The golden age of social media is in full swing, and Facebook is undoubtedly one of the biggest players in the online marketing game. The famous website can boast around 2 billion active users, who dedicate several minutes or even hours of their day to this website. Doubtless, part of its success can be attributed to its multi-functionality. Facebook is a platform for connecting people, yet it also entertains and informs its users. The entertainment and information aspects, if approached from the right angle, can be real advertising gold mines.
Considering, how much time and attention people devote on a daily basis to Facebook, one can easily discover great opportunities allowing them to effectively promote their products or services on this website. Nevertheless, before jumping right in, one has to get to know the platform from A to Z. The advertiser should analyze all the pros and cons that would come with a social media marketing campaign, and in this endeavor a pay per click marketing firm can be of immense assistance. After all, the optimized ads on Facebook are based on the PPC model, and since the advertiser will be paying for each click, they should work hard to maximize the efficiency and profitability of their ad campaign.
First of all – delve into the statistics
The great thing about Facebook is its constant focus on metrics and data analysis. Before creating an ad, one should learn about their target audience; conveniently, Facebook offers its advertisers to explore this aspect by using the ‘audience insights’ feature. Essentially, the tool enables you to mine data about who your audience is, wherefore it is possible for you to proceed with tailoring unique ads for specific consumer groups.
Overall, there are two sources from which the user data is gathered. First, there is the self-reported data, which is comprised of everything people have shared on their profiles – their age, gender, education, page likes and more. Second, the advertiser can also access off-Facebook data, which reveals such details as purchasing behaviors and average household income, to name a few. Therefore, by reviewing this information, your business can choose which audience type to target. It could be everyone on Facebook, maybe every user who has liked your page, or, perhaps, it might just be better to designate a custom audience (based on, for example, their occupation, gender, or interests).
Some other statistics worth exploring can be the largest age demographic, geographical locations, and languages popular among the users. Also, when it comes to bidding on ad space, it can be valuable to note the hours and days of the week with the highest traffic on Facebook. Success hides in knowing and understanding the numbers, and planning the ad campaign in accordance with the available data.
Standing out in the cluttered timelines
Facebook is versatile and brimming with content, so it can be quite the challenge to catch someone’s eye among all the wall-posts and other ads. However, it is not impossible, and many advertising campaigns have succeeded especially thanks to their ingeniously creative ad designs, which have been adapted to the features provided by the platform.
As stated above, one good approach is creating different ads aimed towards different types of established audiences. Additionally, the sort of ad chosen can depend on other goals you have set for your advertising campaign. Each detail has to be taken into consideration when focusing on the location and format of the ad. For example, the advertiser might want to display the ad on the desktop news feed, if they wish to generate high engagement and attract new customers; meanwhile, the ads appearing on the right column of the page are better suited for users who are already brand-aware and might be interested in new products or services.
Another integral aspect is the presentation of the ad. On Facebook, the primary target should be to grab attention, and the message of the ad goes to the secondary position. Thus, the image is quite important, and what is more, it doesn’t even have to be an image – you may opt for a short video, or the so called carousel format ad, which allows to showcase multiple products in a single ad unit (perfect for marketing clothing and other similar items belonging to a product line). Choose the type that is right for your brand, and when in doubt – first test it out.
Pulling in the audience
The visuals having been decided upon, one can turn to the message. In Facebook ads, it is advised to include the call to action in the very body of the ad – it must be enticing, prompting the user to click it and seek out more information about your product. Another tip that can strengthen the appeal of one’s message is that they should try to present great offers and attractive deals. This manner of addressing potential customers works perfectly together with bright and relevant imagery. And of course, do not forget about providing informative and neat landing pages for your ads, paying special attention to their appearance and compatibility with other devices on which people might be browsing Facebook.
Stay on the track that leads towards your goals
This is quite a universal advice in all fields of marketing – have pre-established goals and aim for reaching them. Yet, just as on other platforms, on Facebook this involves not only setting up an ad campaign, but also constantly testing out new ideas and optimizing the old projects.
Facebook has developed many advertiser-friendly tools and features that allow businesses to work out the best bidding strategies for their needs, in accordance with their aims and constraints. Nevertheless, it is also essential to constantly track your sales, concentrating mainly on profit generated, not on the popularity of the ad. A lot of clicks does not always mean high performance. Especially if the ad is highly entertaining, people might be sharing and engaging in it without following the call to action. On the other hand, there can be cases in which immediate success from quick sales is not apparent, yet the brand has gained a loyal customer. That is known as the ‘customer lifetime value’ and Facebook can be a great source for gaining brand loyalty, as a positive result of regularly creating new and engaging ad campaigns.
Fundamentally, Facebook is a social network that is constantly changing and developing. So, the best advice is to do the same with your ad campaign – keep building it up and optimizing your ads for the optimal results.
Thanks. We plan to start looking into FB advertising as soon as we get our website changed and partners added. I have bookmarked this for reference.
Just ran my first FB ad campaign last week and excited to implement some of this info in round two…
These are great tips. I never thought about starting a campaign but you did a great job of explaining how easy it is.
nice tips! always good to remember what we can do with FB!
informative post, thank you for sharing
Staying on track and focused on SM is hard but important. Thanks for pointing it out, makes me want to plan and focus more!
Very helpful post!!
This guide is one of the most comprehensive and easy to understand
Thanks for ideas for better blogging!
Thank you for writing this. You broke it down into sections so that it is easy for me to understand. It was very helpful.
This post has came at the right time. I played around with boosting a post which yielded some very good results. Now I want to create an ad using the same demographic. I think they FB ads can be advantageous.
Wow thank you for the tips – pinned for later
Ah I’m so bad at using FB for anything! This though, opened my eyes a little & I believe there can be multiple options with FB. Thanks!
That sounds like a piece of cake! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I hear that FB ads allow you to really narrow in on your target audience. This is a very helpful post for someone that is just starting out! Thank you for sharing.
Love this info! I have some experience with FB marketing. Bookmarking this page for some more good info.
Thank you for this helpful information! I’m gearing up to start my first-ever facebook ad campaign; I’m sure this will prove useful.
Very well explained..
🙂
Nice one..
I haven’t started using Facebook ads yet but as soon as I have something to sell, I definitely will. Especially to promote webinars.
I love Facebook! It is in my top 3 for traffic to my website
Thanks for the tips! I suck at actually looking at stats so I know that’s my biggest weakness..
Thank you Brian, really helpful! Looking forward to your updates!
There is really so much to consider!
With Facebook constantly making changes to the newsfeed and their algorithm it’s hard to get any good results without spending a fortune on ads. I’m going to use your tips to improve on my target audience and see if get any better results.
I love this article!! It has the most comprehensive guide and easy to follow. Thanks!
Nice informative post! I’ve been so intimidated about the costs and not knowing enough about the benefits… this was helpful! thanks!
Really great guide!
This is a great advise …I just stumbled upon it….and it seems a blessing
Great tips! I’ve been thinking about using video in my advertising and this just gave me the boost I needed.
Ugh I totally suck at analyzing and focusing on statistics and it’s so crucial. Thanks for the reminder!
Great tips! Tks!
Love love love this article. Such a easy read and extremely useful. Thank you.
this was so helpfull i have been wondering if i should spend on facebook ads. made it so easy to understand thankyou!
Awesome blog so I to be informed how social
Media affects and helps us in a lot of way:)
Good tips. However, I don’t know if I have enough money to pay facebook for advertising. Any free advertising techniques?
This is a really great resource! Thank you for posting this!
I definitely think that standing out on facebook is the hardest thing to do. You got to show yourself in an unique light.
I decided to plan a few facebook ads around christmas. I have no idea how to go about all of this, but i pinned this post for help.
I´ve recently struggled with FB Ads, so thanks for the guide, it was very helpful.
wow! I’m glad you shared this, there was so much I didn’t know
Great article! Saving for later. Thanks for all the information.
I’m bookmarking this for future use. This is some great info here!