Considering it has been around less than 10 years, with 1.4 billion users, it just seems like Facebook has taken over.  We started advertising on Facebook two + years ago, and have seen outstanding ROI for both clients and our business. We have also seen how it has evolved and gotten very sophisticated over time, especially as far as it’s targeting capability.  Facebook has one of the most complete databases out there, which allows laser focused targeting. I really do believe that Facebook has taken the lead in the future of advertising.

But it’s not as easy as pie. Yes, anyone can create and publish an ad, but done in a random way it’s likely to be a complete waste of money. it’s a highly specialized task and it takes time to learn. But it is worth every penny when done right. With Facebook ads you can quickly build your brand awareness, draw traffic to your website, and sell your products and services.

Why Advertise Your Promo Business on Facebook.

There are all kinds of options for marketing your business, so why should you invest your money on Facebook?  I can think of two good reasons right off the bat. First, there are over one billion users on Facebook right now, with more than 900 million visiting every day to connect with what matters to them.  This means your target audience is there and they will see your ads. You can target people based on their demographic and psychographic information, as well as their online behavior patterns. That combination makes it a very powerful advertising option. I really do believe that Facebook has taken the lead on the future of advertising.

Second, it’s a “pay as you go” service and very affordable. The payment flexibility allows you to test campaigns at a very low cost,  stop ads in an instant to make adjustments, and scale your campaigns once you see your ads working well.

6 Steps To Facebook Ads

There are many moving parts to making Facebook ads work. These steps will help you get going in the right direction.

1. Before you start:

• Set your goals: Are you looking for brand awareness, draw traffic to your website, or sell a specific product?

• Activate the Business Manager for your page. You will find it clicking on the triangle on the far right of the top navigation menu.

• Set your website for tracking visitors. Facebook generates a unique “tracking pixel” or code for you to copy and paste on your website. To generate the code go to the audience’s tab and create a custom audience of website visitors, then get the code and paste it on your website.

• Create a landing page for your ad.  This is where those who click on the ad will be taken to.  Think of the ad as the “entry point” to an offer of some kind, that has a clear next step after your prospect clicks on the ad and arrives to the page linked to the ad. You can find more information on how to set p a landing page in this post. For best results, there should be only one choice for the visitor, so all they can do is take one action or leave.

• Create a detailed audience profile Describe your ideal client in detail, not only demographic information, but also likely titles, industries, and pages they might like.

2. Narrow Down Your Target Audience in Facebook

There is a lot you can do in segmenting your target audiences inside Facebook.  You can use it’s internal tools to build your ideal custom audience. There are 5 types of audiences you can create:

• Your current Facebook fans (and their friends).

• Your current mailing list. You can export this list from your email service provider and upload it to Facebook.

• Visitors to your current website or a specific page on your website. Retargeting this audience is what makes Facebook advertising so powerful.

• Lookalike audiences based on your existing subscribers, customers and website traffic.

• Create target audiences out of Facebook’s active users. Narrow down the selection by criteria such as specific location, ages, interests and online behaviors.

3. Set a Budget:  Start Small and Build Out

Start with $10/day, run for a week or two. Set $100 monthly total spend.

Monitor daily and be prepared to stop the ad at any given moment to make adjustments. Once you feel you have the right audience start scaling your ad spend.

4. Start by Creating Promoted Posts.

You want to create the posts in the power editor, not on your timeline. Use snippets of your own blog posts to drive traffic to your website and start building your custom audience.  Test topics for level of interest at first. Many times you have to keep trying different topics or angles before you find interests your audience the most.

5. Look at The Reports Daily and Always be Testing

• Be prepared to make mistakes and don’t give up if you do. There is a constant learning curve as there is constant change. Look at your numbers to determine whether your ad is successful, needs to be tweaked or is a bust.

• At the beginning you’ll want to focus on narrowing down your target audience, so just adjust the audience and not the ad itself.

• When tweaking the ad, only change one thing at the time. For example change the graphics, and leave the rest the same, or change the headline only, and so on.

6. Use Quality Ad Graphics

The image is the most important part of the ad because is the first thing they’ll see.  That said,  the rest is not less important. Just like with a print ad, the graphics are there to grab attention, but in this case, keep in mind they’ll be viewed on a tiny screen, so less is more. Also, as far as text on the image,  Facebook only allows 20% of text on it.

There you have it!

Follow this basic steps and you will start to see results from Facebook ads. One last word of advice: take the time to read the Facebook advertising guidelines. They have very strict policies and failure to comply could lead to them closing your account. And if you’re considering trying Facebook ads but don’t have time and prefer outsourcing to experts, we can help. Feel free to contact us via the form you’ll find here to set a time to talk.