How Facebook Advertising Can Change Your Business

This week we'll take a look at how Facebook ads are a great way to get the word out, allowing you to promote your page and drive traffic to your website. (Make sure to read our blogs on Twitter, Linkedin & Pinterest Advertising)

With over 1.59 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the perfect platform to reach potential customers.

You’ve probably been aware of the importance of SEO and have most likely been using Facebook as a marketing tool. But maybe you haven’t given much thought to Facebook advertising, and paying for ads to appear on the social network.

Even though the platform is already established, Facebook advertising is growing in popularity. In fact, it’s estimated that today, about 75 percent of brands promote their Facebook posts and there are 3 million advertisers on Facebook now. The reason for this growth in popularity is, quite simply, because Facebook ads can get results.

Facebook users are rising on a daily basis and using Facebook as a platform for advertising is a smart move.

Facebook has a wide variety of advertising options that allow you to create targeted ads to ensure that your message reaches your intended audience. Facebook ads will not only help you reach more people, but will allow you to create a targeted strategy to ensure that your efforts and resources aren’t wasted.

For instance, you can set your ad campaign to market to clients of a certain age group, geographical location, or, for mobile advertising, based on the type of iOS/Android version you want the user to have.

To help you get started, here’s a brief rundown on some of the different Facebook ads.

See why you’ll want to consider adding a few of these ads to your marketing arsenal.

Facebook Advertising Options & Tips

Domain

A Domain Ad is a simple ad that’s displayed on the right column of Facebook pages. This ad allows you to choose a title, description, and URL to direct people to an external link, such as your website.

Tip: Users notice Domain Ads in large part because of the image or photo. Use a professional photo or graphic image. Keep overlay text to a minimum because it’ll be difficult to see.

Multi-Product

Multi-product ads are a great type of ad for e-commerce companies. Instead of displaying a single product in the feed, you’ll get up to three products and links that rotate. This means that you’ll be able to promote more items from your store, and will have a higher chance at grabbing someone’s attention, increasing their chances of clicking on the ad.

Tip: A cool trick with these ads is the feature that allows you to only show these ads to people that have visited certain pages of your site before or to people that have never visited your site at all. The first aspect is a form of retargeting, more on that later. You can make different ads for both segments.

Page Post Link

Page Post Link ads are a popular ad, and for good reason. This type of ad appears in users’ feeds, and features a big image that grabs attention. These ads generally perform well and are ideal for promoting your website or products. As a bonus, they can also help to generate likes.

Tip: These ads, and others on Facebook, work well when they’re timely. Users are checking Facebook for the latest information. Make your ad timely like new items you just released or a current promo you’re running.

Page Post Text & Image

You can use Facebook to boost an update you share on Facebook. It’s common for businesses to share a text or image update. You can boost the engagement of those updates to your target audience and gain likes and comments for the updates and also likes for your page. 

Tip: New products, company updates and promotions work great for these ads. And so do photos and images that are already getting a lot of engagement. If your followers are already liking it, you know others probably will too.

Page Post Video

Similar to photo ads, Page Post Video ads also appear in users’ feeds. Instead of an image though, you have the chance to reach your audience with video, which is likely to guarantee a higher engagement.

Tip: If you’re using video ads on YouTube or on your website you can reuse them here. Or you can create unique videos for Facebook. A general tip is to keep the video short, but sometimes longer videos can stand out more.

Instagram

Instagram is owned by Facebook and you can use the Facebook platform to promote posts on Instagram. It works a lot like page post ads. The ads are meant to boost engagement with your updates.

Tip: Again, the best way to go is to boost engagement with the updates that are already getting pretty good engagement. This gives you more of a chance for success with your ad and you can really reach an outside audience.

Page Likes

If you are looking to increase your page likes, and let’s face it, who isn’t –then this is the ad for you. This ad will be displayed in various locations, and will include a call to action inviting visitors to like your page right from the ad. It’s important that you choose the right wording and picture to make the message work for your target audience. When designing your campaign, remember to target the crowd that’s most likely to be interested in your products in order to build a relevant audience as you get more likes.

Tip: These ads work best when you really understand your audience. Look at your best customers. Build a profile for who they are including all their demographics. Then target your ads to that demographic.

Events

Facebook events are a great way to get the word out about your company. By holding an event, and listing it on Facebook’s events, it’s almost like you get your own virtual booth at a trade show. To increase your event’s effectiveness, make sure you get the targeting options right. Depending on the type of event that you’re having, you may want to limit the reach of the ad to others in the same city, or area, for maximum effectiveness and a better response rate.

Tip: The image plays an important role here. Make sure it’s relevant and it helps if it’s professional done whether it’s a photo or a graphic image.

Retargeting

Retargeting is something most online advertising platforms now offer. You add a small snippet of code to your website. Then in the case of Facebook, you can create a custom audience to target based on how they have visited your website. If someone visits your website, for example a certain product page, you can show them an ad for that product when they’re browsing on Facebook.

Tip: Keep your retargeting ads specific to the pages visitors view on your website. More general ads for those that visit just the homepage and more specific ads for those that visit specific pages like product pages.

Conclusion

While these are just a few of the ad options that are available, as you can see there’s plenty to choose from. Facebook Ads offer a range of diverse advertising options, and no matter if your advertising goals are to raise awareness, generate interest from your target audience, or encourage customers on towards the point of sale, it’s all possible with a carefully targeted Facebook Ad campaign.

Make sure to read our blogs on Twitter, Linkedin & Pinterest Advertising.

Do you have experience with Facebook advertising?

Image: Jurgen Appelo