Over the years, Facebook ads have been used by countless businesses and when done properly, they can be one of the most effective marketing methods available. Because of this, you may be interested in using this social media platform to promote and advertise your own business.
If you want to use Facebook for web marketing, one of the best things you can do is learn why so many other companies, from small business to franchises that are famous world-wide, are taking advantage of Facebook ads – and our team here at Evolve Digital are here to help.
Predominantly it’s to reach out to potential customers, but it’s almost certainly the fact that a vast majority of people use this platform that makes it such a popular option for advertising. While you could just post adverts for your company and hope for the best (you may even see some success), the way to really get your posts noticed is to invest in professional services.
How to Set Up a Facebook Advert
If you want to spread the word of your products or services across Facebook (and essentially, the globe), you’ll be glad to hear that it isn’t usually too much of a complex task – but there are a few steps that you should follow in order to make the most from your specific advertisement.
1. Set Yourself a Goal
Of course, you won’t want a Facebook ad for your business for no reason – so what do you hope to achieve from setting up a campaign of this kind? Here at Evolve Digital, we believe that deciding this is the best place to start, as it can help you to measure your success when you have your adverts posted and ready for the world to see.
If you want to get more traffic to your website through the ad, you might want to set a goal of how many more visits you hope to obtain. From wanting to generate new leads to announcing an event, there are plenty of ways that you could use Facebook to get your company noticed, which is why it can be so important to decide exactly what it is that you want to accomplish.
2. Use Facebook Ads Manager
Any campaign on Facebook runs through the Facebook Ads Manager tool, which is why this is often the best place to start. It’s not hard to access the page to get on top of your ads; you could press “Manage Ads” on the drop-down menu of your business’ account and click on any of the CTAs on your page, or by simply using the direct link facebook.com/business/to get there.
Most find that the Ads Manager is easy to navigate too – but to make your first ad with Facebook, you’ll need to press the green button in the top-right corner of the page.
3. Choosing an Objective
When you create a Facebook ad, you’ll have to pick an objective for your campaign. There are 3 different categories, each with 5 options each; making a total of 15 marketing objectives for you to choose from.
Awareness
The objectives found in this category are centred around getting people to notice your product or service – and for those with a smaller budget, these tend to be best options. The Awareness objectives are:
- Increase your reach
- Reach people near your business
- Promote your page
- Increase brand awareness
- Boost your posts
Consideration
If you’d rather get your target audience thinking about your business, picking a Consideration objective may best way to advertise your company. Your options are:
- Collect leads for your business
- Get video views
- Raise attendance at your event
- Get installs of your app
- Send people to a destination on or off Facebook
Conversion
Many find that the Conversion objectives can be the most effective, as these types of Facebook ads are based around encouraging people who are interested in your company to buy your products or hire your services. The objectives in this category include:
- Get people to visit your shops
- Increase engagement in your app
- Promote a product or catalogue
- Get people to claim your offer
- Increase conversions on your website
When you’ve decided which objective suits your needs best, you’ll need to name your advert.
4. Defining Your Budget and Audience
The next major step in the Facebook ad creating process is setting your budget and customising your target audience – and this is important for any kind of Facebook campaign.
Setting a Budget
Most find that having a set budget to work with can make a big difference, as it can help a person to ensure that they don’t overspend on their chosen campaign.
Typically, it’s best to make the limit the maximum amount that you want to pay for results, rather than how much you can afford. This way, you can often avoid spending too much money on something that may not bring in the desired response and you may be able to invest any additional funds into other marketing aspects.
There are two kinds of budgets to consider with this type of advertising campaign; daily and lifetime. A daily limit is the average amount you plan to spend each day, whilst a lifetime budget is the maximum amount you want to spend on the ad for its duration.
Audience Targeting
Targeting your ad to a specific audience can be a great way to ensure that your business is noticed by the right people, and you can customise your advert on demographics like:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Languages
- Interests
- Behaviours
- Connections
With options like location, you’ll have the ability to target your ad to individuals in a certain area – and this ranges all the way from a country, to postcodes and specific addresses. However, with Connections, you can use a more advanced targeting method, which gives you a bit more control over who does and doesn’t see your advert.
For example, people connected to certain pages, apps and events can be included (or excluded) to see your advert. This allows you to be a little more precise with your target audience, which can often help you to reach out to the people most likely to respond.
In addition, you could also retarget individuals who’ve already interacted with your business; using the custom audiences setting to bring back potential customers or clients.
5. Ad Placement
You also get to decide where your advert is shown, as well as in what locations. You have the opportunity to make it pop up in a person’s news feed or even on Instagram. You can select custom placements, but Facebook recommend using one of their default placements as this gives them the chance to optimise your placement for the best results – and at the lowest prices, too.
6. Creating your Facebook Ad
When you’ve done all of this, you’ll be able to start creating your advert. This is the stage where you select the images or videos, text (up to 90 characters) and where your ad will be displayed. However, there are two different ways to create an ad on this platform.
Using an Existing Post
Some adverts can be made by using a post that’s already on your Facebook Page. For example, boosting posts can be considered as advertising – and if you want to make an ad both quickly and easily, this is probably the best option.
Creating a Brand-New Advert
While creating an advert from scratch may not be as simple as using an existing post, many people find that it’s worth the additional time and effort. With a blank canvas to work with, you’ll be able to choose from one of the 5 types of adverts that Facebook has to offer, which are:
- Canvas (combine images and videos for a more involved advert)
- Carousel (an ad with 2+ scrollable images or videos)
- Single image (make up to 6 advert variations using one photo)
- Single video (an ad with one video)
- Slideshow (a looping video ad with a maximum of 10 pictures)
Keep in mind that, for certain objectives, not all of the formats above are available.
Generally, you can increase your advert delivery by using an image with a small amount of text – or even no writing at all.
7. How to Place Your Order
Finally, you’ll need to submit your advert. To place your order and get your ad on Facebook for the world (or your targeted audience) to see, just click the “confirm” button. Before it becomes live, Facebook will review it – and after that, you’ll be good to go.
8. Keep Track of Your Progress
Your Facebook ad has been submitted and is live – but if you want to make the most of your campaign, it may be a good idea to analyse your results to see how well it’s doing.
While the way to do this can vary depending on the type of campaign you’re running, Facebook generally have benchmarks in place so that you can see where you are and roughly where you should be.
To make the most of a Facebook ad campaign, most find that getting the help of web marketing experts is the ideal way to bring these types of adverts to their full potential. Our team here at Evolve Digital could help you to create an effective strategy from your Facebook ad campaign – which could give you the chance to make