Facebook Ads provide businesses with an effective and affordable opportunity to reach existing and target customers.
They work equally effectively for large companies, small business, local solo professionals, and freelancers.
In this article, I’ll tell you what your options are, and how to get the right people clicking your ads.
Here is my 2016 update of battle-tested Facebook Advertising tips that our team has found to be effective.
Before you can create an effective advertising strategy, it’s best to be sure you’ve taken full advantage of Facebook’s structure. The Facebook marketing team suggests the following list of items you should check off before running a Facebook ad:
- My Page’s profile photo is recognizable in 32×32 size
- My most important text is captured in the first 90 characters of my ad
- My video or photo thumbnail is eye-catching and clear. People will be able to recognize it right away
- The content in my ad is relevant and synonymous to the brand I’m promoting
- The message in the body of my ad is memorable
- People will be inspired to tell their friends about the content in my ad
- People feel rewarded after seeing my ad
- I’m targeting the right people who I want to see my ad or sponsored story
- Some people may or may not know about my brand, so it’s important that I create my ad accordingly
- With “sponsored stories” my latest post will be turned into an ad or sponsored stories
Once you’re confident you’ve addressed these issues and understand the lay of the Facebook landscape, you can get started.
Choosing Your Ad Type
Facebook provides ad structures targeting three main categories of objectives:
- Getting More Page Likes
- Promoting Your Posts (Promote Page Posts)
- Driving Traffic to a Landing Page (Advanced Options)
1. Apply Your Effort in the Right Places
Facebook advertisements are not search ads, they’re display ads.
People come to Facebook to connect with friends, not to buy products or services.
As an advertiser, your first goal is to create demand and not to fulfill it.
There are three main components to a Facebook ad – the image, the headline and the body.
According to our friends at KissMetrics, the image used in your ad has the greatest impact (80%), followed by the headline and then the body, or message, so be sure to do some research and find images for your ads that really pop.
The next most important element of an ad is the headline and it determines about 15% of the impact and then the body copy has about a 5% impact.
Facebook Advertising Tips: Optimizing Your Ad
2. Choose Images Wisely
Since 80% of the impact is created in the image, make sure you choose the right set of images for your advertisement.
Use striking, eye-catching and crowd-pulling images.
This image caught my attention because of the red border and the cats engaging in a human activity. (Never underestimate the attraction of cats on the Internet!)
Choosing dull or far away images wouldn’t do the trick; you have to opt for close up pictures that are positive, vibrant and attention-grabbing.
Also, go for images that are easy to identify in the small space provided by Facebook.
Facebook ad images display at a resolution of 100 pixels wide x 72 pixels tall, however you should get images with a higher resolution than this so that your image appears crisp.
3. Know Your Audience
By knowing who your audience is you are able to use Facebook’s targeting options to focus on hyper-specific groups and create campaigns that resonate deeply with the people you’re targeting.
Ask yourself questions like:
- How old is my ideal prospect?
- Where does my ideal prospect live?
- What fan pages have my prospects already liked?
- How can I create my ad so it speaks specifically to my target demographic?
- What kind of a valuable offer can I use to capture leads?
The more specific your target segment and ad are, the more clicks your ad will get.
An important thing to remember about Facebook advertising is the better your click through rate (CTR) is, the cheaper your clicks will be!
4. Target Accurately
You know your target audiences, don’t you?
So, make use of the opportunity mostly to reach in particular who you want.
Select your target audiences correctly. Opt for the “precise interest options” to get connected with people who share a specific interest analogous to your brand.
You can even target fans of specific Facebook pages whose fan base might be closely associated with your product or service.
5. Expand Your Base
Promote your post so that it stays longer and lives longer in the feeds of all your fans.
What’s more, it reaches the friends of your fans and all your non-fans.
Promoting is very vital because not all your prospects are your fans yet.
6. Focus on Keywords
While making images make sure you have target keywords that enhances your visibility and appearance.
Make use of the related words as close as possible. It will give you an edge against your competitors and rivals.
7. Split Test Your Ads
Take advantage of the full Facebook Power Editor to easily duplicate your Facebook ads and test variations of your original ad.
Test variations with different pictures, headlines, and body copy. After a hundred clicks to each ad drop the ad with the lower CTR and create a new ad to go up against the “control.”
8. Set an Affordable Daily Budget
Set a daily budget that won’t break your budget even if you max it out every day.
Bid a few cents higher than the lowest “recommended bid” and continually improve your ads and Click Through Rate over time.
A daily budget of at least $10 is a good place to start from, then once you determine that your campaign is effective, you can scale up your budget.
9. Know the Best Time to Run Your Ads
Many people check Facebook during working hours so make sure your ads are running during active hours for best results.
Make sure your update is going out during peak hours. The best hours for you to post depend on:
- The time zone of your fans (for promoted & sponsored posts)
- The time zone of the demographic you are targeting (for display ads & sponsored posts)
10. Create and Test Multiple Versions
Generate various different versions of the same advertisement with slight minor changes in the design pattern and text matter.
Once you are set, test each of the ads for a specific amount of time. This will help you to test which of the advertisements are creating more impact and reaching the target audiences significantly.
11. Run Your Ads for the Right Amount of Time
Don’t just remove the ad if you feel it is not performing.
Eventually Facebook ads will experience “Ad Fatigue” and start to experience a declining CTR since many people will have already seen your ad.
Continually assess the ROI (Return on Investment) of your ad so that you can remove or revise it before it starts to really cost you.
Watch your CTR and when it starts to dip, it is time to change your ad up!
If you are doing a promoted post try to post at least once daily to keep your promoted post fresh.
12. Use Low-Friction Conversion
While Facebook ads drive the person straight to your website, make sure that you use a single call to action on your landing page.
You will be able to convert the most people possible if you have a single, clear, call to action. Remember, the goal is not to get more Facebook friends, but to bring your Facebook community into your business process.
13. Drive Traffic to an Optimized Landing Page
Drive the traffic from your Facebook ads to capture leads.
Make sure the ad directly leads to a page that tells the visitor what to do next.
You will be throwing your money into the trash if you do not have a converting landing page to direct the targeted Facebook traffic.
14. Do Not Send Traffic Straight to a Sales Page
Get your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, and offer some valuable content for free before you bring up your offer.
If you give your prospects a coupon, free upgrade, or insider DIY advice in advance, they will be much more inclined to make a purchase from you when you present them with a relevant offer.
Successful digital marketing takes patience to get the best results. If you barrage your audience with sales pitches you will quickly annoy your connections and wind up chasing them away.
15. Keep Track of Your Performance
Use tools like Facebook Insights and Google Analytics to keep a track of your performance on a regular basis.
Use the data to make sure your advertisements are creating interest and not burning out.
Keep changing your ads in every six months with new images, headlines and exciting offers.
16. Have one Clear Call to Action on Your Landing Page
One single, clear call to action must be established in the Facebook advertisement itself and then on the landing website page.
For instance, you can add text illustrations that encourage people to “click here” and take action.
Graphic calls to action work great as well.
Your logo, images and headlines can also have direct calls to action.
17. Know How to Track and Calculate ROI
To calculate your ROI, you need 5 things, the total number of impressions, the total cost of Facebook ads, the click rates or the response rate, Conversion Rate (you can get it from Google Analytics) and Average profit per sale.
What you need to find out is how much you are paying to get each sale.
Once you know this you can determine your profitability so you can decide if it makes sense to scale your campaign.
18. Keep Your Landing Page Within Facebook
If you create a custom landing page within Facebook this will make your ads cheaper than if you send that traffic elsewhere on the web.
An added bonus of keeping your traffic within Facebook is that you can pick up “likes” for your page and still achieve conversion goals like a lead or a sale.
Third party Facebook apps enable you to showcase videos, create contests, collect email addresses, and generally drive up the engagement of your Facebook community while bringing your connections into your business process where you make money, not just friends.
I use a wide variety of Facebook apps depending on scope, objective and budget.
19. Improve and Repeat
Don’t be deterred if Facebook does not approve one of your ads. Change it up and try again.
At Facebook, multiple employees manage the same ads customers so if your ad is not approved at first then a change and a re-submission often does the trick.
Create 2 different landing pages and split test them against each other. See which landing page nets more conversions and then change up the under-performing page.
Testing pages and ads against each other and continually making improvements will continually improve your profit margin.
I know it’s a lot for a business owner to take on, but that’s the new reality of Social Business. The days of paying for your annual ad in the local yellow book and answering the phone are, sadly, long gone. And while direct mail is still effective, 98% of all consumer purchasing decisions start on the Internet.
So get out a pad of paper and start brainstorming some Facebook ad ideas. Follow the tips in this article and you’ll be on your way to creating demand and increased revenues for your products and services.
4 Responses