How to advertise on Facebook Like a Pro

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After hundreds of hours of reading, I felt like sharing with you some findings about how Facebook’s algorithm works along with a few advices which I hope will help you to get better results when advertising.

People don’t stop being business professionals just because they are on Facebook. If they see something offering a solution to a work problem that’s been on their mind, they will click.

Facebook’s intent is to provide a positive users’ experience and to keep them engaged on its platform. It has got inputs, processes, outputs, feedbacks and environment, but also biases that impact its behavior and decisions.

To better perform, we can play with its biases (engagement, lexical and graphical sentiment, financial and consistency), by feeding with inputs it likes so you get the outputs you want.

Creating Ads

When advertisers create an ad, they select a targeted audience and start adding on info: income, location-relevant / geo-targeting, age, gender etc. Unfortunately, without knowing how the Algorithm works, the ad launched will work probably well for two to three days to end up by failing with costs going through the roof, but no results.

The algorithm accounts for 90 to 95% of the results when using Facebook ads. Advertisers account for what is left over. To improve your audience, you need to know how it works.

The algorithm, with a real-time access to 2 billion users, knows ALL data and ENTIRE users’ history (even the ones you delete), and determines with a consistent optimization who you actually reach within that audience that you set.

Since Facebook cares about making money too, the algorithm will choose to advertise the ads which are getting the most clicks. If one advertiser is getting twice click through rate as high as yours, then Facebook is going to optimize their ad to show over your ad. Facebook is always optimizing for the most money. But if lots of people complain about your ad, it will no longer show that ad because Facebook doesn’t want users to have a bad experience.

Why only a portion of the audience that we set is reached?

This is due to the initial conditions. It determines the evolutionary stream that your ads are going to take in the future by observing what type of people are clicking and opting it and then it starts to optimize to show your ad to more of those people. The first 96 hours will determine the performance as Facebook will optimize and narrow the audience based on who is taking action.

Also, for your ads and advertising campaigns to be successful and profitable, you will need variation. Without variation, the algorithm reduces then stops the traffic for ads. So you need to have multiple angles (messages), four or five, advertising the same thing but with different angles, trying to appeal to different audience with the perfect combinations.

What is the perfect structure of a campaign?

You need five unique ad angles. The aim is not necessarily to sell anything from the ad (apart from the click), but to simply get the prospects through the sales funnel so they can take the next action (like giving us their emails so we can follow-up the unconverted leads that may have many reasons for not maturing into buyers immediately).

To target multiple large audiences, we need multiple ad angles with different messages with multiple images per ad, different ways of saying what we have to offer. We don’t just change the headline, we don’t just make one shorter, one longer. We want to truly have different angles, because different things appeal to different people.

So you need:

• Different angles with precise headlines maximum 90 characters
• Four images per unique ad angle (high def., clear, non-pixelated)
• One unique message per ad
• Video or Image: all the power is in the words. The copy-writing needs to be appealing
• 30 audience interests
• 50000 users in each “lookalike” audience
• A different phone number / email for each ads so you can track which ads work better
• Don’t make the ads too short, use the “read more” link (teasing, curiosity)
• Showcase Social Proof (increase prospect’s confidence and trust)
• Use the word “now” to create a sense of urgency
• Include the link more than once to your free offer in case there is one. It will amplify the importance of your offer

This gives us 600 possible combinations of audience, message, image, variables when most people have only one.

Your Call To Action (CTA) is designed to get somebody to take an action, so you need to give away something for free). Remember, the objective of the ad is to direct the prospect towards the closing, nothing else. It must be trackable and measurable, so that feedback can be collected and adjustments made.

Engagement

Your ad should look like a post done by a friend, because that’s what Facebook is for. When people are scrolling down their news feed, they’re not looking for ads, they’re looking for interesting posts from people. They’re looking for human interactions and stories.

The algorithm starts measuring engagement by people slowing down when scrolling past your ad then if they interact with it (read, like, comment, share…). Since people don’t really like ads, make your ads look like a post like a friend would do. Avoid corporate speak; evoke emotion, make people feel you are building a relationship.

Lexical Sentiment bias - happy and sad words

A combination of words can impact your ads. Facebook knows the content people like or dislike. Avoid talking about money, religion, and hate speech. Use positive content because we want the users to be happy, not sad.

You can use some tools to help you modify/adapt you content to increase happiness without changing the core message: https://text-processing.com/demo/sentiment/

A few negative “sad” words (avoid using these): death, jail, cancer, killed, torture, arrested, war, fatal, sickness, failed, cry, cruel, violence, sadness, diseases, depressing, poison, fail, disaster, bomb, tumors, poverty, headache, depression…

Example positive words: Laughter, happiness, love, happy, laughed, laugh, laughing, excellent, laughs, joy, successful, win, rainbow, smile, won, pleasure, smiled, rainbows, winning, celebration, enjoyed…

Try this out: you will notice that “happy” and “laugh” gets positive when “love” only neutral.

Graphical Sentiment Bias - happy and sad objects

Facebook’s algorithm performs graphical analysis on the images in your ads and it has a bias towards positivity, this means positive ads get priority, more reach, and more impressions.

It can tell how many faces on a photo, if people smile, approximately the age, male or female, describe the landscape etc. A good combination of view/emotion/human faces with make you ad positive. Here some positive examples:

● Humans (more is better than one, 1x male and 1x female is optimal) ● Faces ● Smiles and other positive facial expressions and gestures ● Eyes open and gazing at viewer ● Babies ● Animals/pets ● Nature ● Sky ● Daytime ● Outside ● Sunset ● Clear sky/sunny/good weather ● Ocean ● Mountains ● Trees ● Grass ● Humans standing ● Colors (bright and colorful works) ● Tools that are fun: bikes, scooters, boats etc.

Emotion tool: https://www.faceplusplus.com/emotion-recognition/

Amazon seems to have an object analysis tool called Rekognition, which I did not try since they ask for credit cards details. But here is the link

Negative objects, scenes and emotions (avoid using these)

● Negative facial expressions and gestures ● No natural light, outdoors or nature ● No color or lack of color and brightness ● Violence, blood, gore, war, weapons, gambling, drugs, smoking ● Text overlay or text included in frame of image

Things that trigger Facebook’s “red flag” (don’t use words relating to these things)

• Don’t promote business models like MLM, get rich quick, make money from home etc.
• Content must comply with all laws and regulations. Don’t be offensive. Content can’t be false, deceptive or misleading. Links with spyware or malware.

Financial Bias

Facebook loves money. It needs money to stay alive and grow (bid prices, average daily spend, lifetime spend, reliability of payment (no declines)…

If two advertisers are competing for the same traffic and everything is equal, Facebook’s algorithm will go to the advertiser that has the best money signals every time. They will get the traffic and win. How to signal money to Facebook?

1. Ad accounts: should not have spent limits, payment method should be a company (not a person), use a company credit card (not PayPal or gift/temporary card), make sure you NEVER decline and always pay without any issue. Use one ad account and use it consistently. If you constantly use different ad accounts and they have relationships to the same fan page it will decrease trust in the fan page and any new ad account it touches
2. Campaigns: should optimize for conversions, not have lifetime budgets, have a good history of consistent spend, spend >100$/day to $1000/day to be most efficient (the higher the better). Over $1000/day, campaigns have entropy and should be decentralized/load balance across multiple campaigns separated by ad angle (good architecture)
3. Ad sets: should have daily budget. Never change the budget or setting of an ad set, make changes in clones
4. Bids: should be “auto” for cold traffic, warm retargeting and anything to do with conversion objective campaigns. For hot campaigns you can use “daily unique reach” and bid manually at high prices to win auctions
5. Spend: Should be as consistent as possible, ideally every day without stopping ever. The algorithm favors consistent spend over time with no spikes or blips. Be consistent, build momentum, build a solid history
6. Consistency is viewed as reliability and trustworthiness, rewarded with reach and momentum. The consistency signal can be through a consistent use of ad account, fan page, domain landing page URL, landing page content, ads, audiences, campaigns, conversion events, spend etc.
7. Fan page: use one fan page consistently, pair its relationship to an ad account, make sure it has >5000 followers, post organic content on it daily and build it up as an asset with photos, videos, posts, etc., overtime
8. Verified Domain: make sure you “verify” your domain name with Facebook and then use that domain as the CTA link in all of your ads. This signals trust to Facebook and it will give you preference in auctions
9. Landing Page: use one landing page, keep the URL the same, avoid changing anything on your landing page (including split tests) and NEVER use a link splitter or redirect somewhere else (this throttles your reach)
10. Conversion events: it is crucial to use one pixel (code that you place on your website to track conversions from Facebook ads and data related to those ads). Keep your conversion events consistent. Build the # of conversions on them and continue to use the same campaigns with ad sets optimized for the same events (variation at ad set level)
11. Tracking: Turn on “automatic advanced matching” to track/retarget people who use incognito, ad blockers, ghost mode, safari and other attempts to hide their usage.
12. Tags: Delete ALL the tags out of your GTM (Google Tag Manager) to reduce the weight (1 tag = 1 second). Then Ditch GTM and get a developer to install “event based tracking” for your site/funnel. This allows you to use “events” instead of “URL visits”. It improves audiences, conversions, accuracy, etc.

Fan page + account + domain + link + event = Trust = then the consistency trust read should be HIGH => best traffic, more reach at the best prices.

Create a high converting landing page

You cannot create an ad without directing your offer to a top landing page. A landing page is where you send people to from your ad instead of a home page, more effective in converting your audience because it’s focused on one objective. You can then drive your prospects further down the sales funnel.

Again, some key takeaway to implement in your landing page:

• Write a clear main headline, conveying what the prospects will get the moment they read it. The words Exclusive and Free usually works well. Make it short
• Repeat the main headline in the copy. You increase the attractiveness of your ads, increase the interest
• Create a bullet point list that answers “WIIFM”. Each bullet point on your landing page should tell prospects what’s in it for them.
• Create a CTA like a big green button that says: “YES! RESERVE MY DREAM PENTHOUSE NOW”. Use contrasting colors to stand out, tell exactly what to do right away, YES creating again the sense of urgency (no urgency = nobody buys). Make sure the size of the button is oversized.
• Place a back-up message under the CTA button. “Today only” or “only 3 units left”…
• Feature a video that creates an instant personal connection
• Use again social proof to turn suspicious prospects into qualified leads
• Again, don’t forget the CTA button. People need more than one exposure, even multiple exposure before they act.
• Use free, now, quickly, straightforward, and premium. The right words can trigger desirable behaviors.
• Nothing beats a free offer with massive value. Get your free offer right and this will greatly influence how prospects perceive your product.

Acknowledge their action and make them feel special on a thank you page

Create a thank you page that tells your audience how much you appreciate the step they took to get your offer. And now that they’re close to having it, write down some steps they can follow to maximize your offer. Feature the details of your offer and lastly, bribe them with free stuff if they consume it. This increases the value of the offer itself

CONCLUSION

Trying to understand how works ads on social media is not easy. You need the right data for your lead generation campaigns. Without the data to support one over the other, we are shooting blindly in the dark hoping to hit our target.

For your ads to be successful, you need first to design the structure and architecture of your sales funnel, from the ad to the thank you page, with enough variations and the right combinations of variables, so that we have profitable ads.

Personally, to increase my audience/pipeline, I would slam the social media with multiple posting on each channels, every day, many times during the same day, for as long as I can see positive returns (including using lumpy mails/newsletter).

Then I would use paid ads for re-targeting (thanks to the cookies). This should optimize your budget instead of burning money out with uncertain results.

Also, I would use paid ads on Facebook to share/promote/sell experience (soft selling), and Google Ads for hard selling (with appropriate pitch).

Remember, be positive, consistent, financially stable (and generous), and the algorithm will help to increase the audience.

Thank you for reading. Hope it helps, your comments and suggestions are more than welcome so everyone can benefit from additional Intel.

Roger Godin

[email protected]

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