Why Facebook Ads Work

While advertising has always been a core marketing function, it hasn’t been without its naysayers and skeptics. The rapid growth of the internet and the many forms of online advertising has only added to this. What businesses should realize is that not all online advertising is the same. In fact, Facebook offers advertisers a unique opportunity to deliver highly targeted messages to their audience of choice at a very reasonable and flexible price point.

What makes Facebook unique
One of the unique qualities of Facebook and its advertising platform is its innate ability to target the audience you want. Whether based on income, age, education, marital status or where you live, Facebook can help you identify and market your products and services to a particular group.

How can they accomplish this? It’s simply based on the rich and deep amount of personal information Facebook collects from its users in the form of your personal profile. Facebook uses this information to enhance their ability to target users with relevant and appropriate advertisements.

Facebook even gives you the ability to upload your email list to the service. They will then compare your list to their database in order to identify matches – users on both. You can then use this information to develop a highly targeted Facebook campaign directed at these users, potentially with a customized offer or promotion. Conscious

Types of Facebook Ads
There are three distinct types of ad formats within Facebook: sidebar, news feed and mobile. As the name suggests, the sidebar ad (the original ad format) shows up in the sidebar of the desktop version of the service.

The news feed ad is likely the most effective format, particularly for businesses with a limited budget. This ad shows up directly in the feed along with your standard status updates. As a result, it is somewhat confined by that format’s size. The mobile format of course is available on the Facebook mobile app for smartphones and tablets.

Proven results
The exciting news about Facebook ads is the relative success businesses of all types have consistently generated from this platform. Indeed, a study by consumer data warehouse Datalogix demonstrated that Facebook ads work: 70% of the 60 campaigns studied delivered a 3 times or greater ROI on the ad spend brands invested while 50% of the campaigns delivered an incredible 5 times ROI!

All of this was in spite of the fact that few if any Facebook users actually clicked on these ads, which is cited by many as the reason why these ads don’t work. This study showed that despite the lack of clicks, the mere presence of these ads on Facebook was influential enough to incent users to purchase these products! For these reasons and several others, Facebook ads are considered to be the most effective ad format in all of social media.

Demand Generation vs. Direct Response Ads
It’s important to understand that Facebook ads are more like traditional “Demand Generation” ads as opposed to those like Google Adwords, which are considered “Direct Response” ads. In the case of the latter, Google is getting you to act and ‘respond’, which will ideally result in an immediate purchase.

Demand Generation ads are much more common in the spectrum of advertising – whether it’s online or off. Demand gen ads function to elicit a future sale, to plant a seed in the mind of the prospective purchaser.

Others denounce the effectiveness of Facebook ads due to the online world’s obsession with measurement – that everything and anything must be measurable for it to be of any value. The assumption is that demand gen ads can’t be measured. This is in fact a fallacy, as the television industry has proven for decades.

Facebook has begun to develop and deliver the same metrics that companies like Nielsen have been generating for TV for years. This will further help to validate their position that Facebook represents a very effective and cost-effective medium for advertising your products and services.

And Facebook has also started to further refine the frequency and way that they deliver their ads to certain users, using sophisticated algorithms to better target users. These refinements will continue to enhance this ad offering and make it a more viable solution for many businesses.

Are you interested in learning more about how Facebook ads can help you build your brand and grow your bottom line? Contact us today to schedule an appointment. Let us help you build your brand and grow your bottom line through this social network.

Postscript: We recently ran a Facebook ad campaign as part of a Facebook photo contest for one of our social media clients. The results were phenomenal: increased audience engagement, increased reach and increased 'Likes' for their Facebook page! And all at a very economical ad spend the client had little difficulty approving.