Meta (Facebook) platforms. It takes into account data from all countries and industries, with the campaign objective of Conversions. The period is from 1. September 2021 - 16. September 2022. The content was filtered based on the aspect ratio to separate 1:1 (square) from 9:16 (vertical).

Numbers are looking at correlation only, not causation. Remember to check your own data: numbers for different brands, industries, and contexts will vary.

If you were intrigued about a specific insight, you can go in-depth into the various dimensions and how data can be segmented in Confect, here.