Getting Started with Facebook Paid Ads

Getting Started with Facebook Paid Ads

Posted on December 13, 2016 nerdymind

Recently, Facebook paid ads have become a huge talking point around the NerdyMind office. Our clients have been very curious about how they can include paid Facebook ads in their digital marketing mix, so we have created a guide to get you up to speed.

What’s All the Fuss About? How Can Facebook Ads Help My Business?

Facebook offers a multitude of ways that paid ads can be tailored to fit your business needs. To find out if Facebook ads could work for your business, there are a couple of questions that need to be answered…

First off, what’s the goal? Are you trying to increase product sales? Boost website traffic? Establish brand awareness? Sell event tickets? Is there a clear call-to-action? Having a well-defined goal in mind is essential to determine whether your efforts and money spent were effective.

Secondly, who is the target audience? Is your audience on Facebook? Do you understand where they live, how old they are, what interests them? Facebook’s audience targeting features are what get us Nerds VERY excited. Pinpointing your demographic and crafting a message that speaks to them is why this platform rocks! Plus, the more targeted your audience is, the less you pay per click. It’s a match made in marketing heaven.

Lastly, why should they care? People love Facebook because it tells stories: stories of relationships forming, families bonding, new friendships and exciting adventures. How will your ads fit among the authentic content generated by the user’s family and friends and why should they care about your story? It’s not as hard as you might think. If you can creatively craft messaging around a value proposition that appeals to your audience, then you will yield better results.

If your answers to these three questions look promising, then go for it! The only way to see if Facebook ads will work for you business is to try. Set a budget that works for you and know that an ROI may not be seen immediately. It takes time to test campaigns. With so many variables at play, it’s important to test ad copy, test images, and test audiences. Analyze your results to figure out what is working and what needs to change. Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t be! We have included our list of Best Practices to help you get started.

Nerdy’s Best Practices

  • Start with two ads in your first campaign ad set. The variation between the two ads should be minimal. Either differ the ad copy, ad image, or call-to-action. That way later you can review which ad performed the best and understand why. This will help with future iterations.
  • For ads sending visitors to your website, make sure to always use a tracking link in your URL, that way you have complete campaign data in Google Analytics. This website should help you create unique tracking URLs for your campaigns: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en
  • Refine your targeted audience. Remember, this is why Facebook ads are so cool, the in-depth targeting feature – never use the “Boost Post” feature when you can define your exact audience! Facebook allows you to select locations, age ranges, gender, languages, interests, behaviors and more! Plus you can save your audiences for future use.
  •  Establish a reasonable daily spend. Since Facebook ads function in an auction format, your daily spend is completely dependent on your goals and ad competition within your chosen audience. The more narrow your audience, the less competition you’ll likely have, and therefore you’ll have lower costs. Start with deciding how much a click is worth to you and go from there. If a click is worth $2.00 and you are hoping for 20 clicks per day, then a reasonable daily spend is $40. To learn more about Facebook ad costs, check out this awesome guide from Qwaya: http://www.qwaya.com/facebook-advertising-costs
  • Get creative with copy! Be aware of character limitations but don’t let that impact your creativity. Tell a story that will resonate with your audience to stand out amongst the other stories in the news feed. Here are some tips:
    • Craft your messaging to appeal to your target audience. Include your value proposition.
    • Use authentic photos and video. The last thing people want to see in their news feed is a stock photo.
    • Establish a strong call-to-action.
  • Make sure to preview your ad in Mobile View; mobile use of Facebook has skyrocketed in recent years (a majority of ad impressions we get in campaigns are on the mobile apps).
  • Be strategic with your landing page. The user’s experience extends beyond the Facebook ad. Whether the call-to-action goes to a promotional page, website page, event page, etc., craft their experience from the ad all the way to the conversion point. This alone will substantially affect your results.
  • Set dates in your calendar to review your ad performance: 1, 2, & 3 weeks out. Make iterations and test everything! Facebook campaigns can have multiple ad sets to test and ad sets can have multiple ads. Pause ads that aren’t performing and increase daily budgets on ads that are! Facebook ads are never finished.
  • Close the loop and add Facebook ads to your monthly analytics report. Simple click-through-rate (CTR) isn’t enough, track which ads are actually converting so you have thorough information. This will help you ultimately determine ROI.

What About Organic Facebook Posts?

One last point to make and a question that we get quite often is, “What about my regular posts through my Facebook page, aren’t those enough?” And the answer is, in most cases, no. Facebook changed their algorithm so that even people who have liked business pages rarely see Facebook posts from those businesses. Unless someone has specifically found a post on your page and shared it, you will find that extending your reach for free is harder than ever. But don’t let that be discouraging, having a Facebook page and posting regularly still reaches some of your fans, and you can target paid ads to an audience that already exists, your followers!

Keep in mind that it may be tempting to “Boost Your Post”, but we advise using the Facebook Ad platform instead. That way you have complete control over your audience, therefore optimizing your performance and sticking to a reasonable budget.

Facebook ads aren’t for every business, but if you find that they could be right for you, it’s worth trying! The Nerds are always here to help if you need it. As the Facebook platform evolves, ads will become more and more prevalent, potentially becoming a standard in the digital marketing mix. Social media as a whole is evolving. If Facebook doesn’t yield the results you are looking for, there are a variety of other platforms to choose from including Twitter, LinkedIn & Pinterest. The possibilities are endless!

Photo by Maria Elena on Flickr.