If you want your small business to grow, then you need to target the platforms that your customers love to use. With 1.73 billion daily active users on Facebook, the chances are that a large percentage of your target audience can be found there.
Facebook Ads appear to be simple enough – create an advert using an image or two and then pay to promote it. This is far from the case, however. Effective Facebook Ads campaigns are strategically delivered and utilize the targeting and re-targeting abilities of the platform to generate the best return on investment.
Unlike Google Ads, with Facebook Ads, you need to effectively grab people’s attention as they scroll through their newsfeed and change their mindset from one of apathy to one of intrigue and a desire to learn more.
Getting Started
To get started with Facebook Ads, first, you should create a business page for your organization. This is a straightforward process but does require a high-quality profile image or logo and background or cover image. If you don’t have any high-quality images to use, consider using a template from a website or app such as Canva.
Next, you will want to set up a Business Manager account.
Go to https://business.facebook.com/ and click “create account.” Here you get to enter your business name, name, email address, website URL, or Facebook business page URL. For an excellent overview of using the Business Manager, see this YouTube video by Jordan Platter.
To create your first Facebook ad, click on the top left of the Business Manager interface – where you should see a number of parallel dots – then click “Ads Manager.” In Ads Manager, you should see a tab for “Campaigns,” one for “Ad Sets,” and another for “Ads.”
Campaigns can contain one or multiple Ad Sets, and Ad Sets can contain one or more Ads. Campaigns are organized in this way so that you can test different targeting in each ad set.
For example, if you run a phone answering service in the United States, you may wish to target a specific audience of small business owners, and then split these audiences into 3 different ad sets according to time zones. Within each ad set, you could test a video, single image and carousel ad to see which performs the best.
Set up Tracking
By tracking your Facebook Ads you will be able to monitor their performance and in turn, optimize your best performing ads and turn off any ads or campaigns that are performing poorly.
You should look to configure Facebook and Google Analytics to track “conversions”. Conversions are the goals you set for your ads, for example, you might want people who click on your ads to go on to make a purchase on your website or submit a form.
To do this, click on “Ads Manager” in your Facebook Ads account, then “All Tools” and then “Custom Conversions”.
If all this sounds too technical, you should consider hiring a Facebook Ads freelancer. Typically, setting up conversion tracking will cost under $200 and it will enable you to track, report and optimize your campaigns to a level that would be impossible otherwise.
Test Different Ad Formats
As mentioned above, you should test different ad formats to see which ones perform the best. For example, within one ad set, you could include a carousel ad, a single image ad and a video ad. When you have a significant number of clicks and data, you can evaluate which format performs the best.
You can consider re-testing. For example, if single image ads performed the worst, and video ads perform the best. You could pause the single image ad, and create a copy of the video ad, but test a different Call to Action button.
CTA Buttons & Headlines
The ad’s headline should grab a Facebook user’s attention quickly. Remember that users are scrolling through their newsfeed and you want them to pause and look at your ad. The headline should tell people exactly what your ad is for and what the offer is. The ad description or copy should address your target market.
Finally, add a CTA or “Call to Action” button that is relevant. If you want people to “sign up”, then use the relevant CTA button. If you sell high-end items such as vacations or real estate, driving telephone calls with a “Call Now” CTA can be effective. If you are not always available to take phone calls, consider using an answering service such as Moneypenny.
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