Do you know how to find your potential customers online? With well over 250 million people logging in to Facebook every single day, it’s no secret that this internet giant has everyone’s attention. Facebook Ads are a great way to hone in on your potential customers and direct that captive audience to your website.
There are six main steps to getting started in creating a successful ad on Facebook.
1.) Identify your goals
What do you hope to achieve through advertising on Facebook? Do you want more people to “like” your Fan Page? sign up for an event? buy a featured product off your website?
If you can’t decide between multiple goals, try running more than one ad simultaneously to find out what works best for you. Facebook Ads offers great tracking tools so you can adjust and readjust your ads however you see fit to best suit your needs.
2.) Identify your audience
Who do you want to reach via your ad? Facebook allows for unbelievable targeting by demographic, so if you know your customers are Sydney mothers in their early 30s, you can restrict the ads so that they only display for people who match that criterion. Via the self-service tool (more about that in a moment), you can target ads based on age, gender, location (current or hometown), education level, political views, birthday, relationship status, languages are spoken, or any other affiliation you can possibly imagine. No other tool on the internet allows you to segment your audience quite like this, so take advantage and get to know your customers.
You can also target Facebook users who either are or are not already affiliated with your business. Say you want to put an ad up for a special offer that would be best suited for those already familiar with your business. Just target your ad to people who have already “liked” your Fan Page. Easy! On the flip side, if you want to place an ad to attract new customers, you’d set it so the ad only displays to people who haven’t already “liked” your Page.
Pro Tip: Beware of being TOO specific in your segmenting! While you may be able to describe your ideal customer to a tee, be careful not to be so specific that you exclude prospects. Following the example above, 30-something-year-old mothers from Brisbane might still be part of your demographic if you’re selling a product that can be shipped, and you won’t want to miss them. Try to find a balance between targeting your perfect client and broadcasting to the entire internet.
3.) Create your ad
Most of the ads you see on Facebook are set up through an easy-to-use self-service tool.The self-service tool is designed for individual marketers, not big agencies. Even if you’ve never advertised online (or at all!), it’s something you can easily handle. It will guide you step-by-step through all your Facebook Ads options.
Pro Tip: When going through the “Targeting” section of the self service tool, you’ll see a box along the righthand side that gives you an estimate of how many people Facebook expects you’ll be able to reach with your ad based on the criteria you’ve set.
4.) Set your budget
Facebook Ads allow you to price your campaign several different ways. First, you’ll need to decide your overall budget. How much do you want to invest? This amount will depend greatly on what your goals for the ads are. Second, you’ll need to decide whether you want to pay per impression (number of times the ad is displayed) or pay per click (number of times the ad is clicked). If this sounds way too complicated, spend a little time going through Facebook’s Advertising Help section.
5.) Review FB’s advertising policies
Warning! Just because it’s really easy to create ads on Facebook doesn’t mean it’s a easy to keep them. Facebook is notoriously picky about technicalities (see: Facebook Advertising Guidelines) to make sure you’re playing by their rules.
Pro Tip: Be extra cautious when posting any sort of contest, promotion, or other incentive to click in your ad unless it’s been pre-approved by Facebook. With as much traffic as Facebook gets daily, they’re extremely cautious of potential spammers. Unauthorized promotions can get your ad removed, or worse, your account suspended!
6.) Analyse and adjust
Since you now have well-defined goals and a well-defined audience for your Facebook Ads campaign, gauging your success will be easy peasy using the reports tool. You’ll be able to see the just how well your ad has done and the demographic information of who has responded to it. Use this information to make changes to your ads and maximize your marketing dollar.
Want more help advertising your brand on Facebook? Web123 offers expert assistance in Pay Per Click advertising for both Facebook and search engines.