Facebook ads are an important digital marketing strategy to improve your sales performance. When implemented correctly, it could be a game-changing strategy to make your brand outstanding online.
However, it's a bit complicated to launch a Facebook advertising campaign. If you don't understand how to target your audience correctly, you may not get the expected results.
So in this article, I'm going to share with you all you need to know about Facebook ads. I will also share with you what makes an effective Facebook ad according to research.
How Does Facebook Ads Work?
They are different aspects of Facebook ads, depending on what you want to achieve. You can use it to promote your page, get users to react to your posts, and even use it to promote your website.
Even though Facebook's major focus these days is on native ads and keeping traffic on its website, you can still send users to your website from Facebook if you apply the right strategy.
One of the reasons Facebook ads are popular among marketers and brands is that it's detailed. It enables you to target your campaign based on demography, location, profile information, etc.
For instance, if you are selling a particular product to bachelors living in Miami, United States. You can quickly launch a Facebook campaign using location and demographic.
Generally, Facebook ads are not for every business. And this is one of the reasons why this social media advertising campaign sometimes fails. Before you use the platform for launching any campaign, do your research to ensure that the network is in alignment with your business model.
Unlike most other social media platforms, users on Facebook are there to connect with their friends and not find products. So, the ads' nature is more of a display than a search.
So, the platform works better when used to generate demands, not to fulfill it.
Two Important Things You Should Know Before You Launch a Facebook Ad
Facebook ads are not like other social media marketing strategies. Before you launch Facebook advertising campaigns, consider these two things;
Low-Friction Conversions
If you want your Facebook advertising campaign to be successful, you must use Low-Friction Conversions. What this means is that your campaign shouldn't be tailored towards sales.
Instead, focus on getting your target audience to perform a particular non-sales action like signing up to your newsletter or email list.
Let me give you a good example. A Facebook user who came to your website by clicking on your ads wasn't looking for your product.
And if you expect such a person to buy your product to increase your ads ROI, you are not likely to get such sales.
Do you know why? Most Facebook users are fickle and are likely to return to Facebook if you want them to take immediate purchase action.
But if you stick to non-sales conversion like signup for your service, fill out a short lead form, or submit an email address, you are likely to make sales in the long run.
How? You can always upsell such people through email marketing. But it depends on how creative you are with your emails. Again, if you are too busy to handle your email marketing activities yourself, you can hire some of the best email marketing service providers online.
If you are frequent on Facebook, you will see the Facebook campaigns of brands like Groupon, Appsumo, Fab, etc. Once you click on their ads, they don't sell anything to you immediately.
All they do is ask for your email. But they will upsell you with a deal later. And in the long run, you will patronize one of their services.
Business Model
You need to analyze your business model and see if it aligns with Facebook ads. From experience, the business models that work best for Facebook ads don't earn revenue from ads immediately. But they earn it over time.
So, always look at the bigger picture when running a Facebook ad campaign. Don't depend on Facebook to get one big purchase. Instead, use it to generate several smaller purchases.
Strategic Ways to Target Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are all about targeting. And if you aren't targeting your ads correctly, there's no way it can achieve the expected result. Below is how you target users on Facebook;
- Gender
- Age
- Interests
- Locations
- Relationship Status
- Languages
- Workplace
- Education
Before you launch your campaign, analyze each of these segments, and target those that are most relevant to your ideal audience.
For instance, if your existing customers are women between the ages of 25 and 41, you should base your targeting on age and gender. And if it seems profitable, you can expand it accordingly.
Similarly, location enables you to target users based on the country, state, and even zip code that you service.
Interest Targeting
Interest targeting is one of the most effective Facebook ads features. But guess what? Marketers often misused it, thus not getting the desired result. Generally, you have two options (Broad categories and precise interests) to choose from when creating a Facebook ad.
If you don't have Facebook ads experience, you may think broad interest is an efficient way to reach a larger audience.
But it's not true. Broad interest users are more expensive to acquire and always spend less compared to others. For better results, try to avoid broad categories.
However, if you work with precise interest targeting, you can target your Facebook ads based on the information on users' profiles. The information includes; their listed likes and interests, the pages they like, the apps they are using, etc.
You will always get a high ROI on your Facebook ads campaign when you use precise interest targeting.
Once you set up your campaign, the next thing you should do is to write an exceptional Facebook ad copy. Most times, your ad copy can go a long way to convince users to take action.
If you think the process is too complicated, you can hire some of the best Facebook advertising companies online to help you with your Facebook ad campaign.
What Makes An Effective Facebook Ad
Facebook is one of the most frequently used social media platforms for advertising campaigns. Daily, several brands and individual marketers worldwide use the platform to generate more leads, sell their products, and generally boost their bottom line.
You can use one of these top-rated lead capture softwares to capture leads from Facebook ads.
However, the increase in the demand for Facebook has made it more competitive and expensive. If you aren't strategic about your Facebook ads, you may just be throwing your money away.
Here's a new report from AdEspresso and Hubspot. The report analyzed over 100,000 Facebook ads from 1000 different companies. The essence of the analysis is to check what works best on Facebook.
Most Popular Ads
The 111,800 Facebook ads analyzed, 74.8% were link ads, 15.1% video ads, 8.2% photo ads, and 1.9% were other types of ads not specified.
From the statistics, you can see that most people prefer "Paid post link ads." Paid post link ads are a type of Facebook ads campaign in which you post a link with text, and a preview is generated based on your website.
If your campaign's purpose is to drive clicks to your website, this is a perfect campaign for you.
However, photo ads aren't popular among Facebook advertisers because you can't include a CTA button. It's basically to inform the audience.
But if the purpose of your advertising campaign is to engage your audience, not just send clicks to your website. Video ads are the perfect choice for you. That explains why they are becoming very popular these days.
What Should Be The Ideal Length of Your Ad Headline?
There are a lot of opinions about the ideal length of a Facebook ad. Some people think it should be short and attractive. While others believe it should be long enough to highlight your products' benefits.
However, the industry average for a headline length is 4 words. Of course, it may not be enough to get your message across. But it will inspire curiosity and grab attention; this will undoubtedly get people to click to learn more.
Show Sentiment or Neutral?
The sentimental analysis was carried out on the 111,800 ads analyzed by AdEspresso and Hubspot, and it was discovered that most marketers use slightly positive and neutral tones for Facebook ads.
There may be several reasons for this - it could be that neural ads work better on Facebook, or advertisers are adopting risk sensitivities strategies.
Again, studies show that Facebook users tend to remember emotional content easily. So, it's recommended you split a 70:20:10 between safe, moderately risky, and genuinely risky content.
Furthermore, you can use controversial content because of its potential to generate large amounts of publicity.
When used strategically, it can be very effective. But don't be too extreme with controversial content. Otherwise, the entire campaign could become counterproductive.
Add Your Domain URL
Facebook advertising campaigns are an excellent opportunity to promote your brand and domain. Most Facebook advertisers use this strategy to create awareness for their brands. And 11% of advertisers use the text options on the domain URL to further include text or tagline. This could have a positive effect on your ad.
But 25% of advertisers don't include domain on their ads. Sadly, this is a terrible mistake that could make you lose out from earning opportunities.
