Facebook Ads – What you need to know

As the largest social network in the world, it has more than 500 million active users, half of which log in on a daily basis. They total more than 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month. People share more than 30 billion pieces of content every month, including links, news stories, blog posts and photo albums. As marketers, ignoring Facebook isn’t really an option.

How can you market on Facebook?

Facebook’s offers 4 main ad types to choose from:

1. Facebook Standard Ads - These appear on the right hand side of a user's Facebook profile and newsfeed. This is a simple ad form that can send the user to an external page, or your Facebook business page.
2. Promoted Posts - A popular method, this ad can lead either to an external link, or another part of your Facebook page. It is fantastic for creating a visible offer or announcement, increasing engagement. Top tip: Consider links carefully for example if you promote a photo, clicking the ad will only lead a user to the photo album on your Facebook page.
3. The Sponsored App - If your business has an application on Facebook, you can sponsor an app. The main focus being to obtain new users who not already use your app. Facebook will automatically generate an ad, but this can be edited to reflect your Unique Selling Point.
4. Event Sponsorship - By creating and then advertising an event, you can increase coverage and attendance by ensuring it appears in front of the users that are most likely to sign up for your event.

When setting up, consider:

• Goals - What do you want from your campaign? If you are directing all traffic to your website, what is the purpose?

• Split Testing - Split testing involves changing one piece of the ad, such as the age range, and keeping the other elements the same to see which ad performs better. Rotate your ads every couple days to keep them fresh.

• Precise Interest Targeting - This is crucial, usually receiving the best ROI, interests are displayed in a person’s profile and are drawn from the keywords used in their information. The hard part is choosing the right ones. 

Many marketers target the largest groups possible. This is a mistake. These groups are more expensive and less targeted. Rather than target broad terms like music or photography, focus on specific interests. Research blogs your customers read, who they follow on Twitter, and which related products they buy. If you use precise interests like these, you’ll reach the people who are most interested in your topic and the most willing to spend money on it.

• Budget: With Facebook you bid on the price you are willing to pay to have your ad shown, and then you are charged in either one of two ways:

1. Cost-per-click: CPC simply charges you for when someone clicks on your ad.
2. Cost-per-mile (CPM): This way charges you per 1000 people who see your advertisement.

Essentially, Facebook judges the success your ad’s ability to get a high percentage of people to click. Facebook rewards successful ads with a lower cost per click or cost per impression and more visibility.

Group your ads by campaign in order to compare statistics for relevant ads. When you choose your daily budget, your ad will automatically shut off when that budget is reached.

• Stats Analysis - Setting goals and understanding Facebook insights is an analytics tool will help you determine whether your ads were successful. More engagement with your Facebook through likes, shares leads to better potential for traffic and leads from Facebook

Top Tip: Don’t just leave it at the one-time analysis. Assess your content strategy using Facebook Insights on some consistent basis.

Case Study - Manchester United

The club wanted to promote engagement on the Manchester United Facebook Page with international fans. The club used geographic and interest-targeted Ads in order to promote their North American tour. They targeted people in the stadiums’ locations and people’s Likes and Interests.

Results:

• Manchester United’s website received an increase in traffic from Facebook
• During the campaign, 119,000 people have used the “Join Man Utd” app
• Relationships were established in Indonesia, the UK, Mexico, India, Malaysia, and the US through geographic-targeted ads
• Engagement levels increased with each post generating an average of over 15,000 likes and comments.
• Facebook isn’t just powerful. It’s flexible. No matter what type of company you run, it has enough different marketing options that you can tailor your marketing efforts to fit your company, your budget, and your time constraints.

Enjoy an early adopter advantage. Set aside some time to tinker around, start a few test campaigns, and see what happens. Like anything, it takes practice to get good at it. All the best with extending your Facebook reach, we’d love to hear how you’re getting on and if you would like more advice, feel free to get in touch.