When you think of advertising, you might still imagine big billboards in Time Square, or perhaps banners on buses. But there’s a new kid on the block. In fact, he’s not even all that new anymore. Advertising on Facebook has grown rapidly since 2010: advertisers are now spending a whopping $8 billion on Facebook Ads.
We’re going to show you how you can get started, and take your own slice of that Facebook advertising pie.
Decide What You Want Your Ad to Do
Facebook allows you to select the kind of ad you’d like to run. Here are a few examples goals you can select from:
- Traffic and Leads for Your Website
- Sales and Leads for Your Product or Service
- Likes & Engagement for Your Page
- Installs for Mobile or Desktop Apps
- Visitors for Your Store or Event
Think carefully about what you want your ad to do. For example, it might be tempting to drive engagement and likes to your page, but if you’re selling a product (and you don’t get many purchases from people who have ‘Liked’ you on Facebook), is it really worth spending those advertising pennies on getting people to see your product, but not buy it? In this case, you might want to consider driving sales leads for your product, but it’s important to find what’s right for you.
Testing, 1, 2, 3…
Great news – Facebook now allows you to test up to six images on your ad!
This means you can test different variations of your ad to determine which one works. Advertising on Facebook can take time. You need to find what works and then go with it. Try to remove all personal opinion from your selection of images – let your audience decide for you which images work (and which don’t!).
Write Irresistible Copy
Think of some key taglines before you begin setting up your Facebook ads. If you’re left to create them on the spot, you’re not going to be giving your product or service the best chance it has: basically, you’ll probably write rubbish.
While writing, think about your product from different angles. Be sure to keep your copy short and clear and make sure it’s descriptive. You might like to get someone who isn’t familiar with your brand to look over the copy, to see if it adequately explains who you are and what you do.
Decide the Target Demographic For Your Ad
Country, age, zipcode, interests…. which of these criteria should you go for?
If your business is more dependent on the geographical location of your customer (for example, if you own a garden center without an online store), targeting your demographic by location makes sense.
But if your business is an app targeted at teenagers, you would probably rather tell Facebook to only show your ads to people aged between 13 – 19.
There are so many demographic combinations to choose from. You can also target based on gender and interests. Remember – you can use any combination you like!
Think about who your customer is and let Facebook do the searching.
Evaluate Your Results and Go Again
Once you’ve pushed your ads live, you can sit back and wait for the data to collect itself.
When your campaign is finished, you’ll have valuable information on which taglines and images were clicked the most, along with which demographics responded the best. From here, you can interpret your data – and then go for round two!
A Slice of the Facebook Pie
We hope you found this article useful to get you started with Facebook advertising. Remember, Facebook advertising is about testing first and then using your results to create bulletproof ads.
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