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2.93 billion! That’s the number of Facebook’s monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2022, according to Statista. Mind-blowing, right? But what does that mean for your business? How can you use this statistic to grow your brand and increase sales? In this guide, we’ll show you how to get started using Facebook ads effectively. We’ll walk through the must-have Facebook ad tools and some key marketing strategies on the social platform. But first, why is Facebook even ideal for ads?
Why Use Facebook Advertising?
Facebook has a massive user base. With close to 3 billion people logging in every month, Facebook is, undoubtedly, one of the most popular websites in the world. And while many businesses have an account set up already, they may not be using it to its full potential.
Facebook advertising allows you to target specific audiences based on their interests, age, location, gender, relationship status, education level, and more. In addition, you can create custom audiences based on your CRM data or dynamically from previous user interactions with your website or other content.
You can also track conversions from your ads. For example, if someone clicks on your ad but doesn’t complete the purchase, you can still see what actions users performed and track through the steps of your purchase funnel. With these insights, you can make changes to improve your conversion flow for future campaigns.
You can even run multiple campaigns at once. For example, if you’re running a campaign for a new product launch, you can also run another campaign promoting a discount code or remarketing to users from the first campaign. Your multiple campaigns can work together to drive traffic to all your pages.
Facebook also offers dynamic retargeting opportunities. For example, when someone visits your site, you can send them a message reminding them about your offer. Or, when they click on a link in your email, you can send them an ad encouraging them to visit your site.
Must-Have Facebook Ad Tools for an Effective Campaign
As we mentioned, many businesses already have an account but aren’t using it optimally. Here are some suggestions on the most vital Facebook tools you need to set up an effective paid campaign:
1. Account Management Tools
When setting up a Facebook ad campaign, you’ll want to ensure you have a personal account and a business profile. But how do you consolidate these accounts for a seamless experience? That’s where Facebook management suites (Facebook Business Manager and Meta Business Suite) come in handy:
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- Page Manager. The tools within your individual page’s settings (addressed here in more detail) let you manage all aspects of your business page, including posting updates, managing engagements, scheduling events, and creating ads. It’s excellent for businesses that run consumer focused businesses and want to get up close and personal with their customers in direct communication. You can post about your latest product and see what your customers have to say about it. You can also enable direct messaging to help offer customer support to any prospective users.
- Meta Business Suite (aka Facebook Business Manager). The Meta Business Suite is a must-have tool for managing all your connected accounts across Facebook and Instagram. It has many features and capabilities, including user management for your pages and ad accounts, creating pixels, managing billing across your ads, viewing insights, accessing Commerce Manager, etc. Think of this as your business hub for managing and allocating access to all your pages and ad campaigns on Facebook.
- Facebook API. For the more advanced and tech-savvy users, Facebook offers an HTTP-based, Marketing API that can query data, create and manage ads, and perform a variety of tasks. It allows you to programmatically access Facebook’s advertising platform to optimize business operations.
2. Conversion Tracking Tool
If your primary marketing objective is to drive traffic to your website or domain, conversion tracking is essential. You want to track user behavior on your site to feed Facebook with high-quality data that it can use to drive better-qualified leads to you. This is most commonly done through pixels:
- Facebook Pixel. Also known as Meta Pixel, this tool allows you to add a pixel to your website. When users interact with your site, the pixel sends information back to Facebook. These include what device they used, what actions the users took on your website, and more. Given that Facebook knows the profile of these users (from their nearly 3 Billion users), they can use this data to find other prospective customers who match the behavior of your existing ones. Check out tutorials on how to create and place pixels on this page!
3. Analytics & Insights Tool
Analytics tools help you understand how people are interacting with your content. As a result, they provide insight into what works best for your audience, which enables you to optimize future content. Here’s one you should consider:
- Facebook Audience Insights. With this tool, you can see your fans’ demographics, interests, and behaviors. You can then target those audiences based on location, age, gender, relationship status, education level, occupation, and other factors.
How to Run a Successful Facebook Ads Campaign
Now that you know some of the basics behind running a successful Facebook ad campaign, let’s dive into the nuts and bolts of how to get started.
Step 1. Choose an Objective
Before you build your first ad, ensure you have a clear idea of what you’re trying to accomplish. Thankfully, Facebook makes it easier for you by providing 11 objectives that it further breaks down into three key categories: awareness, consideration, and conversion.
Put simply, what are you trying to achieve from your ad campaign? Awareness means getting people to notice your brand, consideration means making them think about buying from you, and conversion means driving them to take action. You want to choose your objective keenly because it will determine the extent and thoroughness of your tracking, targeting, and even bidding.
Step 2. Target and Optimize Ad Sets
Once you have your objective in mind, you’ll need to decide where to focus your efforts. The good news is that Facebook gives you plenty of options for targeting your audience.
For example, suppose you want to generate awareness around a new product launch. In that case, you could tweak the targeting box to focus on a specific demographic, e.g., people living in a particular city. But if you don’t want to do the hard work, Facebook provides premade categories of saved audiences that you can check if they match your business ad goals.
Step 3: Choose Your Budget and Schedule
You must also set your budget and schedule before creating ads. While there are no limits on how much you can spend on an ad campaign, Facebook lets you set a daily or lifetime budget.
- Daily budget. You can set a daily budget if your goal is to run ads continuously. This option is ideal for businesses that plan to be active on Facebook, and it lets you decide how much you want to spend on a specific ad per day on average.
- Lifetime budget. If you only want to run an ad within a specific length of time, you can select the lifetime budget option. To enhance affordability, Facebook will spread the cost of the ad across the particular period you intend to run it.
After choosing your preferred budget option, it’s time to select your ideal schedule. For example, do you want the ads to start running immediately after placement or in the future?
Step 4: Optimize the Ad for Bidding
When you create an ad, Facebook automatically generates bids for each ad format (image, video, carousel, etc.). However, you may find that these bids aren’t as effective as you’d like. That’s why you should optimize your ads for bidding.
For instance, if you’re looking to drive customers, you should get Facebook to optimize toward purchases. Likewise, if you’re running a video ad, you want to optimize for views. And if you’re running an image ad, you want to ensure that it’s optimized for clicks.
Step 5: Insert Creatives for Each Objective
To maximize success, you’ll need to insert creatives aligned with your objective. There are two types of creative: static and dynamic. Static creatives include text, images, videos, and links. On the flip side, dynamic creatives entail polls, questions, and live streaming.
Static creatives are great for generating awareness but won’t help you convert leads. On the other hand, dynamic creatives are perfect for converting leads. But where should you enter the creative? You can add them anywhere on the page, including the cover photo, headline, description, and body copy. Also, it’s best to experiment with different types of creatives to see which resonates perfectly with your audience.
Step 6: Analyze and Leverage Reporting Data
Once you’ve created your first ad, you’ll receive detailed reporting data. These reports show you what worked and what didn’t. They also provide insights into how well your ad performed compared to others who ran similar campaigns. In addition, you can use this information to fine-tune your next ad.
But you want to pay closer attention to reports on how much you spent across different targeting groups and metrics. You also want to check what metrics your ads drove, i.e., impressions, views, clicks, purchases, etc. By analyzing this data, you can identify which audiences perform better than others, which audiences generate more conversions, and which metrics correlate most closely to sales performance. You can also leverage the data to determine whether specific audiences are worth targeting again in the future.
Take Advantage of Facebook Ads' Vast Marketing Opportunity!
So there you have it – everything you need to know about creating successful Facebook ads. With the platform’s vast and diverse audience, you can reach millions of potential customers. Plus, using Facebook ads effectively can increase brand awareness, boost traffic, and turn fans into loyal followers. But to reap these benefits, you must be strategic and disciplined. So start optimizing today!