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March 22, 2018

What to know before spending money on Facebook Ads

By NOW Marketing Group
Facebook-Ads_

Did you know a whopping 93 percent of marketers use Facebook Advertising regularly?! That’s a lot of people. Yet, there are still a lot of questions surrounding the ad platform, namely how marketers can maximize their money to result in some great ROI. The stakes are high. If you’re not optimizing ads, they can turn into wasted money. But, properly set up ads can be extremely valuable and get marketers lots of new customers or clients.

Luckily, the platform is pretty simple to set up. For a dollar a day, or about $35 a month, you can set up ads and have them autoroll. Boosting posts works similarly. Most people only do this, which does seem like an easy solution.

However, if you are looking to optimize and get the most out of your money, there are several things you need to be aware of before you hit that button and start your Facebook Advertising campaign. Otherwise, you could be wasting dollars. We’re going to break these considerations down so you can be prepared as you work through your new Facebook Ad.

These tips will help you reach your ideal target audience.

Some initial considerations:

  • Images are really effective and account for 75 to 90 percent of well-performing ads
  • Ad titles are most effective when they are four words, and 15 words is most effective for a link description
  • How long do you need to do a promotion for?

Who are you really targeting?

Before you think of any type of ad, think about who you want to attract. Who you want to attract will affect everything about the ad. These are your buyer personas and you can have as many as you’d like. Facebook will also walk you through this as part of the Audience Segmentation. But, you should determine these before you start setting up the ad. These are things like age, gender, location, languages, interest, and behaviors.

  • Who is your target persona(s)?
  • Are they hanging out on the platform?
  • What content do they like?
  • What is the best medium to deliver– Facebook, Instagram, Google, or FAN Ads

Build an ad persona for them:

  • What is there location?
  • What is there Age?
  • What is there Gender?
  • How many languages do they speak?
  • What are their interests?
  • What are their behaviors?
  • Do they follow a competitor?
  • Are you remarketing?
  • What do you want them to do?

If you have many personas you want to target, start with just one group and build from there. If you have a large segment of people you want to target, start by putting them into groups. Choose one persona for one specific ad, then another for a different ad. Starting small allows you to test out ads and make sure they’re going to perform well.

What should the design look like?

Design should easily and quickly convey what you’re trying to accomplish. It can be hard to convince people to leave their feed to go purchase them. That’s why it’s so important to get into into the right hands and in front of the right eyeballs. It also means you have to have good copy and an appealing (to your audience) design.

Considerations:

  • Have mobile in mind
  • Think about what is going to appeal to your persona
  • Formats can include: image, video, canvas, carousel, or slideshow
  • Each ad needs to match the platform it is running on
  • Clear calls-to-action work better: learn more (prefered CTA, works best), buy now, call now, download now, etc.
  • Use images that stand out– nothing cheesy or too stock photo-ish

Facebook also offers split A/B testing now. Choose two different ad copies and images, set it for how many days you’d like and once that’s over Facebook will run the ad that performed the best.

Are you Building an Ad Workflow?

You also need to plan out a clear path for your customers-to-be, including a follow-up. Say you use a “buy now” CTA. It needs to lead right to what product you’re offering and it needs to be super simple for them to add to cart and buy it.

Determine the flow of the customer journey

  • Where does the CTA take them?
  • What action will they follow?
  • What’s the follow-up?

If you are driving people back to the website, make sure you have Facebook’s Pixel on your site so you can track how your ads are performing. You also need to set goals in Google Analytics. This will let you know –in raw data– that what you’re doing is working.

But more importantly, are you targeting the right leads with the right message? Too often we try to target cold leads with a “buy now” type message. Not only are you wasting money but you’re potentially turning off people who would be willing to build a relationship with you if you approached the ad differently. For example, Amanda Bond, The Ad Strategist, says there is no marketing to new audiences with a selling approach or a pitch. In other words, no buy now! Instead, break up ads into a three-phase workflow: the introduction, the commit, and the close.

  • Connect– introduce yourself to new people
  • Commit– people who have engaged with you,
  • Close– retargeting people who have engaged with you

Just like any other relationship marketing technique, they have to know you and like you before they will buy from you. Amanda said to build the ad campaign backward, with the end in mind. Consider what three big objections do people have. Then make three ads based on that. She also said to test multiple versions of the same ad, different types of ads, and make sure you’re maximizing with the best performing ad that you’ve created. Highly consider remarketing to people who have engaged with you already on some level. For all new audiences who haven’t engaged with you before, present an ad that is more of an introduction of who you are and how you help.

How is your content written?

Your copy, creative, and “flow” (the user experience as they engage with your offer) should completely match your branding and the channel you’ve built. The copy should be natural– not like marketing copy or overly salesly. Talk to your audience as yourself and like they’re people (because they are!).

Guidelines:

  • Headline: Add a brief headline to tell people what your ad is about. I like to give something away free with the headline– you only have 25 characters to use here. Be wise.
  • Text: The text that appears about the ad is similar to a status on normal Facebook posts.
  • Call-to-Action (CTA): Facebook has a range of button call-to-actions you can use within your ad. The “Learn More” CTA converts the best.
  • News Feed Link Description: This appears below the Headline. Use this space to add additional text to emphasize why people should visit your website and to reinforce your CTA.

Final Thoughts

Start small and make sure you have a dedicated person who will be checking in and monitoring the success of the ad. Don’t set it and forget it! See what’s working, what isn’t, and improve each ad campaign you set. It takes time and intentionality. Once you have some metrics you can tweak as needed.

Visit here to start.


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Tags: Social Media Marketing

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