Marketing in Facebook (Part 4) -The process of creating ads

Assuming you have a social media strategy, a Facebook page, a Business Manager account, and an Ad Manager account – here is a step-by-step process of creating an ad on Facebook. If you need help with any of the mentioned tasks, the blog posts I have written previously can help.

There are three levels of ad creation on Facebook – Campaign level, Ad set level and Ad level. First, open your ad account and press the green “Create” button.

Campaign level –?

You will see a pop-up screen after you click the create button. Select an Ad Objective in the pop-up window. I am choosing Reach as the ad objective of my ad. Choosing Reach will show the ads to the maximum number of people. Add a campaign name, an ad set name and an ad name to keep track. Click continue to get to the next step.

Now you will see a bigger window. The setup starts at the campaign level. Your Campaign Name is in the first box. The second box called Special Ad Categories asks you if your ads are related to social issues, elections, or politics. Do not select anything for this box unless you are running an ad about these issues.?

Then there are campaign details, and if you are buying ads with a credit card, you will only have the option to choose Auction in the Buying Type. You have already added your Campaign Objective. You can add a Campaign Spending Limit as well, but it has to be a minimum of $100. I prefer not to add a limit here.

Next is the option to test campaigns, ad sets and ads against each other to understand which strategies give you the best results. It is called A/B Test. Check out the details about it in this post –?

Then comes the Campaign Budget Optimization option, which you should turn on. If you choose a lifetime budget, you will never spend more than that amount. If you pick a daily budget, you may pay more on some days and less on others but will maintain an average daily budget. Pick an amount that you think is appropriate to spend for your business.

Moving on to the Campaign Bid Strategy part, you can choose Lowest Cost or Bid Cap. For the Lowest Cost option, maximize delivery and conversions you can get from your budget. For example, an event planner may use the lowest cost to get as many people as possible to attend an upcoming music festival, where the per attendance cost does not matter. For the Bid Cap option, set the maximum bid across auctions rather than allow Facebook to bid dynamically based on your cost or value goals. Bid cap is for advertisers who have a strong understanding of predicted conversion rates and can calculate the correct bid. I prefer the Lowest Cost option in this case. Next, you can schedule your ads for specific hours and days of the week using the Ad Scheduling option. Click next to move on to the ad set level of the setup.

Ad set level –

You have already named the ad set at the beginning of the process. Choose your Facebook Page from the dropdown menu in the Page section just below. You can use the Dynamic Creative option. You will need to provide creative elements, such as images and headlines. Facebook will use them and automatically generate variations for your audience. It is a good option, but I will not use this here.

Define the Budget and Schedule next. Select a Start and End Date. You can also set an Ad Set Spend Limit at this stage. You can choose a daily minimum budget to spend that FB will not guarantee to consume. And you can select a daily maximum budget that will remain the highest FB will burn in a day.

The most important part of your ad creation is defining the Audience. It is such a huge part that I had to post the details in a separate article below.

The next option to decide on is Placements. If you select Automatic Placements, FB will maximize your budget and help show ads to more people. FB's delivery system will allocate your ad set budget across multiple placements based on where they are likely to perform best.?

You can also choose the places to show your ads manually using the Manual Placements option. The more placements you select, the more opportunities you will have to reach your target audience and achieve your business goals. You can select the Mobile or Desktop in Devices option. You can choose platforms from Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger. Then you can pick placements for Asset Customization. Asset customization allows you to select different images or videos for each Placement within a single ad. Check out all the options from the below post –

The option to choose specific mobile devices and operating systems come next. You can select from All mobile devices, Android devices only, iOS devices only and Feature phones only. You can also go for the option to show your ad only when the audience is using Wi-Fi. The last one on the list is the option to Exclude Skippable Ads for In-stream videos.

?Then comes the Brand Safety section. It helps prevent your ads from appearing within or alongside content that is not conducive to your brand. You will need to go to this portal to control your Brand Safety.

The Inventory Filter section gives you further control over your ads shown in between contents on Facebook In-Stream Videos, Facebook Instant Articles, Instagram TV, and Facebook Audience Network. The default setting is Standard Inventory which means your ads will exclude sensitive content and get broad reach. You can choose Full Inventory to exclude content such as excessive violence, hate speech and depictions of explicit sexual positions. Choose Full Inventory to get the most reach. The third option is to choose Limited Inventory and exclude all moderate and sensitive content. It lowers the reach and can increase the cost. Choose the Standard Inventory to yield the best results while protecting your brand.

The Block Lists section comes next. You can create a block list for placements in the Brand Safety portal mentioned above. You can choose to exclude all live streams and all videos published by non-partners in the Content Type Exclusions option.

The final section in the Ad set level is Optimization and Delivery. For the reach objective, you can optimize your ad delivery for Reach or Impressions. Next is the Cost Control option. Set a cost control if you have a specific cost goal. If you don't set one, Facebook's ad system will focus on spending your entire budget and getting the most results. Set a cost control to tell Facebook which outcomes are valuable. If your ad set requires a conversion window, use that to determine your cost control too. Certain controls are only available with some optimization for ad delivery selections.

Use the Frequency Cap section to keep people from seeing your ad too often. Enter the minimum number of days that should pass before someone sees your ad again. The When You Get Charged option determines when you pay for your ad. For many optimization goals, you will pay each time your ad is served (known as an impression). Some optimization goals also let you choose between impressions and actions (such as link clicks or ThruPlay). The recommended option shown here balances efficient spending of your budget to achieve your objective with easy understanding of your results.

Ad level –

The first section in the ad level is the Ad Name that you have selected already. You can see the ad preview for different placements on the right side of the screen.

The second section is the identity of the ad. Your selected Facebook Page is shown here. You can also select your Instagram Account here if it is already connected. Click on the connect account if it is not yet connected.

Next is the ad Ad Setup section. Here you can choose to Create Ad, Use Existing Post or Use Creative Hub Mockup. Creative Hub is a tool by Facebook where marketers and advertisers can be inspired by great creative, design their own and share it with others. Here is the link to view your creative hub –

Then you can choose the Format for the ad. It can either be single image/video or a carousel with two or more scrollable images/videos.

One of the best features in your ad creation process is the?Fullscreen Mobile Experience. It helps you capture people's attention instantly with a fast-loading, mobile-optimized experience that opens when they interact with your ad. If you decide to add an Instant Experience for the audience, you will have the option to choose a template. You can use one of the four templates offered by FB or build your custom layout.

The following section is the?Ad Creative. It changes based on the ad format you selected.

If you picked the Single Image or Video format –

You can choose one image or one video for all the placements. You can also have different creatives for each placement. It is preferable to adapt your ad creative in suitable sizes and formats as per the placements’ needs. For example, your FB post can have the dimension of 16:9. But it is prescribed that you adapt the ad creative to the 9:16 for FB or IG stories.

Then you should add a Primary Text for your ad. The primary text for your ad appears in most placements, though the position varies. You can use @ to tag Facebook profiles or Pages. Facebook recommends 125 characters or less.

If you decide to Add a Website URL, people who click or tap on your ad will go to your website. If you do not, they will go to your FB page or IG account. There are options to add Headline and Description. The headline will appear in most placements, but its position will vary by placement. Headlines over 40 characters may be cut off. The description will show in your ad if it is likely to resonate with the person seeing it. It will only appear in some placements, and its position will vary. You can also a Display Link to show a shortened link instead of your full website URL in some placements. The link should go to the same domain as your website URL. The position of the display link varies by placement. And finally, the Call-to-Action option lets you show a button or link on your ad that represents the action you want people to take.

If you picked the Carousel format –

You can add up to ten cards for your ads. In each card, you have to add an?image?or a video along with a?Website URL. You can also add a?Headline?and a?Description?for each card. If you plan to post a video carousel, click on the Add Media option below the default cards and choose Add Video. This option will help you create cards where you can upload videos. The recommended format for each video is - length up to 15 seconds, aspect ratio 4:5, sound enabled with captions included and thumbnails be selected dynamically.

Then you will find two checkboxes – Automatically show the best performing card first and Add a card at the end with your Page profile picture. Select both for your ad to perform better. After these, there are the same options you had for the previous format – Primary Text, See more URL, See more Display Link and Call to Action button.?

The final option before you publish your ad, is to set up Tracking. You will need to add pixel code to your website and Instant Experience to report conversions, see activity and build audiences for ad targeting. If the ad lands in your app, you will need to add events to your app to view analytics, measure ad performance and build audiences for ad targeting. There is a default offline event set up by FB for you already. And there is an option to add URL parameters. If you do not have tracking set up, it is still possible to run ads. You will miss out on conversion data for your ad in that case.

You are ready to publish your first ad! Drop a comment if you need further clarifications about any of the steps.