Facebook Ads - Basics for Beginners

The power of Facebook ads

These days, ads on Facebook are taking a bigger and bigger place on the platform. This is a direct result of the change in the new Facebook algorithm that causes organic reach to drop to almost nothing compared to the achievable reach of paid reach (Facebook Ads).

If you have a business page on Facebook, you have probably already noticed the drop in your organic reach. It means that the content you create is getting lower reach compared to the past few years, even if it is good, relevant content. However, using Facebook Ads is highly effective for reaching an unlimited amount of your target audience and it can help you to grow your business. get new leads, and drive more sales. Therefore, getting to know the Facebook Ads basics is critical in order to stay in the "Facebook game"!

In this article, I am going to share with you the Facebook Ads - Basics for Beginners

Like on LinkedIn, there are different types of Facebook ads that you can use for different marketing goals.

What ad types exist on Facebook?

1. Single Image ads: Single image advertisements that have optional text on top, a link description that links to your website, and a CTA (Call-to-action). The single image ads need to be 1200x628 pixels. They are probably the most popular kind of ads. Because the image size is pretty big, then it isn't like a thumbnail. It's a kind of image that pops up in your newsfeed and you are probably going to notice it. If you target users with this kind of ad and use an image that stands out, then these users are likely to interact with it in some way. The chances they won’t notice the ad are pretty low because it stands out.
2. Multi-product Ads (Carousel Ads): Multi-product ads are usually represented in a carousel form, allowing your users to view the range of products that you offer. As a Facebook user, it allows you to rotate different ads with different messaging and different CTA. If you have various products that you think may fit a potential buyer, then the carousel ads would be a good option for you.
3. Video Ads: Video advertisements that usually range from a few seconds, all the way up to 240 minutes. Video Ads are one of the most engaging forms of advertisements on Facebook and in general. They receive about 10-30% more views than other forms of ads. They are a great way to show your product or service and deliver a very specific message to your potential customer. Therefore, video ads may be a great option for you to put your brand or product out there as an advertiser. You can tell a nice, complete story and create any kind of CTA for your customers. It is way more powerful than single-image ads.
4. Lead Ads: Lead ads allow you to obtain user details like their names, email IDs, or phone numbers without leaving Facebook. This newly created lead ad can also be synchronized with your desired customer relationship management system (CRM).
5. Slideshow Ads: These advertisements allow you to create interactive advertisements with interesting imagery, image carousels, zooming details, and tilting views to complete immersive user experiences using a combination of single, multi-image, and video ads. As an advertiser, it gives you the option to showcase your best images with a strong CTA.
6. Collection Ads: These ads combine video, slideshow, or product images taken from your product catalog. This is best suited for users who want to advertise several of their products, all at once.

Setting up a campaign

Image credits: dreamstime.com

You’ll have to select what kind of spending you want to do for your advertisement and what goal you want to achieve with your advertisement.

On Facebook, there are two options:

1. Auction: This option will put your ad in an auction, it gives you the option to choose how you are going to spend your money in order to achieve your goals by choosing the right bid strategy. This method provides more choice, flexibility, and scalability. However, it's less predictable. The auction method is available to all advertisers and its pricing is subject to change during the auction itself.
2. Reach and Frequency: You’ll be able to advertise to your brand’s audience at a fixed cost. The delivery, cost, and reach of branding campaigns are actually predictable. This method enables you to plan and set up advertisement campaigns that provide predictable ad delivery.

Now, you can set up the Marketing Objective for your advertisement. There are three types of advertisements that can be selected, with different objectives:

1) Awareness: Advertisements that have their goals set to Awareness can help with creating interest in your product or service among people. Under Awareness, there are two sub-categories: Brand Awareness and Reach

Brand Awareness - These ads aim to increase product awareness. These don’t emphasize interactions like purchase, opt-in, or click-through. The goal of brand awareness ads is to create high brand recognition amongst their users instead of focusing on conversions and revenues. The goal of brand awareness is to get your brand/product/service out there so people will know that it exists.

Reach - Ensures that within your target audience and budget, the maximum amount of users are going to be exposed to your ad. It helps to focus on a smaller audience and make those users click on your website, CTA, or even convert on your website. With this option, you should try to maximize the reach of your target audience within your budget.

2) Consideration: Advertisements that aim to get people to consider purchasing your product/service and have them start looking for information about it. It's kinda the next step of the awareness objective. Under Consideration, there are 6 sub-categories: Traffic, Engagement, App installs, Video views, Lead generation, Messages

Traffic - Advertisements that are useful when the objective is to drive traffic outside of Facebook. A good example is listening to a podcast, reading a post, getting to know a new application, and more. Facebook shows these ads to people within your target audience based on their past behavior.

Engagement - If you want more users to engage with your ad, then this option is a good fit. Engagements help generate more page likes, event responses, or offer claims. It can help with building an engaged audience for your Facebook page that can be used for future advertising campaigns (Retargeting).

App installs - These ads are useful when you want to send users to an app store so that they can download your application.

Video views - These ads are useful when you’re promoting your video for a higher number of views. These ads help users to engage with each other and enable the creation of an audience that can be used for future advertisement campaigns. The video ad type is the best among all the other ads so pushing its reach with video views may be a great thing to do because video has high engagement considered to other ad types.

Lead generation - Ads that can help generate leads without leading users outside Facebook. This allows you to collect user details like name, email address, phone number, etc. You will need to connect a 3rd party software that can integrate the created leads to your CRM or email marketing software.

Messages - These ads aim to convert users’ interest in a product to a successful sale of conversion. It targets people who are more likely to respond through messenger. It takes the user into their Facebook Messenger. Here they can communicate with a chatbot or a representative who can act as customer support or provide product information.

3) Conversion: This is the final step. The conversion advertisements provide encouragement for the process of decision-making of users to buy/use your product/service. You use this objective when you want the end result at the very end of your sales funnel. Under Conversion, there are 3 sub-categories: Conversions, Product catalog sales, Store visits,

Conversions - Ads that aim to get you more website registrations, service registrations, sales, or any sort of action on your website that you want. This is really the part of the sales funnel where you want users to take action.

Product Catalog Sales - These ads help to promote your e-commerce store and its product portfolio. This involves integrating your product catalog with Facebook so that it can be used for future campaigns.

Store visits - It can help in generating direct foot traffic to your location, helping deliver ads based on the user’s current location.

Image credits: pixabay.com

• There's an option to choose "split test" Within each of the advertisement objectives. These split tests are two versions of the same advertisement with just one of their parameters altered (A/B testing). For example, an ad that says that there is a 25% off sale, and another ad says that there is $2000 off (Which is the exact same ad in my example).?
• These tests may involve testing broader elements in the beginning, and then moving on to testing smaller fine tunes of the winner.
• Some of the parameters that can be varied are colors of elements like CTA, images, text, element position, audience targeting, and more.
• It’s also important to keep in mind what defines a winning test or otherwise. Some of the metrics you could focus on are CTR, Clicks, CPC, Conversion Rate, and so on.

The next part of the setup:

After choosing a Marketing Objective, You’ll have the option to check “Budget Optimization”. This feature determines if you split your budget evenly between all the variations, and if you don’t check this feature, then Facebook will spend more of your money on the best-performing ads of yours.

For example, you chose the "Conversion" objective for the campaign. Now, you can use the Conversion Pixel and choose your desired conversion event on your website which can be a purchase. You need to add Facebook Pixel to your website if you want to track this data.

The next step is to choose if you have an offer or not. If you do then you have to connect your Facebook page and then create an offer for example “20% off your next purchase”. It includes the offer title, details, start/end date, where people can redeem the code (Online or offline), you also have the opportunity to add a unique code that users can use. There's also an advanced option causing that people will not be able to share that offer (There won’t be a share button). You basically need to choose that option if you don’t want a lot of people to be exposed to that offer. Users still can copy the link of the offer, but sharing it will not be easy as sharing Facebook posts.?

• If you want to get conversions, then putting an offer is recommended as it creates FOMO (Fear of missing out).

The next step is to choose a variable, which means that you choose what exactly you want to test. This can be Creative, Delivery Optimization, Audience, Placement.

After that, you need to select your audience.?

• Because you connect your Facebook page to the Ad Manager, it gives Facebook the information of how your community looks like and what kind of people you need to target.

Now, you choose the placements of the ad. Facebook suggests you use Automatic Placements because it knows the best where it should put the ad to gain maximum engagement from your targeted audience. If you are specific about where you want your ad to be placed then you need to select “Edit Placements”. And then you can select exactly where your ad will be positioned.

The next section is Delivery Optimization. This gives Facebook the option to look at a specific aspect of an ad like conversions and determine which ad performs better under this aspect. It means that Facebook will optimize the ad delivery based on how many conversions each ad gets. You can also enter "Cost Control" which is the average cost per purchase that you wish to get. For example, if you sell T-shirts, then you may not want the average cost per purchase to be $20 because then you will lose money.?

Another option is "Conversion Window", which gives Facebook the option to optimize your ads based on the number of conversions that happen in the time frame you choose.

The next options are Split Test Budget & Schedule. This basically means that you can choose different budgets and times for the A/B tests. For example, you can run the A/B tests all the time, or on a specific date and for a specific budget.

The final step is to actually set up your ad. You give the ad its name, tie it to your Facebook page/Instagram account. And then you choose the Ad format (Carousel, Single Image, Video ad, etc.).

What you should do / shouldn’t do with your ads:

Image credits: Pixabay.com

Do:

1. Continuous A/B testing on your ads - Always optimize your ads to get better results
2. Use engaging images and videos
3. Use a message that your audience is going to remember
4. Keep your message consistent and simple
5. Alter your reach so that the ads are shown to the appropriate audience

Don’t:

1. Use your whole budget on a single ad campaign
2. Put too much information in the ads
3. Forget to proof-read your ads
4. Have an image that doesn’t correspond to the product being advertised

Important tips to remember:

1. Not all advertisements need to sell something
2. Use Facebook Messenger for advertising - You can communicate directly with your customers and handle their objections
3. Use video advertisements - 10-30% more views!
4. When setting up an ad, you can choose where you want the ad to be displayed. The recommended option is the automatic placement by Facebook, but if you want to select specific places for your ad to be displayed in, then the most recommended place is the News Feed. Most users spend most of their time there, so it has the highest chance of grabbing their attention
5. Facebook Ads offers you the option to advertise on Instagram as well
6. Do continuous A/B testing in order to find out what works and doesn’t in your ads
7. Choose an appropriate CTA to be included in your advertisements that will attract potential customers
8. Choose the right audience for your advertisement. Creating a lookalike audience is recommended for broadening your reach to relevant users
9. Use this method for your ad: Divide your ad into 9 equally sized boxes by drawing two lines horizontally and two vertically like a tic-tac-toe box. You need to place the main subject of your ad in the cross-sections of the drawn lines. It encourages the user to place their focus on these points
10. ?Place the product in the right hand in your creative. Researches have found that it sells better. Depending on where the product is placed in the ad, people will react differently to it
11. ?Don’t use images that have more than 20% text
12. ?Use an ad creative that’s attention-grabbing and is relevant for your business
13. ?To create attention-grabbing ads, it is better to feature people that benefit from your product, instead of just an ad that shows your product itself
14. ?Plan your campaigns for the holiday season (eg: Christmas, New Year, Cyber-Monday, etc.). During those seasons, it's very easy to engage with your audience, promote brand awareness. You can take advantage and increase your revenue and sales because people are in the mood for buying things
15. ?Wait for a shorter time before retargeting your audience. Focus on retargeting people who have visited your website within the span of a month or two weeks
16. ?Keep optimizing the hook of your ad copy. create multiple ads with different hooks and see which performs best. This is an effective way to improve your ads
17. ?Respond to lead ad responses and other kinds of engagements as soon as possible
18. ?Keep track of your ad relevance score, 1-6 means that the ad isn’t reaching the relevant audience and your audience isn’t reaching it. 7-10 means these ads are reaching the appropriate audience and getting a lot of interaction
19. ?Try including emojis in your ad copy. It can help your ad to get noticed and to stand out in the news feed
20. ?Use Exclusion Marketing to improve your ROI by not including people who have already taken the action desired by you

To conclude, Facebook Ads are one of the most common ways of paid advertising. Using it the right way while optimizing your ads can get you many new leads and sales, so knowing its basics will help you to save a lot of time and money.

- Article by Barak Zamler