Facebook can be an excellent source for generating leads for your business. If you are not utilizing Facebook ads yet, you are missing out on tremendous opportunities to grow your business.
People spend hours on Facebook and Instagram every day, so your ads show up as people are exploring what they are already interested in. This allows you to meet your customers where they come to connect.
Here are a few statistics illustrating the opportunities:
- 69% of Americans use Facebook, including 77% of people aged 30 – 49.
- Facebook ads reach 63.7% of all Americans over age 13.
- Facebook has 2.91 billion monthly active users.
- Facebook is the favorite social platform of the 35-44 demographic.
- 36.8% of the world’s population uses Facebook monthly.
In the third quarter of 2020, Facebook stated that 10 million active advertisers were using the social networking platform to promote their products and services, up from seven million advertisers in the first quarter of the previous year. The vast majority are small to medium-sized businesses.
Ads connect your business with the people you’re looking for, allow you to share what’s unique about your business, and can turn connections into customers.
Facebook is the most used social platform worldwide. When it comes to marketing in today’s world, you simply have to be there. And, because you decide who sees your Facebook or Instagram ad, advertising on their platform may be the most cost-efficient, and effective, way to connect with the people who want to hear from you.
Okay, so if you weren’t convinced about advertising on Facebook and their associated platforms before we’re going to assume that you are now. And, if you’re planning to give it a go on your own, in order to be successful there are some things you need to know. Let’s hone in on the key components to creating effective social media advertising campaigns on Facebook platforms.
Ads Manager
Once you’ve created your Facebook Business Page the first step to creating and running ad campaigns is to access Ads Manager. You can get to the Ads Manager from the Business Manager. The Business Manager is automatically created by Facebook when you create your Business Page.
Choose Business Goal > Identify desired audience > Create ad > Facebook shows your ad
Choosing the Ad Objective
Facebook has different types of ads to help you achieve your goals. Before you create an ad, first consider what your business goals are. It’s important to know what you want to achieve in order to choose the right objective.
Your advertising objective is what you want people to do when they see your ads. For example, if you want to show your website to people interested in your business, you can create ads that encourage people to visit your website. There are three broad categories, or goals, that your objectives may fall under.
- Brand Awareness – Objectives that generate interest in your product or service. Increasing brand awareness is about telling people what makes your business valuable.
- Consideration – Objectives that get people to think about your business and seek more information. Using the Traffic objective you can create a campaign that encourages people to learn more.
- Conversions – Objectives that encourage people interested in your business to buy or use your product or service.
As your business grows, your campaign goals will change. First, your campaigns may focus on building awareness and acquiring new customers. Later, you may encourage people to make a purchase or sign up for an event.
Set Your Budget
You’ll select a budget and duration when setting up your ad, which is the amount you’ll spend on showing people your ads. For the Ads Manager beginner, Facebook will recommend a budget based on ads like yours that are trying to reach the same audience.
Facebook recommends setting your ad to run for at least 7 days. Our experience has taught us that duration is a key component to an ad’s success and have found that running an ad for at least 14 days is more effective. Keep in mind that you can start, stop, and pause your ads at any time, so you’re always in control.
Ad Creative
The right message and eye-catching visuals help your ads stand out, so people are more likely to notice it and take action. Here’s what you need to know about the elements of a great ad:
- Text – Clearly communicate your message by keeping your text concise. Lead with the most important information and keep your text to 2 – 3 short sentences.
- Image or Video – Make sure your image is high-resolution and complements the message in your text. Use bright, contrasting colors and bold backgrounds to catch your audience’s attention.
- Headline – Keep your headline short and clear so people can easily understand what your ad is about.
- Call to Action – Always add a call-to-action button to encourage people to take an action that’s important to your business like “Book Now”, “Learn More”, or “Sign Up.”
Find the Right Audience
Your audience is the people you choose through targeting. Targeting helps to make sure your ad gets seen by people who are most likely to take action. Take the time to think, in detail, about who you want to see your ads.
You’ll choose your ideal audience by using factors like geography, age, gender, language, and interests. In the beginning, you should refrain from narrowing your targeting too much.
Starting with a large audience will give you a better chance to find the people you’re looking for.
Once your ad is ready you’ll submit your ad and it will go through Facebook’s ad review process. Your ad will start running once it’s been approved. This usually takes 24 hours or less. Occasionally the approval process can take up to 48 hours.
Learn From Your Ads’ Performance
You can measure and monitor your campaigns’ performance in Ads Manager. Every time you run an ad you can see how many people reacted to, commented on, shared, and clicked on it. These insights will help you improve future ad campaigns.
The Ads Manager Account Overview page shows alerts, recommendations, and steps that you can take to improve or effectively deliver your campaigns. If you’re new to Ads Manager this is also the best place to get started and set up your account.
Once you begin advertising you can return to the Account Overview page to access a summary of your ad account activity and see opportunities to improve your campaign performance.
The Account Overview page displays key metrics associated with your active or recently completed campaigns.
Account Overview groups information and guidance to help you address campaign health, understand performance, and make optimizations. This dashboard displays:
- Alerts – These are any urgent items that need to be fixed in your account, such as ad rejections and payment method expiration.
- Recommendations – These are actions you can take to improve your campaigns, such as delivery recommendations.
- Campaign Trends – These are high-level campaign insights that show trends in your campaigns’ primary ad metrics, such as the number of Thru Plays for Video View campaigns or Page Likes for Engagement campaigns.
- Ad Limits – As you approach your Facebook page’s ad limit you’ll see a progress bar with the current total of your active ads.
- Tasks – If there are any pending ad account setup tasks that may improve your ad performance Facebook will notify you and provide guidance on how to complete the task here.
Creative Fatigue
A note about how important it is to constantly review ad performance and rework ad copy to keep it fresh: When customers see an ad many times, its effectiveness will drop. This is when creative fatigue may occur. The strange thing with the Facebook ad creative is that the better and more effective they are, the more one needs to work.
This is because more successful ads burn out faster as ad spending increases. What this also means is that to achieve the same level of results, marketers need to work even harder (Yes, the law of diminishing returns applies).
There is also the problem of breaking through the barriers of your creative comfort zone.
Many teams often get caught up with sticking to the same strategies because after all, these have proven to work in the past.
A Final Word
One of the best ways to create brand awareness, gain a decent following, and generate leads is via Facebook ads. This is why it is essential to test your ad creative and invest in creating the best Facebook ads that appeal to your target audience.
Think of your Facebook ad creative as the first part of your marketing funnel that will make it more or less likely for someone to land on your sales page. The Facebook ad is your first sales pitch – It shouldn’t reveal all your cards at once, but just show that you have aces up your sleeves that are up for grabs.
At Obsessed With Success, we are committed to helping all of our clients be successful. To help you get started we offer a free one-hour consult. Or, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the whole idea of doing it yourself, we can do it for you. Either way, let’s connect!
