Facebook’s revenue is estimated at $15.08 billion in the first quarter of 2019, roughly one billion more than it generated last year in the same timeframe.
And most of its money comes from us, the people advertising on Facebook. From a way to simply connect with friends and stay in touch, Facebook has now become one of the most powerful marketing tools around, with millions of advertisers competing to get their posts on a users’ news feeds.
But like all digital marketing efforts, you need to dedicate part of your concern with crafting a good strategy for your Facebook ad campaign if you want to reap the benefits. And these benefits are nothing to ignore:
- Increasing traffic;
- Building a community around your brand;
- Increasing brand awareness;
- Increasing conversions;
- Increasing revenue;
- Get ahead in the competition.
Sounds like something you’d be interested in? We thought so. Stick around because we have some very useful tips to improve your Facebook marketing.
You might also be interested in HOW TO TRACK PHONE CALLS IN FACEBOOK ADS?
It Starts with Your Objective
The foundation of any successful Facebook ad campaign is the objective. “what” you want to accomplish through your ads must be the very first thing you think about, long before you begin to brainstorm visuals and interesting copy for the ads.
To choose a goal, you basically have to think about what you want people to do once they see the ad. Facebook has three main types of ad set objectives:
1. Awareness
If you want to generate more buzz about your business, either because you’re just starting out or want to push the launch of a new product or service, you should choose the “awareness” objective.
2. Consideration
This goal is designed to help you reach the people who might be most interested in your business, and are more likely to want to “find more” or “learn more.” For instance, if you want to push a landing page with great products people should check out, but your ad copy can’t tell them all the details, you would go for the “consideration” objective.
3. Conversions
Do you want more sales, signs ups, or downloads? Then your ad goal is “conversions” through which you can reach those users who need your product or service and therefore are more likely to convert.
By choosing one ad objective, you can greatly improve the results of your Facebook ad campaign, because Facebook will then know which type of users to prioritise.
Let’s say you want to increase your online sales. You create the ad, choose the target audience based on the specifics of your ideal customer, and pick the conversions objective. Your ad may still be shown to users if you have a different object, and its engagement results (people reached, people who interacted with the ad, etc.) can be quite good, but it’s possible your sales, which is your ultimate goal, to remain the same.
That’s because choosing the conversions objective tells Facebook you want to show your ads to those users who are more likely to purchase something online, thus increasing your chances of making a conversion. Easy, right?
“You Talkin’ to Me?”
Next stop is the audience. Once you know what you want people to do when they see the ad, it’s time to think about who your ideal customers are. To do it, you should consider those users most likely to want or need something from you.
By this point, you should know a couple of things about your customers – who they are, what age/gender they have, where they live, and what needs they have that you can fulfill. But Facebook lets you go a lot deeper in creating your ad audiences, and you can also choose other criteria such as:
- Education, employment, relationships;
- Interests – what other things they like;
- What languages they speak;
- Connections to your page, etc.
If you want to refine the definition of your ideal audience, you can visit your Insights section in your Business Manager to see who follows your Facebook page, and who interacts with your posts more. This can help you optimize your ad audience and increase the number of ad results.
Additionally, you can also create custom audiences where you tell Facebook who the people you want to target are. They can be audiences you’ve built on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network or email addresses you collected.
Think of Specifics and Create the Ad
Once you have a goal, and target audience, it’s time to think about a few ad logistics:
- Duration of the campaign;
- Campaign budget;
- Campaign design.
The duration of the campaign depends on the goal you want to reach, and what you are trying to promote. Increasing conversions, for instance, might have a longer running time than generating buzz for a new product launch.
As for the budget, that’s mostly based on how much you can realistically afford to spend on Facebook advertising. As a general rule, it’s the lesser expensive digital marketing methods, but the more money you can allocate to the campaign, the more results you will get.
After that, you can start creating the campaigns, which consist of three layers:
- Campaign – The overall marketing effort, where your goal is established;
- Ad set – It contains multiple ads that help you reach the goal;
- Ad – Where the creative part takes place.
In your Facebook Ads Manager, hit Create and start building your campaigns. You’ll see Facebook has done a pretty good job in making this process fairly easy to accomplish, so you won’t have much trouble navigating through it.
Then, you’ll have to design the ad, which is the stage where you have to think about ad copy and the visuals that will accompany it. You can include ad images, videos, or links, but the important thing to remember here is that the visual components must look good.
If you can, get a professional to design or create the visual component of your ads. Additionally, any landing page you include in the ad must be optimized if you want people to stick around your website.
Monitor and Test
Once you click create and the ad is running, your job isn’t exactly done. You need to monitor all the ads you’ve created to see if you’re reaching your potential customers or ad. Multiple ads require a lot more attention, but it’s best to stay on top while the ads are running and make any modifications on the spot. Otherwise, you’ll spend your Facebook ad budget on something that did not bring the results you wanted to.
Check the metrics you’re most interested in:
- Reach;
- Engagement (likes, shares, etc.);
- Website visits;
- Link clicks;
- Conversions, etc.
Once the campaign is done, look at the results again and see what conclusions you can draw from the experience. Think of issues like:
- Overall success;
- Any moments that generated more results or fewer results on average;
- What people said about the ad, your brand, product or service;
- What impact the ads had.
It’s important to look at these things to create better ads in the future.
Conclusion
The world of social media advertising is booming, and Facebook is at the forefront of all. Today, businesses who want to succeed and get an upper leg on the competition have to combine several digital marketing efforts in order to reach their goals. For smaller businesses, that can be overwhelming.
But, it’s alright to ask for help. Contact Australian Internet Advertising right now for the best Facebook Advertising strategy for your business. We’ll help design, create, implement, and monitor your Facebook ad campaigns.
