Facebook is one of the most popular social media sites, and for a good reason. It’s a great way to stay in touch with friends and family, share what you’re up to on any given day, and learn more about your favorite brands. But did you know that Facebook ads can be an effective tool for business owners too?
By offering businesses countless possibilities for targeting their audience, Facebook has become a popular platform to get your business noticed by people you wouldn’t necessarily be able to reach through other means.
Why Do People Like Facebook Ads?
Facebook advertising offers business owners numerous targeting opportunities. People can target not only by location (countries, provinces/states, cities, and even postal/zip codes) but by interests, lifestyles, jobs, industries, traits, or specific life events. In addition, you can promote pretty much any content that matches your business using Facebook advertising tools. Not to mention Facebook advertising costs tend to be slightly cheaper per click than Google Adwords. So if you combine Facebook’s enormous audience, fantastic targeting options, and price point, it comes to light why Facebook advertisements are truly a powerful tool for marketing.
What are Facebook Ads?
Facebook ads are a way of promoting your business to your target audience on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and audience networks.
You’ll find two types of paid advertising: boosted posts and the typical Facebook Advertisements.
What is a Boosted Post?
A boosted post is when you promote an already existing post from your Facebook business page.
Boosted posts are more limited in certain customized settings like ad placement and audience targeting. They are also not created in Facebook Ads Manager. To create a boosted post, you’ll need to go to your Facebook business page.
You’ll be asked 3 things:
- Who you want to reach
- Your max budget
- How long do you want to run your post
When you boost a post, it will show up on your audience’s news feed as an sponsored post.
What is a Facebook Ad?
Facebook ads are created through Facebook ads manager and offer more advanced customization solutions. Think of it as a typical ad where there are different ad objectives and more fields to customize, where a boosted post may optimize for page likes, comments, and shares. Facebook ads can optimize for app installs, website conversions, video views, page visits, shop orders, and more.
There are a few different types that you can create. There are single image ads (video or image), carousel (2 or more images/videos), and collection. More on this later on.
When to use Facebook Ads vs Boosted Posts?
First, you need to identify what the goal of your ad is. Your campaign objective will guide the type of targeting you should use.
If you’re trying to sell something, you’ll want to focus on conversions through your ads. If you are trying to get more page likes, then boosted posts are the better option.
What is Facebook Ads Manager?
The Facebook ecosystem can be confusing to someone who is first starting. The Facebook Ads Manager is where you will go to create and manage your ads. Don’t get this confused with Facebook Business Manager. That is a separate tool. The Facebook Business Manager or Facebook Business Suite is a tool that lets you manage your Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger accounts from one single place. You can find your Facebook Ads Manager within your Facebook Business Manager. But not vice versa.
How To Set Up Facebook Ad Account
- Go to Facebook Ads Manager
- Click on “Go to Ads Manager”
That should take you to a home screen where your ads would be.
Next, you’ll need to add your billing information
- You can do so by clicking the 3 parallel lines on the right-hand side near the top
- Click “Billing” under “Manage Business”
- Follow the steps to add your information.
You’re ready to set up your ad. Back on the home screen page click on the green button labeled “create”
5 Steps to Creating A Facebook Ad Campaign
1. Choose your Facebook Campaign Objective
You want to identify what the goal of your ad campaign is. What is your Facebook advertising strategy? If you’re looking for more leads, then lead generation would be your answer. If you’re looking for website traffic, then select traffic. If your goal is online sales, then choose catalog sales, etc.
2. Fill Out Your Facebook Campaign Details and Information
Facebook breaks up your ad into 3 different levels. The campaign, ad set, and ads. Similar to Google AdWords.
The first step is filling out the information at your campaign level. Give your Facebook ads campaign a name, category (if applicable), and if you want to do AB testing.
If you plan on doing multiple ad sets, you may want to turn on “campaign budget optimization” to ensure your ad budget gets distributed evenly across all the ad sets. Or if you want to set a specific budget for each ad set, then keep it turned off.
If you do decide to turn it on, Facebook will ask for a budget. There are two options for you: daily budget or lifetime budget. The daily budget is how much you want to spend each day. The lifetime budget is how much you want to spend in total for the ad campaign.
3. Define Your Facebook Campaign’s Audience
Next, put in the information at the ad set level. Give it a name, choose your Facebook business page, add in budget information (if you have campaign budget optimization turned off), add the schedule, audience network and characteristics, and ad delivery.
The crucial part of this step is adding the characteristics of your audience. This includes age, gender, location, interests, and behavior. This will tell Facebook who they should be showing your ad to.
Finally, select your ad delivery. Facebook automatically selects automatic ad placements. This will let Facebook place your ad on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and its other network. Or you can choose manual ad placements if you want to decide where your ad gets placed. For example, if you only want your ads to show up on Facebook and not Instagram.
4. Build Your Facebook Ad
Finally, you’ll want to build your actual ad. You’ll begin by giving a name to your ad.
Next, you’ll select your ad format. There are 3 different formats: single image or video ads, carousel ads, and collection ads. Single image ads, as their name suggests, only have one photo or video. Carousel ads have 2 or more scrollable images or videos. Finally, collection ads are a bit different. It includes a cover image or video followed by 3 product images. When somebody taps on your ad, they will see an instant experience, a full-screen landing page that drives engagement and nurtures interest and intent.
Usually, stores that are advertising specific products will opt for carousel or collection ads. Deciding which ad format to use depends on what you’re trying to promote.
Next, you’ll put in your content. There are two places where you’ll need to put in your copy. The primary text and headline. These two places will be standard across the different ad formats. If you choose to go with single image or carousel ads, you’ll also have the option of adding in a description and URL link.
Keep your primary text short and simple, making sure you talk about your product or service. Your headline should be a call to action and be enticing enough to get people to click on your ad.
If applicable, add a description. Here you’ll include any other information you want to let your potential customers know about.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you’ll see your Facebook ad preview. You’ll see how your Facebook ads (or ad) look like on a mobile news feed, desktop news feed, and more.
If applicable, you can also activate your Facebook pixel. This will only be useful if your ad is optimized for website visitors or conversions. Otherwise, leave the Facebook pixel off.
5. Click Publish
You’re done. It will take Facebook 1-2 days to review your ad and start running it.
Monitoring Your Facebook Ads
Once your Facebook ads have been running, you’ll want to check back on them periodically. Use the charts that Facebook provides to see your Facebook ad specs. If you have more than one ad set, you’ll be able to see which one is your best Facebook ad. From there, you can make adjustments to the others so that all of your ad sets are fully optimized.
Facebook ads can be a valuable tool for any marketer, but they only work if you know how to use them. Hopefully this, Facebook ads tutorial should make it easier for you to create and launch your own effective Facebook ad campaign!