There are a number of advantages to advertising with Facebook. Creating an ad account and reach out to users is quite easy, but when it comes to effective marketing, there’s a steep learning curve that comes with Facebook ads. Running Facebook ads without really knowing how they work and the options they provide can quickly lead to money down the drain.
Here are a few steps to help you get started with advertising on Facebook.
Step 1. Determine Your Goals
Before you get started with Facebook ads, you need to know the goals you want to accomplish with your adverts because this will determine your campaign objective. It’s what you’re aiming to do on Facebook that will determine how your campaign and ads are set up.
Some example goals are:
- Do you want people to like your page?
- Do you want people to click through to your website?
- Do you want people to join your mailing list?
- Do you want people to attend an event?
- Do you want people to buy your product or try it out for free?
- Do you want people to download your mobile app?
Determining your goals will help you create the most suitable ad for your audience. Here are the different goals or campaign objectives you can choose from:
As you can see in the screenshot above, the objectives are divided into 3 categories: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion.
I’ll give you a brief overview of each objective here:
1. Awareness
This objective is great if you want to reach out to cold audiences or people who haven’t interacted with your brand or website yet. You can choose between two options:
a. Brand Awareness – you can increase people’s awareness of your brand
b. Reach – you can reach the most number of people in your audience with this objective
2. Consideration
Use this objective if you want people to start thinking about your brand or your business and encourage them to know more about what you can do for them. You can choose from 6 options:
a. Traffic – choose this objective if you want people to visit your website or increase engagement with your mobile app.
b. App Installs – if you want people to download and install your mobile app, this is the objective you should go with.
c. Engagement – if you want to boost your Facebook posts, promote your Facebook Page, get people to claim an offer on your Page, and get more people to attend an event on your Page, then you need to choose this objective.
d. Video Views – to get more awareness about your brand, you can create a video ad that showcases behind the scenes stories or customer testimonials.
e. Lead Generation – if you want to get leads or email addresses from people interested in your business, then use this objective. The Lead Generation objective makes it very easy for prospects to sign up for your service.
f. Messages – get people to send your business messages on Facebook messenger and even Instagram. This objective will help your business to answer questions from prospects, generate more leads and drive more transactions.
3. Conversion
Conversion ads encourage interested people to buy your product or subscribe to your service. You can choose from 3 different options:
a. Conversions – if you want to send people to your website, Facebook app or mobile app, use this objective. To maximize, track and measure your conversions, you will need to install the Facebook pixel on your website.
b. Catalog Sales – to use this objective, you will need to create a catalog to show off your inventory. Once you have this setup, you can then create ads that will automatically show items from your catalog based on your target audience.
c. Store Visits – if you’re running an offline business, that is, you have a brick and mortar store, then you can use this objective to get more people to visit and shop in your store.
Step 2. Know Your Audience
Now that you have defined your goals, you need to know your audience. Who are you hoping to reach with your Facebook ads?
- Do you want to target women, men or both?
- Is your product or service going to be a fit for single or married people?
- Are 20-30-year-old sports fans going to be your target?
- Do you want to get the attention of people who like classical music in Berlin?
- Are you going to be selling your products in the US or do you intend to ship to Europe, Asia and the rest of the world?
There are literally more than 2 billion people you can target on Facebook right now. You just need to find a certain group of people who will benefit the most from your product.
It’s very important to know your audience before you run a campaign. Not knowing your audience can lead to astronomical advertising costs that produce little to no results. So before you start creating your ads, at least have an idea of who will be most interested in what you have to offer.
Creating a buyer persona is great for this purpose. Not only will you get to save a lot of money, but you’ll also get better results with the right target audience.
Step 3. Know Your Budget
No matter how big or small your marketing budget is, Facebook ads can help you. Even if you’ve only got $1 to $2 to spend on ads each day, you can still get your ads in front of a few hundred or a few thousand people. Of course, this will depend on your targeting, your ad placements, and your overall ad strategy.
In the beginning, expect to lose money while you optimize your ad sets. You can spend $5 on different adverts every day and see which one converts the best. You will do a lot of testing.
Trial and error is the name of the game. But when you find the winner, you’re going to be winning big. And your $5/day budget is going to be a thing of the past.
Getting started with Facebook Ads might seem difficult at first, but once you get the hang of social media’s number one advertising platform, you’re in for a ride. Click here for a guide on how to use custom and lookalike audiences to improve your targeting on Facebook.
