Facebook and advertising are almost synonymous these days. However, it’s hard to know upfront whether your business will benefit from Facebook ads. You might even be concerned that without the right approach, you may end up wasting money.
However, Facebook's incredible popularity and broad demographic base make it a platform worth focusing on for nearly any business. In particular, it's a potentially lucrative platform for advertising. If you take a few simple steps, you can harness the benefits of Facebook advertising and avoid most of the risks.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at how Facebook ads can benefit you and how best to use them. Let’s jump right in!
The Advantages of Investing in Facebook Advertising
You only have to look at how many people use Facebook to see the benefit of advertising on this platform. In 2018, there were more than 2 billion users, and it continues to grow despite the influx of new social media platforms.
What's more, on average each Facebook user clicks on ads 7 to 10 times per month, which translates as 14 to 20 billion clicks in total. Surprisingly, however, Facebook ads are extremely cheap. For only a few dollars, you can reach hundreds people per day. Even better, you can target your ads to very specific demographics.
Another key reason this tactic is so effective is the Facebook Pixel. This is a small bit of code that can be added to your website, and will track the activities of all its visitors. The pixel can help you understand your target audience. It will even show you users with similar habits and interests, so you can expand your advertising reach.
If you're still on the fence about whether you should use Facebook ads yourself, it's also worth considering that Facebook has placed strict limits on how often businesses will appear on timelines. So even if your user base follows your page, they may not see your organic posts often.
Paid advertisements ensure that your brand is being seen. That means that if you have a Facebook page, you may want to invest in advertising as well.
3 Tips for Using Facebook Ads Effectively
Once you’ve decided to place some ads through Facebook, you'll want to do some planning ahead. This will go a long way towards ensuring that you get the maximum return on your investment. Let’s look at three ways you can get the most out of your Facebook ad campaign.
1. Create a Clear Vision
Before you even think about posting your first ad, it's a smart idea to have a clear campaign strategy. After all, if you don’t plan out your approach, then you may end up wasting the money you invest by not appealing to your audience.
As with any campaign, you’ll need to know exactly what you want to accomplish. Are you looking to boost brand engagement, or increase sales of a particular product? This will influence which kinds of Facebook ads you end up choosing, how you target them, and how much you invest.
Having an objective is advantageous, but so is a consistent brand message. With that in mind, you'll want to ensure that whatever strategy you go with is 'on brand' as well. If you have a mission and/or value statement for your business, now is a good time to make sure your advertising plans are in line with those goals.
2. Target Your Audience Carefully
By far, one of the biggest benefits of using Facebook to advertise is the ability to
focus on a custom audience. With Facebook, you don’t have to hope your chosen demographic will find your ads – they’re the only ones who will see it. From there, you can even branch out into lookalike audiences to expand your ad campaign.
You can also find and choose your detailed audience. A detailed audience is a Facebook advertising feature that lets you further refine how you target users. This gives you access to information such as what people click on, their preferred activities, the mobile devices they use, and basic demographics like age and gender.
Then, once you know who you’re targeting, you can craft an effective Call to Action (CTA). This CTA is what will (hopefully) capture your audience's attention and increase engagement: for example: "Buy now!" and "Click here to learn more!"
Since Facebook ads are relatively small, a concise CTA will work best. For that reason, you'll need to be confident that your primary message is strong. Try to limit yourself to two sentences, and make them count. For instance, you might use something like: “Try our product for 30 days! If you don’t love it, we’ll pick it up for free!”
3. Choose the Best Type of Ad
Now that you have your goals and audience in mind, you can choose the type of ad that will be most effective for your business. Let’s take a look at four different types of ads Facebook offers:
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Carousel Ads. Carousel, or multi-product ads, enable you to showcase different products at the same time. This lets you track engagement for multiple products, and see which get the most interest.
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Domain Ads. These are the most popular types of advertisements, as they link directly to your website. You post an image with a link attached, and transport users directly to a key web page.
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Video Ads. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video is worth even more. Video ads can capture your audience's attention like nothing else, and increase brand awareness.
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Offer Ads: No one wants to miss out on a bargain, so offer ads are a great tool for increasing engagement. You can target current customers, and entice them back to your brand with the promise of a deal they just can’t pass up.
It’s up to you to decide which ads are best for your brand and audience. However, thanks to how inexpensive Facebook ads are, you have some room to experiment. It's often smart to start with a few different ad types, and narrow your focus to those that offer the best return.
Conclusion
Facebook ads can be incredibly useful tools when used well. They can increase conversions on your website, and drive traffic just where you want it to go.
Once you’ve determined whether or not they’ll benefit you, it’s time to put your Facebook advertising plan into action with the following steps:
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Create a clear vision for your Facebook ad campaign.
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Choose the specific audience you'll target.
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Know the types of Facebook ads on offer, and pick the best ones for your goals and audience.
Do you have any questions about Facebook ads, or have you used them yourself? If so, leave a comment for us below!
Image credit: geralt.
