Facebook Advertising allows you to target a precise audience for your ad from an audience of up to 800 million people. The unique feature Facebook has is it lets you reach your target customers by selecting your audience based on age, location and interests. Facebook advertising is very cost effective. It allows you to set the daily budget you are comfortable with, adjust your daily budget at any time and you only pay when people click (CPC) or see your advert (CPM).
Here’s how simple it is:
Step 1 – Identify Your Goals. Start by defining what you want to promote (Page, Event, App, Website), and the goals you want to achieve. It’s recommended to advertise using a Facebook Page, Event, or App. These ads include the names of friends who have liked it, making them more engaging and relevant
Step 2 – Target the Right People. Think about the profiles (timelines) of the people you want to reach with your ads, and select criteria based on what your audience is interested in, instead of what they might be looking to buy. You can target by:
Location, Language, Education, and Work
Age, Gender, Birthday, and Relationship Status
Likes & Interests
Friends of Connections
Connections
Keep an eye on your ad’s estimate reach. Adjust your criteria to target a relevant audience while keeping estimated impressions large enough to capture your full audience.
Step 3 – Design an Engaging Ad. Create multiple versions of your ads with different images and body copy to find out which combinations are most effective. Like split testing ads in adwords.Visit your Ads Manager to update your ads regularly with new images and body copy to prevent them from going stale.
Step 4 – Manage Your Budget. Set a budget that will allow you to effectively reach your target audience, and check your campaign performance often. Determine if you want to pay on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Set the maximum amount you want to pay each day – once you hit your daily budget your ad will no longer show. Bid prices fluctuate often. Set a bid within or above the suggested range, and check your Ads Manager often to update it when the suggested range changes. If one of your ads is getting higher impressions or clicks, make sure it is shown to more people by increasing its daily budget and bid price.
Step 5 – Review and Improve. Your Ads Manager offers detailed metrics and reports to help you improve your ad performance. Continue to check your Ads Manager after you launch your campaigns to create, edit, and optimize them.
Facebook Ads Versus AdWord Ads
The Facebook ad creation process is different from AdWords. You target people’s interests rather than their search phrases. You’re targeting people based more on who they are than on what they’re looking for right now.
If you get the interest targets right, you can reach a much larger audience of prospects on Facebook than you can on AdWords. The problem with trying to reach larger audiences with AdWords is that the more general your search term, the more expensive the clicks can be.
Facebook advertising uses the same inverse relationship between CTR and CPC, but the average CPC is much lower, about 1/3rd of AdWords’ average CPC.
As stated by Perry Marshall, both Google Adwords and Facebook Ads are very different, with Adwords the conversation is with the customers head and with Facebook the conversation is with their heart.
Advantages
Facebook allows you to reach the right people at the right time. It also gives you an insight into who they are and what they are interested in. If you know these details all you have to do is alter your ad copy to suit your target audience. With Facebook Advertising you’re getting real people with a real interest in your products.
Example: Facebook Adverts provided CM Photographic with the ability to target its exact demographic — 24-30-year-old women whose relationship status on Facebook indicated that they were engaged. Over 12 months, CM Photographics generated nearly $40,000 in revenue directly from a $600 advertising investment on Facebook. Of the Facebook users who were directed to CM Photographics’ website from the adverts, 60% became qualified leads and actively expressed interest in more information.
Facebook advertising provides flexible pricing, real-time suggested bids and provide guidance for cost-effective advert campaigns.
Example: Facebook helped StorQuest target a specific audience and offer a solution for their specific needs. Offering college students self storage right at the end of the semester with Facebook Adverts helped StorQuest post record-breaking student occupancy rates. The results from StorQuest’s Facebook advert campaign were one of their highest performing online advertising efforts. They had over 50% increase in total rentals versus the previous year at the same store. They had a 10% conversion rate from visits originating from Facebook Adverts. Overall a $1.25 CPC delivered $10.25 cost per lead.
Combining marketing solutions on Facebook for a positive ROI. When you have a broader presence on Facebook with Facebook pages or Facebook events plus adverts for instance, you can turn your advertising message into a trusted referral by including content from a user’s friends who are already affiliated with your products.
Example: ANA took this approach by creating a Facebook page to acquire interested users for ongoing messaging opportunities and developing a compelling advertising campaign. ANA used a creative grouping of keywords to target advertising to users specifically interested in travelling and Japanese culture and developed creative adverts that grabbed the attention of their audience. Average campaigns for ANA result in CTR of 8–12%. Facebook Adverts resulted in a 25% CTR. Conversions resulted in positive ROI which is unique for ANA considering their product is not an impulse purchase for most people and Japan is not traditionally seen as a leisure destination.
Disadvantages
On the con side, with the Facebook ad audience, you may not get a sale right away. You don’t know if they want what you offer right now.
Also when socialising, people are not in buyer mode as opposed to when people are searching on the internet, they are usually looking for something.
Why Facebook Ads Now? The most important point to consider right now is that Facebook traffic is one third the cost of AdWords traffic. We don’t know how long it will stay this cheap. Also, competition is not very strong. This is exactly the right time to get in and take advantage of it.
Facebook seems to be a good choice if you’re trying to build some hype around your product or company or if you already have an existing fan base, Google Adwords may be a better choice if you don’t.
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