What I’m going to describe is the best of both worlds.

I understand advertisers’ frustration when creating multiple ads using different formats. You want both video and static link versions to get shown. But the algorithm almost always chooses the static ads when optimizing for conversions.

Here’s what you can do…

The Setup

1. Use an image as your primary format.

2. Customize the video-first placements like Reels and Stories to be a video.

An easy way to do this would be to replace the creative in the Stories and Reels placement group with a 9 x 16 video.

That way, both the static and video versions of your ad will show.

In most cases, people will get the static link ad that may get the most clicks. But when viewing a placement where people expect to see videos, a video version will be shown.

You can always use the breakdown by image or video to see how much each version is shown.

This breakdown has been a bit buggy overall, but it should work for this situation.

Another option would be to use Flexible Ad Format, but this is a good way to leverage both versions while creating only one ad.