Facebook Ads Explained
Facebook ads (and Instagram ads) have been around for a long time, but they are still undervalued in the marketplace due to a lack of mass adoption (yet).
Facebook Ads are extremely effective when it comes to reaching your ideal customers with your brand.
Facebook and Instagram are social media tools that allow people to connect with one another and be entertained and educated by different people and entities around the globe. There are more people using these platforms than there are people who are not.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but every action someone takes on social media is tracked and recorded. The actions and character traits create quite a remarkable digital persona. Using these attributes, advertisers are able to effectively communicate with people who are most likely to be interested in their brand, products and/or services.
Facebook and Instagram give us two main ways to advertise on the platforms:
- The simple Boosted content.
- The more complex backend of Facebook Ads Manager for acute targeting and ads management.
Boosted content.
Do you run a Facebook page? Have you ever seen that little blue ‘BOOST’ button? Have you ever received a notification suggesting that you should consider ‘boosting’ something? Boosting your social media content will shortcut the organic reach algorithm and will allow you to force-the-hand of the social media platform to show your content to people of your choosing. It will typically encourage personal engagement, video views and occasionally if you set it up right, more traffic to a website.
Facebook Ads Manager.
As soon as you plug in your credit card details to Facebook for even the smallest boosted post, you create a Facebook Ads Account by default. Alternatively, you can set one up from scratch by going to Facebook, hitting the drop-down menu from the little arrow in the top right corner of the screen, and clicking ‘Create Ads’.
In the Facebook Ads Manager, your screen will be filled with options to view Campaigns, Ad Sets and Ads. It is in here that you can very acutely manage, setup, target and track your ads in many fully-functional ways.
It can come across as somewhat complex if you’re unfamiliar, but they do their best to make it user-friendly. Clicking the green Create Ad button will take you on a journey to create your first ad, from the ‘backend’ of Facebook ads.
Campaign = Setting your Objective
Setting up your campaign tells Facebook ultimately what you would like to achieve from your ads. What would you like people to do? The 3 main categories are based on awareness for your brand, consideration of your brand, and the juicy conversion when it comes to buying from you.
Awareness: Brand Awareness, Reach.
Consideration: Traffic, Engagement, App Installs, Video Views, Lead Generation, Messages.
Conversion: Conversions, Catalogue Sales, Store Traffic.
Ad Set = Who to target
Setting up your Ad Set tells Facebook who to target, on what platforms you want to target them, and how much budget you would like to spend on targeting them. It’s here where you determine user location, age, demographics, interests and behaviours. Here you can also target people based on what they’ve already done (i.e. been to your website, viewed a product or watched a video). You’ll also determine where the ads will be seen (i.e. Facebook feeds, Instagram stories etc). You can also determine how much money you’ll spend on the campaign and when you want the campaign to run.
Ad = The Creative
Setting up your Ads will determine what will people see when they are targeted. Here you can set up an image/video/slideshow/collection-of-products. A headline, ad copy (text) and determine a link you’ll want people to be able to click. Make sure you’ve set up your Facebook Pixel and have is turned on here, too!
Within the parameters that you’ve defined, Facebook will do its best to show your ads to the best people within your audience, in order to get the best result for your budget. There’s a fine art to creating ads and over time you can get quite good at balancing targeting v budgets, creative options v results, and maximising the holistic customer journey.
Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions. We’ve been doing this a long time and are happy to help you on your journey.
Good luck and happy advertising!