Let’s know
about Facebook Ads
Let's speak about
advertisements together. Learn more about how data is used to display your
advertisements without advertisers discovering who you are, the controls you
have to help select what ads you see, why you're seeing a certain ad and other
frequently asked questions (FAQs) below.
Understand
what data is used to show you ads
Your Facebook Company
and Product activity
You will see advertisements based on your behavior across
Facebook Companies and Products, such as:
Pages that you and your friends like Information from your
Facebook and Instagram profiles Locations that you check in to via Facebook.
Your
interactions with other firms
When you provide a
company with your phone number or email address, they may put it on a client
list, that may be linked to your Facebook page. We can then try to target the ad
to the most appropriate audience. You may have given these companies your
information by:
- Subscribing
to an email newsletter
- Purchasing
from a retail store
- Signing
up for a discount or voucher
Your
usage of other websites and apps
Websites you visit or
applications you use can transmit Facebook data directly by utilizing our
business tools (such as a pixel) to let us display your advertising based on
items or services you've looked at, such as a shirt on the website of a
clothing shop. Here are several examples:
- Looking
at one of their websites
- Installing
their mobile app
- Adding
a product to a shopping basket or making a purchase
Your
current location
We utilize location
data to show you advertisements from advertisers who are attempting to target
individuals in or around a certain location. We obtain this information from a
variety of sources, including:
- Where
do you get your Internet connection?
- Where
do you take your phone?
- Your
Facebook and Instagram profile's location
How Do
Facebook Ads Work?
Pictures, movies, carousels (multiple images), Instant
Experiences and collections are also available as ad formats.
Users are targeted with Facebook advertising based on their
location, demographics, and profile information.
Many of these choices are exclusive to Facebook. You establish a
budget and bid for each click or thousand impressions that your ad receives
after generating it.
Ad types include pictures, videos, carousels (many images),
Instant Experiences, and collections.
Facebook advertising is targeted to users based on their
location, demographics, and profile information.
Many of these options are only available on Facebook. After
creating your ad, you set a budget and bid on each click or thousand
impressions it receives.
Who
Should Advertise on Facebook?
Previously, Facebook advertising was more
akin to display ads than search ads.
Businesses with Low-Friction Conversions
The businesses that
succeed with Facebook ads ask users to sign up, not to buy. You must use a
low-friction conversion to be successful.
A visitor to your website wasn’t looking for your product. They
clicked your ad on a whim. If you’re relying on them to immediately buy
something to make your ad ROI positive, you will fail.
Facebook users are fickle, and they are likely to return to
Facebook if you ask for a large commitment (buy) upfront. Instead, focus on
basic conversions such as signing up for your service, completing a brief lead
form, or providing an email address.
Even if you don't provide services, you should think about
concentrating on an intermediate conversion, such as a newsletter subscription.
Daily deal sites like Groupon, AppSumo, and Fab are good
examples of businesses that can succeed with Facebook advertising. After you
click one of their ads, they just ask for your email address. They’ll sell you
on a deal later.
How to
Target Facebook Ads
The number one mistake
most marketers make with Facebook ads is not targeting them correctly.
Facebook’s ad targeting options are unparalleled. You can target
by demographics and create custom or lookalike audiences to target users
similar to your best customers. You can also use retargeting ads to target
users who have interacted with your page or visited your website.
On Facebook, you can directly target users by:
· Location
· Age
· Gender
· Interests
· Connections
· Relationship Status
· Languages
· Education
· Workplaces
Each option can be useful, depending on your audience. Most
marketers should focus on location, age, gender, and interests.
The
location allows
you to targets users in the country, state, city, or zip code that you service.
Age and gender targeting should be based on your existing customers. If women
25-44 are the bulk of your customers, start out targeting them. If they prove
to be profitable, you can then expand your targeting.
Interest
targeting is
the most powerful but misused feature of Facebook ads. When creating an ad, you
have two options: broad categories or detailed interests.
Broad Category Targeting
Broad categories
include topics like Gardening, Horror Movies, and Consumer Electronics. Recently,
Facebook has added newer targets like Engaged (1 year), Expecting Parents, Away
from Hometown, and Has Birthday in 1 Week.
Broad interests may seem like an efficient way to reach a large
audience. However, these users often cost more and spend less. You’ll also need
to install the Facebook pixel.
This used to be an ineffective way to reach audiences; however,
the addition of the Facebook pixel and dynamic ads makes this far more
effective.
It is worth testing, but detailed interest targeting is often
more effective.
Detailed Interest Targeting
Detailed Interest
Targeting allows you to target users based on information in their profile
including “listed likes and interests, the Pages they like, apps they use, and
other profile (timeline) content they’ve provided” (according to Facebook).
You’ll find the best
ROI using Detailed Interest targeting.
Facebook has an amazing array of interests to target from Harry
Potter to underwater rugby. The hard
part is choosing the right ones.
When targeting detailed interests, Facebook provides the size of
the audience and other suggested likes and interests. You won’t have any
competitive data. Once you select interests for an ad, Facebook will show an
aggregate suggested bid.
Many marketers target the largest groups possible.
This is a mistake. These groups are more expensive and less
targeted.
Rather than target broad terms for your
niche like “yoga” or “digital photography,” focus on specific interests.
Research which magazines and blogs your customers read, who they follow on
Twitter, and which related products they buy.
If you use laser-focused interests like these, you’ll reach the
people who are most interested in your topic and the most willing to spend
money on it.
For example, if you wanted to sell a new DJ course, don’t just
target the interest of “disc jockey.”
Instead, create ads targeting DJ publications like DJ Magazine
and Mixmag. Then created another ad targeting DJ brands like Traktor and Vestax.
Combine smaller, related interests into a group with an audience
of 50,000 to 1M+. This structure will create ads with large audiences that are
likely to convert.
Advanced
tip: Use Facebook Login as a sign-up option on
your site. When users connect via Facebook, you’ll be able to analyze their
interests. Index these interests against the number of fans of their respective
Facebook Pages. You’ll be left with your high-affinity interests.
Facebook
Lookalike Audiences
In addition to
targeting users directly, Facebook gives you the ability to Lookalike Audiences.
So what are Facebook Lookalike Audiences? These are Facebook
users that are similar to your current users. You’ll need to have Facebook
Pixel or other custom audience data, like an email list.
Then, you can ask Facebook to find similar
users.
They are highly customizable — for example, you could create a
“new customer” ad, then exclude current customers from seeing your ads.
This page on Facebook will walk you through how to create Lookalike
audiences.
Retargeting with
Facebook Ads
Retargeting ads allow
you to reach customers who are already familiar with your brand. You can double
down by creating dynamic ads that show people items they are likely to be
interested in.
For example, you could retarget users who have visited your site, left items
in their cart, or clicked on an ad.
To create a retargeting ad, the first step is to install the
Facebook Pixel. Follow this guide in Facebook’s Business center to get started.
Images
for Facebook Ads
Don’t use low-quality images, generic stock photography, or any images that you don’t have the right to
use. Don’t steal anything from Google Images. Unless you’re a famous brand,
don’t use your logo.
Now that we have the no’s out of the way, how should advertisers
find images to use? Buy them, create them yourself, or use ones with a Creative
Commons license.
Below you’ll learn which types of images work best and where
specifically to find them.
People
Images of people work
best. Preferably their faces. Use close-ups of attractive faces that resemble
your target audience.
Younger isn’t always better. If you’re targeting retirees, test
pictures of people over 60. Using a pretty 25-year-old girl wouldn’t make sense.
Facebook sidebar ad images are small (254 by 133 pixels). Make sure to focus on a person’s face and crop it
if necessary. Don’t use a blurry or dark picture.
Use this ad image guide on Facebook to see the size requirements for other ads,
like desktop news feed, a mobile news feed, instant articles, stories, etc.
Advanced
tip: Use images of people facing to the right. Users will follow the
subject’s line of sight and be more likely to read your ad text.
Aside from models, you can also feature the people behind your
business and showcase some of your customers (with their permission, of course).
Typography
Clear, readable type
can also attract clicks. Bright colors will help your ad stand out.
Just like with text copy, use a question or express a benefit to
the user. Treat the text in the image as an extension of your copy.
Funny
Crazy or funny
pictures attract clicks. See I Can Has Cheeseburger, 9GAG, or any popular meme.
Unfortunately, even with descriptive ad text, these ads don’t
always convert well. If you use this type of ad, set a low budget and track the
performance closely. You’ll often attract lots of curiosity clicks that won’t
convert.
Facebook
How to Create Images for Facebook Ads
You
have three options to find images: buy them, find ones that are already
licensed, or create them yourself.
You can buy stock photography at many sites including iStockPhoto or Big
Stock. Don’t use stock photos that look like
stock photos. No generic
businessmen or stark white backgrounds, please.
Users recognize stock photos and will ignore them. Instead, find
unique photos and give them personality by cropping or editing them and
applying filters. You can use Pixlr, an online image editor, for both.
If you don’t have the money to buy photos, you can search for Creative Commons licensed images.
The third option is to create the images yourself. If you’re a
graphic designer, this is easy. If you aren’t, you can still create typographic
images or use basic image editing to create something original from existing
pictures.
Rotate Ads
Each campaign should
have at least three ads with the same interest targets. Using a small number of
ads will allow you to gather data on each one. For a given campaign, only one
to two ads will get a lot of impressions, so don’t bother running too many at once.
After a few days, delete the ads with the lowest click-through
rates (CTRs) and keep iterating on the winners to continually increase your CTR.
Aim for 0.1% as a benchmark. You’ll likely start closer to the
average of 0.04%.
Writing Successful Facebook Ad Copy
After seeing your
image, users will (hopefully) read your ad text. Here you can sell them on your
product or service and earn their click.
Despite the 40 character headline and 125 character body text
limits, we can still use the famous copywriting formula AIDA.
(A)ttention: Draw users into the ad
with an attention-grabbing headline.
(I)nterest: Get the user interested in your product by briefly describing
the most important benefit of using it.
(D)esire: Create immediate desire for your product with a discount, free
trial, or limited time offer.
(A)ction: End the ad with a call to action.
AIDA is a lot to fit into 165 characters. Write five or ten ads
until you’re able to fit a succinct sales pitch into the ad.
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Bidding on Facebook Ads
Like on any ad
network, strategic bidding can mean the difference between profit and a failed
test.
After you create your ad, Facebook will provide a suggested bid
range. When you’re just starting, set your bid near the low end of this range.
Your CTR will quickly start to dictate the price you’ll need to
pay for traffic. If your CTR is high, your suggested bids will decrease.
If your CTR is low, you’ll need to bid more for each click.
Optimize your ads and targets to continually increase your CTR.
In addition to click volume, your bid will also dictate how much
of your target audience, you’re able to reach.
Facebook provides a great chart for every campaign showing the
size of your target audience and how much of that audience you’ve reached.
Increasing your bid will help your ad reach more of your target
audience. If your ad is performing well but you’re reaching less than 75% of
your target audience, you can increase your bid to get more clicks.
If your audience penetration is high, increasing your budget will increase
your ad’s frequency: how many times a targeted user will see it.
Landing Pages for Facebook Ads
Getting a click is
only the beginning. You still need the visitor to convert.
Make
sure to send him to a targeted, high-converting landing page. You know their age, gender, and interests, so show
them a page that will solve their problems.
The
landing page should also contain the registration form or email submit box that
you’ll track it as a conversion.
Focus
the landing page on this action,
not the later sale. If you want visitors to sign up for your newsletter, show
them the benefits or offer a gift for their email.
How to Track Facebook Ads Performance
Facebook no longer
offers conversion tracking. Facebook’s Ads Manager is great for data within Facebook but can’t
provide information on users who have left the site.
To
properly track the performance of your Facebook campaigns, you’ll need to use
an analytics program like Google Analytics, or your back-end system. Tag your links using Google’s URL builder or your tracking
tags.
Conversion
Tracking
You can
track them using the utm_campaign parameter. Use the utm_content parameter to differentiate
between ads.
Ad-level
tracking is useful when testing eye-catching images and before you’ve
established a baseline CTR and conversion rate.
Performance
Tracking
You will also need
to monitor your performance within the Facebook interface. The most important
metric to track is the click-through rate. Your CTR affects both the number of
clicks you’ll receive and the amount you will pay per click.
Ads with
a low CTR will stop serving or become more expensive. Ads with a high CTR will
generate as many clicks as will fit within your budget. They will also cost
less. Keep a close eye on CTR by interests and ads to learn which audiences
work best and which ads resonate with them.
Keep in
mind: Even the best ad’s performance will decline over time. The smaller your
target audience is, the faster this will happen. Usually, you’ll see your
traffic start to drop off in 3-10 days.
When
this happens, refresh the ads with new images and copy. Duplicate your existing
ads then change the image and ad text.
Do not edit the
existing ad. Delete any existing ads not getting clicks. By the next day,
you’ll see the new ads accruing impressions and clicks.
Monitor
the images’ performance over time to see which generates the best CTR and
maintains their traffic the longest. You can rotate high-performing images back
in every few weeks until they stop getting clicked at all.
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