Helping Small and Medium Businesses Achieve Their Full Marketing Potential | Digital Marketing Expert
The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising
Facebook and its trendier counterpart, Instagram, are the most widely used social media platforms. As a result, savvy digital marketers and independent businesses can use Facebook’s advertising platform to expand brand awareness and increase sales by connecting with its users.
Although Facebook advertising offers businesses the chance to promote their products or services to billions of users, using and navigating its features can initially be challenging.
In this guide, the pros at The Good Marketer will break down how to advertise on Facebook to assist you in using it to its fullest potential.
Why Should You Use Facebook Marketing?
Not sure why you should even use Facebook ads? That’s perfectly understandable. Below are several compelling reasons to convince you to use Facebook ads for your business:
Connect with a MASSIVE Audience
Facebook has over 2 billion active users and holds its number one place as the biggest social media platform. Since it’s used worldwide, marketers have the potential to reach and target practically any demographic.
Fine-tuned Targeting Options
Facebook’s targeting options are some of the industry’s best, and just by default, the platform will show your ad to users who are most likely to engage with it.
It also allows you to ‘trim the fat,’ so to speak, by fine-tuning ads into lean, highly-targeted campaigns that maximise efficiency and minimise wasted spend.
These targeting options include:
- Interests, geography, age, and many other definitions.
- Past engagement with your business
- Shared similarities with previous customers
Make Data-Driven Decisions
Facebook Analytics can give you a comprehensive insight into your ads performance. With these insights, you can assess the effectiveness of your campaigns, understand your audience’s behaviour, and make informed decisions.
Whether running ads for a large corporation or an SME, Facebook’s marketing tools can easily help you connect brand messaging with the right audience.
How to Create a Facebook Ad Account
Before creating and running ads for your campaign, you must first set up a Facebook Business Manager account. This will allow you to oversee your campaigns, pages and assets. It’s pretty straightforward, but here’s a step-by-step to get you started:
Step 1:
Visit Facebook’s Business Manager page and create an account by entering your business details.
Step 2:
Once you’ve set up Business Manager, click on the ‘Ad Accounts’ section to create an Ad Account.
Step 3:
Lastly, install Facebook Pixel’s code onto your website to track traffic and customer conversions, providing you with insightful data for optimising your ad campaigns.
Types of Facebook Ads?
Another key feature of Facebook advertising is the variety of formats available. Businesses that use Facebook for advertising have a versatile selection of formats at their fingertips, each offering a unique strength.
Here’s an overview of the most used formats:
Image Ads:
Image ads are the most common ads used. Simple but effective, they feature a single image and work best for concise, to-the-point messaging.
Video Ads:
Video ads allow you to seamlessly flow brand narratives and storytelling, enabling you to perform product demonstrations while creating engaging, attention-grabbing content.
Slideshow Ads:
These allow you to merge sounds and images to create video-like ads that are quick to load, especially for mobile users. Businesses that use slideshow ads can get the same effect as video without the production costs.
Carousel Ads:
Carousel ads show multiple images or videos in a single ad and are perfect for showcasing different products, benefits, features and other USPs you’d like to highlight.
Collection Ads:
This ad format is ideal for a marketer looking to run ads for an eCommerce business, as it allows users to ‘browse’ products without leaving Facebook, making it easier for potential customers to explore and buy directly from the platform.
Where to Place your Ads
While creating your ad, Facebook will allow you to specify exactly where you want it to appear. Here are Facebook’s ad placement options:
Facebook Feed:
Ads will appear in the News Feeds of both desktop and mobile phone users.
Instagram:
Since Instagram is a property of Facebook, you can easily extend ads across both platforms–Instagram advertising works in tangent with Facebook advertising.
Facebook Stories:
These are full-screen, vertical ads showing up when users view stories.
Audience Network:
This option allows you to extend your ads to third-party apps and websites.
Facebook Marketplace:
Marketplace ads aim to target users who are shopping for products, making this ad placement ideal for eCommerce business owners.
Budgets & Bidding
Setting daily and lifetime budgets with Facebook offers budgeting versatility for all kinds of businesses. With a daily budget, your ad will keep running throughout the day, whereas with a lifetime budget, you can spread your ad spend evenly over a defined period of time.
Besides setting the budget, you’ll also want to choose a bidding method. By default, Facebook’s automated bid system will automatically place your bids, but you can always go into the settings and adjust those to fit your campaign objectives. There are two main bidding options:
- Lowest Cost: Facebook will try to achieve the best result for the least amount spent.
- Target Cost: Facebook aims for consistent results whilst keeping costs stable.
Your overall budget and bidding strategy will be reflected by the goals of your campaign and how much you’re willing to spend for you to achieve said goals.
Final Thoughts
Facebook ads are a powerful tool to enhance brand awareness, encourage engagement, and convert prospective customers. Start small, measure the results, and iterate consistently to unlock the full potential of Facebook advertising.
If you’re in need of specialists, partner with a Facebook advertising agency like The Good Marketer and get the right strategy in place to position Facebook ads as a key driver for online growth.
