It’s the Real Deal

If you think Facebook ads are still for pages about fluffy dogs with viral videos, then you’re half right! But Facebook ads are also a serious part of any successful marketing strategy now. It’s becoming increasingly popular, mainly because 90% of social media users are on Facebook. That’s much higher than other platforms. Big brands are using it to tap into their audience on a daily basis, and you can too.

It’s time to get started

The Facebook advertising platform has come along way since it was first released in around 2012, there are now many tools that help you to reach the goals of your advertising campaigns and help your business grow.

Reach huge audiences, on multiple channels

Did you know when you use Facebook advertising, you can actually show your ads on other channels as well as Facebook? Here’s a list of the channels you can currently show your ads on through Facebook Ads Manager:

• Facebook Shop: Facebook fans can shop on your fan page as well as your Instagram Shopping catalogue.
• Facebook Marketplace: You can engage in Etsy-like peer-to-peer selling without the fees. In addition, Facebook’s recent Marketplace update brings in Instagram-like recommendation features to expand your store’s reach.
• Facebook Dynamic Retargeting Ads: You can retarget users who landed on your website with similar products to what they viewed. Facebook’s algorithm pulls the products from your feed that have the highest engagement. (Facebook Shop is required)
• Shopping on Instagram: Followers can shop tagged items in your Instagram post. (Facebook Shop is required)
• Shopping on Stories: Followers can shop tagged items in your Instagram stories. (Facebook Shop is required)

Knowing this means you can think carefully about the best places to show your ads. Some brands work very well on Instagram because they’re visual and have great photos, others work better in the marketplace because they provide custom products.

4 questions to ask yourself before you start:

1. What type of ads should we use?
2. How do we measure ad performance?
3. How much budget should we assign to Facebook?
4. What’s an effective way to create an audience?

A Simple Step by Step

1. Set up your Facebook business account. Go to Facebook.Business.com to set up your business manager.
2. Determine the campaign type you want to run.  Either cold traffic campaigns or re-marketing campaigns.
3. Decide on an ad format.  Will you be using a single image, video ad, carousel, or collection? We actually recommend trying at least 4 types! Duplicate your campaign at Ad level and add additional creatives along with your 1st choice. Ideally, you should have a static image, video, carousel ad, and animated image all within the same campaign.
4. Choose your targeting based on Facebook’s options. Be as detailed and thoughtful as you can here. You will want to create multiple audiences to test which ones work the best.
5. Build a high quality Look Alike Audience. Download a list of your best customers from your website or CRM and upload it into Custom Audiences for a highly targeted lookalike campaign.
6. Build out your Facebook ad creative.
7. Determine the overall budget and determine your KPI’s you will be tracking. (Key performance indicators)
8. Track and measure results using the Facebook pixel and a custom conversion.
9. Monitor the campaign daily and optimize to hit your desired return on ad spend (ROAS). *You may need to update your ad creative/copy and or your targeting.

There you have a simple step by step to setting up a Facebook ad campaign. It’s for those who have never really tried one before and are looking to see how well it works for them. If you’d like any advice on any of the stages then get in touch.