Facebook is the leader of social media, with nearly 68% of U.S. adults using the social media platform. And more than 76% of people check Facebook daily. That’s a lot of eyeballs, and it’s one of the many reasons that you need to invest in Facebook ads to promote your product, service and content. Facebook is also where people go to engage and engagement results in product affinity and ultimately conversion.
Types of Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are displayed in 3 different ways: The right navigation ad on the side of your feed, and the ads within your feed, for either desktop or mobile. Each ad location / type has their pros and cons, with the biggest being word count. That means you need a tight message and call-to-action with a visual image or video that captures the eye.
Here is an example of a desktop ad:
Here is a right navigation ad.
Use Facebook like the Brand Pros Do:
Many small and medium sized businesses think “boosting” your post is Facebook advertising; this is flushing money down the drain. Facebook has so many tools available to increase your precision in targeting your audience that you can do a lot of work up front to save ad budget and spend it where you know it will work.
While Power Editor and Ad Manager let you target your audience and create an ad, they do not give you insights into your audience like Audience Insights that lets you identify your target audience prior to spending money. You can identify people that are similar to your followers here and see data associated with not only Facebook behavior and self-report data but also augmented data from Data Logix, Epsilon and Acxiom, professional data augmenters. You can find facebook pages that your fans have liked and target users that have liked those brands. You also have the ability to create custom audiences by uploading customer email addresses or Facebook IDs and targeting those specific users that are already exposed to your brand. Or you may partner with a complimentary brand and share audience info for affordable acquisition. Just be sure your privacy policy supports this.
Also knowing how to get maximum exposure for your ad in an organic capacity will extend each ad campaign’s efficiency. Be sure to use @brandtags when referencing other brands. For example, if you are doing a product review, be sure to @productreviewcompany as most likely they will want to share this coverage with their fans. Use #hashtags with brands and events to also increase exposure. People use hashtags to find and track things they are interested in. And it’s no secret to big brands that Facebook rewards video usage….not any video usage but videos uploaded to Facbook, not Youtube links. Facebook LIVE is also heavily rewarded. As more people adopt LIVE, the competition will increase, but for now it’s the wild, wild west and there is plenty of free exposure for using this.
One of the most important success factors in Facebook advertising is testing. Test, optimize, rinse, lather, repeat. After speaking with many Facebook Ad Operations employees, it is clear they give credit to success based on very detailed testing. Valid tests are difficult to execute on Facebook as there are multiple variables on each ad: Intro Ad Copy, Image, Ad Headline (under the image) and Call to Action. For the test to be valid A/B testing, only 1 item can be changed. You may start with Different image and same copy. Now you can tell which image attracted better than the others. Now you can take the winning image and create multiple ads with different intro copy, see which converts better and keep the same while changing a new variable. Tracking this can be daunting but worthwhile for profitable advertising.
Testing is not just for your ad creative but also for your goals and audience segments. It is common knowledge that optimizing for engagement is very affordable. However, is this getting you the conversions you want? It is possible that optimizing for engagement and utilizing retargeting on and off Facebook may be a more efficient acquisition strategy than optimizing for conversions. Engagement optimization charges you only for the audience that interacts with your ad. Conversion optimization charges you based on cost per thousand (CPM) and is typically a higher cost. Your product and service will determine what works best for your brand. Be sure to test different objectives.
Targeting Your Audience
Just like any marketing initiative, you need to know why you’re using Facebook ads. Is it to build an email list? Is it to promote a new product? Luckily, Facebook makes figuring out what kind of ad you want super easy. Go inside their ad creator and they’ll basically guide you step-by-step.
Now that you have already defined your audience in Facebook Audiences, you have your work laid out for you and its as easy as selecting the appropriate demographics and behaviors. As with any marketing initiative, the more targeted your audience segmentation is and more distinct your niche is, the better your chances of attracting the customers you want. Facebook offers ways to define your targeting, consumer interest, consumer behavior, location and more.
Ad Creative
There are 2 types of creative for ads, those you see on your fan page and those you do not see. The posts on your page are efficient in cost and targeting but everyone that follows you sees them. You may want a new customer offer that only shows to people that have not been to your page and this is where your standard ad will come in.
Why Facebook Ads?
Here are some of the many reasons Facebook ads are so great:
- Apart from so many people being on Facebook, the ads are incredibly cost-effective. Even if you only spend $5 a day, you’re looking at the ability to reach up 2,800 people. That reach is expanded if you choose to invest more in your ads.
- The ability to target your audience so specifically means you have more chances of reaching your ideal customers. And unlike PPC ads, such as on Google, you don’t have to wait until they search for a term for your ads to reach your audience. It can appear in right in their feed. Of course, the con to that is that the leads are more passive versus a PPC ad. If someone is searching for the service or product you offer, that means they are probably close to buying it. With Facebook, you have to make an extra effort to capture your audience’s attention and encourage them to purchase.
- If you’re looking for lead generation, Facebook is a great way to do that. The more specific your niche, the better your chances of gaining new leads is with Facebook ads, too. And it’s easy to track too. Lead conversions on Facebook let people fill out a form right on the page, which means you know exactly where a person or company saw your ad. That can help you determine which of your marketing strategies are working.
Have you used Facebook ads before? What has your experience been with them? Let us know in the comments.