Facebook Ads are a versatile tool that more than six million businesses are using.
Social found that ad reach is increasing — in 2019, overall Facebook Ad impressions went up by 37%. At the same time, the cost of Facebook Ads is decreasing, so businesses can reach more people for less money.
If you’ve been wanting to try out Facebook Ads for business, or are already doing so and want to boost your effectiveness, these tips are for you:
- Determine if your audience is on Facebook and, if so, where they are spending their time
Before you try out Facebook Ads, it’s important to determine if your target audience even spends their time on Facebook.
Chances are that they do — after all, more than two billion people worldwide use Facebook every month — but if you are targeting a particular niche or type of professional, another platform may be more worth your time (like LinkedIn).
Even if your audience is on Facebook, there is likely still some research to do. When you create your advertisement, you are able to define how your ad is targeted. You can target by location, age, interest, and more. Part of doing is this knowing how to target to reach your intended audience. (We’ll get more into this in a bit!)
- Determine your objectives
If you’ve set up a Facebook Ad recently, you’ve likely seen the variety of options Facebook has for ad objectives.
These include brand awareness, reach, lead generation, product conversions, and more.
It’s important to define your objectives early on because this will affect how Facebook shows and prioritizes your ad and it also determines how you can format your ad and where you can post it.
This is also essential for your brand strategy. Your social media advertising (on any platform) should have a purpose behind it. Facebook’s objectives can help you reflect on your ad’s goal and refine the content to suit it.
- Determine your buyer persona
As mentioned, part of running an effective Facebook Ad for business is knowing your audience – who you are targeting, what they like, where they are located, their age demographic, and so forth.
One of the best ways to do this is by having a buyer persona. If you have multiple buyer personas, you might even run different ads for different personas.
For instance, the persona for Jan, a 45-year-old mother of two who loves to cook, might look very different from the persona of Michael, a 25-year-old bachelor who loves baseball.
Having a picture of who you want to target in your mind will help you select the right targets to make sure your ad appears to the most qualified people.
- A/B test
Facebook makes it easy to split test your ads by running two (or more) ads simultaneously.
After choosing the variable that you want to test, Facebook will divide your budget equally and randomly split exposure between each version. You can then measure the performance of each.
At the end of the pre-set period, you can move forward with the variable that performed the best and tweak as needed.
- Play in Facebook’s guidelines
One of the most challenging parts of creating Facebook Ads is making sure that they get approved. All ads are reviewed by Facebook to ensure that they follow policies.
For example, in the Personal Attributes policy, Facebook states that ad creative cannot have “text referencing or alluding to personal attributes or characteristics of the targeted group or individual.â€
So, a message such as “A service for teens†might be approved, but not “Car insurance for 18-24-year-olds.â€
For a financial company, the message “We have financial services to cover every financial need†might be approved, but “Broke? Bankrupt? Check out our services†would not.
If your ads are routinely having trouble getting past the review stage, consider engaging a professional to help make sure that your copy and creative passes the policy test.
- Look at what content is already resonating with your current audience
Even when you have your buyer personas determined and creative approved, it can be difficult to know what will truly resonate with your audience.
The answer can sometimes be simpler than it appears. Look at what content is already performing well with your current audience.
If you have an organic reach, check out what posts have done the best in the past 90 days. What topics have resonated the most?
For instance, a financial company might see that “Fix your credit†messages are performing better with their current audience versus “Get out of debt†copy.
If that’s the case, then that can be a place to start with your advertising. You can even sponsor a post that has done well to reach more people.
- Use Lookalike Audiences
Speaking of considering your current audience, have you ever wished that you could just duplicate your existing fans?
If so, you’re in luck – because with Lookalike Audiences, you can do exactly that.
A Lookalike Audience is a way to reach people who are similar to your best existing customers. You define where the comparable audience is located — for instance, from your current Page fans, through Facebook Pixel, or through the mobile app — and then Facebook delivers your ad to similar people.
- Retarget website visitors
You can also use Facebook Ads to retarget web traffic if you have Facebook Pixel installed.
This can help create ads for people who visited your website but didn’t fill out a form, abandoned their shopping cart, or upsell to people who did make a purchase.
This is a great way to create alignment across presences and continue being visible to those who are already interested in what you’re offering.
- Optimize a landing page to track clicks
One of the biggest Facebook advertising mistakes is not defining where clicks go. Many businesses will direct traffic to their website homepage or a specific product page — but this often isn’t the best practice.
By setting up a landing page specifically for Facebook Ad traffic, you can track even more accurately who clicks on your ad and what action they take afterwards. If you are getting a lot of clicks, but then no action is taken once they are on your page, your ad might be working, but the offer is not.
Similarly, if you aren’t getting enough clicks, you may need to rethink the ad or audience targeting.
This helps track ROI and gauge the true effectiveness of campaigns.
- Use Facebook Ads as part of a bigger picture strategy
While Facebook Ads are a great tool for businesses, they’re not the only tool. They work best when integrated into a complete strategy — including continuing with consistent organic social media, having an optimized website, and more.
When you know exactly what you are using Facebook Ads to accomplish in your strategy, it helps you focus them even more and improve results strategically.
Want to make the most of your Facebook Ads? Get in touch! We offer enhanced Facebook and social pay-per-click solutions that take your strategy into account.
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