Facebook ads are really trending, but the million-dollar question is, are they effective? If you look at statistics, you’re likely to earn $4 on every $1 that you spend on Facebook ads, and I’d say that’s a pretty great number.
To be honest, the first time I ran Facebook ads for a campaign, it didn’t go so great. But that’s because I didn’t do my research.
To make sure your Facebook ads are effective, you need to run the right type of ad and target it towards the right audience. Follow this guideline and you’re good to go:
Types of Facebook ads
- Photo ads
Photo ads are simple. You can share a single photo with your desired target audience, so make sure you choose a highly engaging one. Here’s how it will look like:
- Video ads
Video ads can either be shared as a post or can be played between Facebook videos. Marketers take advantage of consumers’ addiction to social media and place ads where they will definitely see them.
- Carousel ads
If you want to share multiple pictures e.g. a new line of clothing or show different variations of the same product, you can use carousel ads to share up to 10 photos/videos:
Check out Wordstream’s guide on creating carousel ads that’ll get you high conversion rates.
- Slideshow ads
The great thing about these ads is that they are different so they’ll catch your consumers’ eye, but they take up less bandwidth as compared to videos so viewers with a slower internet connection will have no buffering issues.
Moreover, you can add text or music to your slideshow so that viewers pay more attention.
- Collection ads
Collection ads allow your customers to buy products directly through the ad. It’s great if you’re looking to provide convenience for your buyers:
- Instant experience ads
Previously known as Canvas, Instant experience ads provide a full-screen experience for your customers (and plus point, load 15 times faster than a website!)
You can even pair collection ads with instant experience ads to provide utmost convenience to users, so your customers never have to leave Facebook in order to purchase a product! Take a look at Target’s ad:
- Dynamic ads
Dynamic ads are one way to carry out remarketing.
They allow you to target customers who may have abandoned shopping carts by showing them ads reminding them to complete their purchase.
While Google remarketing ads have a startling 161% conversation rate, Facebook remarketing ads are not far behind with 70% conversions, so you can definitely invest in these for great ROI.
- Messenger ads
With 1.3 billion Messenger users, you can send users any type of ad on Facebook’s Messenger app. To send an ad there, just choose Messenger as your desired placement instead of newsfeed:
- Lead ads
These are designed specifically for mobile devices only. The idea is to provide abundant information that is visually appealing instead of boring your customers with lots of text.
The ad on the left-hand side is much more interesting as compared to the middle one, even though they provide the same information.
- Premium Ads
As the name suggests, premium ads are given preference over others. They appear above other ads in newsfeed, on the right sidebar or at the logout page.
Premium ads need to be purchased via CPM i.e. Cost per 1000 impressions. This means that advertisers have to pay Facebook once their ad is displayed a 1000 times. These ads can be made via an insertion order or through Facebook’s power editor.
If you have an established business with the resources to pay extra for premium ads, only then you should go for it. These ads are not generally suitable for small or medium-sized businesses.
Choosing your objective
- Page likes
There’s only one situation where you need to gain page likes, and that is when you want to create brand awareness.
This is usually the case if your business is new or you have a newly introduced online presence. To get page likes, you can go with lead ads because the idea is to inform customers about your business.
- Website clicks
By displaying Facebook ads, you can drive a lot of traffic towards your website. However, what matters is your conversion rate.
If you manage to drive traffic to your website but your visitors do not stay on-site long enough to purchase a product, then your effort will be worthless.
To ensure that your Facebook ads are worth it, make sure you have a stunning landing page. Your landing page is what your visitors will see when they open your website, so invest in it to boost conversions.
- Post engagements
Facebook ads are a great way to improve engagement on posts. If you’ve got an amazing promotion going on, what better way to attract more customers than to boost your post?
- App Installation & Engagement
Apps offer much more convenience, speed and ease of use as opposed to websites. Still, I’m a first-hand witness to the struggle of getting customers to download your app.
Fortunately, Facebook ads can help you promote your app. You can provide incentives to your customers through photo ads e.g. ‘Get 10% off or a $10 coupon on your first purchase through the app’.
Similarly, you can use video ads to highlight the benefits for consumers that use your app. Instead of spending millions on outdoor campaigns, you can reach the masses in just a few thousand dollars.
- Event responses
The days of hand-written communication are over as digital media has taken over. The same is the case with event responses.
Customers no longer receive event invites in their mailboxes (if they still have one!) Digital marketing makes event invites a hassle-free process where attendees can RSVP with one tap.
However, to do that, they need to be aware of your event. Whether its a product launch, a fun festival or any type of event, Facebook ads will help get the word around.
- Video views
If you boost a video post on Facebook, the app is optimised to target the ad towards users who watch videos frequently; thus, improving the chances of getting the message across.
- Offer claims
As a consumer, you’ve probably often seen this in your Facebook newsfeed:
The idea of offer claims is to get consumers to follow the brand regularly. By staying updated with new posts on the page, they’ll get a chance to avail offers in-store and online which can boost sales on both platforms.
Setting up your ad campaign
Once you’ve determined what direction you’re going in, the last step is to set up your ad campaign. Like I said at the start of the article, without proper research and planning, you’d be risking your investment’s ROI.
To ensure the maximum possible output, follow these steps:
- Set up an account
When setting up your account, Facebook will ask you to set up a number of things:
- An A/B split test
- Budget optimisation (if you’re using multiple ads)
- A name for your campaign
Setting up the actual account is a hassle-free process. All it requires is your basic details e.g. country, preferred currency (for making payments), time zone etc.
However, be sure to select the right options the first time around, otherwise, you’ll have to create a new account for any changes.
- Selecting your target audience
This step is perhaps the most crucial one in determining the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. With the right target audience, you can achieve great ROI.
Facebook’s software will automatically detect the audience that frequently interacts with your facebook business page, instagram and your business off-Facebook.
Apart from that, you can select a custom audience based on characteristics such as age, location, gender, language etc. If you already have an existing customer profile, your job will become much easier.
Your selected options will also determine your ad reach, which will be displayed as your audience size indicator on the right side of your device’s screen:
To further maximise your ROI, there are two things you can do:
- Connections
To spend your money better, you can choose the option ‘Exclude people who like my page’ when targetting your ads towards your selected audience. This is because your ads will already appear on your followers’ newsfeed (unless you’re using Premium ads to ensure that your ads are viewed by everyone).
This way, you’ll be able to spend the same budget on attracting new followers.
- Detailed targetting
This feature is provided by Facebook so you can get into the nitty-gritty details of your ad. Detailed targetting will allow you to get into the specifics e.g. you can target users who love food and travelling but exclude specific cuisines that aren’t relevant to your business.
So how’s this useful? If you have a fast-food chain, will you be targetting people with a love of Italian food? No. Use these ads to target just the right kind of people; thus, saving you money and time while reaping high returns.
- Choosing ad placement
As this article discusses, there’s a number of places where you can place ads and that too in different forms. There are three things that you will have to determine:
- Device type: You can create an ad for mobile devices, desktops or both
- Platform: You have to decide whether to place your ad on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or Audience network, along with sub-categories such as right column, newsfeed or stories.
- Operating systems: You’ll have to choose whether your ad is visible and optimised for software such as iOS and Android
- Setting a budget and schedule
Facebook ads are much cheaper than most forms of marketing, so that’s a plus point for marketers.
The good thing is that you can choose how much money to spend on Facebook ads, from hundreds to thousands of dollars (depending upon the type of ad that you select and how many people you want to reach).
As for scheduling, it is important because it will give you two options: whether to run your ad continuously or set an end date.
You can choose either of the two based on your convenience, but you’ll be billed regularly for continuous ads so make sure you’re careful about that.
With advanced budget options, Facebook allows you to choose every little detail of where you’ll spend your money:
Judging from experience, I’d say that scheduled ads are perhaps the most effective because they can be displayed when your audience is most likely online.
Once you are done with these steps, all you have to do is choose the type of ad and create it!
Conclusion
Advertising with Facebook has helped a lot of businesses grow, so it can help yours too.
The key is to conduct frequent research on the type of users that still use Facebook and do your research before creating an advertisement because it is all the little details that will bring you a high Return on Investment. Looking for more lead tips? Learn more about how you can improve your sales funnel.