You’ve been running your business for a while now and it’s finally starting to grow, but the word-of-mouth advertising has run dry and you’re stuck on how to attract new customers. You could take to the papers, but that’s a very outdated and ineffective form of advertising.
Well, that’s where Facebook ads come in. Facebook’s advertising platform is a wonderful way to reach millions of new customers and sell your business to the world.
That being said, you do have to know how to get the most out of them. They may seem confusing at first, but stick with this marketing guide and you’ll be more knowledgable about how to run your next ad campaign.
1. Establish a Goal
Before you even begin to think about paying for your Facebook marketing campaign, you need to think about what it is that you are trying to achieve with your ads.
Are you after more traffic for your website? More leads for sales? Better brand awareness. Your goal is personal to you and can be anything, but an ad run for the sake of it will be disjointed, disorganized, and it won’t land.
An unclear vision or set of goals is one of the main reasons for a Facebook ad not delivering. Having a goal will also help you effectively analyze and measure the effectiveness of your ad run.
2. Targeting
Once you’ve got your goal, you can start to determine your target audience. Think about your goals, and think of the kind of people that you’re trying to communicate with via your ad.
If you’re having trouble identifying your target audience, then try asking yourself some questions and doing a mind map. Some questions you can answer to find your targets are:
- How old are they?
- Where do they live?
- What are their interests?
- What do they all have in common?
- How much are they willing to spend?
- Are they single? Married?
- Do they have children?
There will be a load more questions to ask yourself that relate to your ad and your business specifically, but these are a good place to start.
3. Being Consistent Counts
Consistency is crucial to all things in business, not just your ad campaigns. Being consistent is how you hammer home the campaign and really make it count. But when we say ‘be consistent,’ what do we mean exactly?
Well, for starters, try to keep your ad budget consistent. Know how much you want to spend for your ad or your campaign, and stick to that. Don’t start overspending or trying to skimp.
Secondly, you need to keep the actual ads themselves consistent. Use the same tone of voice and aesthetic style.
4. Test Test Test
Once your ad is ready to go, don’t just throw it out into the world and walk away from it. You have to test your ads. Launch the ads and analyze how you’re doing.
What’s working well? What could be improved? Who is interacting? How are they interacting? These are all questions you should be asking yourself when testing a new ad.
The data you gather when testing your ad will be absolutely invaluable and can be used to refine your ad until you have the perfect campaign.
5. Scattergun Approach
If you have the budget for it, don’t just run one ad. You want to run and test a variety of different ads to give your campaign the best chance of success. There are a couple of things you can do here to cast a wide net.
The first thing you can do is to use different images and copy. You’re trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t, so try a variety of ads and analyze once it’s been out there for a while. Don’t go too far the other way though. You still want your ads to have stylistic uniformity.
The second thing you can do is try different types of adverts. Try a carousel, but then also launch a lead generation ad, and see what works. Facebook ads are great for having a variety of different settings and options, so don’t feel the need to limit yourself.
6. Assets and Updates
Stay on top of your ad campaign once it has started. Use the Facebook ads manager tool to keep track of how your ads are doing, and make any changes that you feel you need to make after analyzing the data.
Keep track of your spend so that you can ensure that you’re staying within budget. Ad campaigns are constantly evolving beasts and being static will cause your campaign to suffer.
7. Copy and Images
Take your time with the images and your copy. Your images should be striking, inviting, different, and on-brand. If you run a rustic plant shop, don’t use a futuristic design on all your images, for example.
Your images are the first things that your targets will see, so make them interesting. Your copy should also be brand appropriate and people should want to read it. Don’t go too over the top with lots of copy.
8. Track
After all the testing and refining, you should continue to track your ads regularly. Determine what you think would be a successful return on investment for your campaign, and make sure that you get there.
And if you’re coming to the end of your budget and the end your campaign, use your tracking data to learn lessons about what you should do moving on to the next campaign.
Facebook Ads Demystified
Facebook ads can be confusing if you don’t know what you’re doing. But with a bit of information and the marketing tips listed above, you can break down the jargon and start running an ad campaign that will land.
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