Industry Insights

Facebook advertising has seen quite a few big changes in the last few years. The ability to target an audience and gain specific insights from ads run in the past are a few of the reasons Facebook ads are gaining popularity. While Facebook provides an excellent platform for advertising your business, not all businesses are seeing the results they had expected. Facebook is different from other advertising platforms, so you need to be aware of how their system operates and use those differences to your advantage. Here are just a few of the secrets to becoming a Facebook advertising master.

 

Make Ads that People Want to Click

The idea that your audience could potentially enjoy seeing your ads may seem odd but consider the Super Bowl. Their halftime ads are creative, expensive and--most importantly--have a huge audience. The reason viewers look forward to these ads is that they are very entertaining and unique commercials. They also have something most ads don't, and that is anticipation. People look forward to seeing them.

How can you design ads that your audience looks forward to seeing? You must be creative. You could offer new classified content, only shown to those who click on your ads. Once your audience discovers they can receive valuable content not found on any other pages you have, they will anticipate your ads. You can even announce that those who click on the ad can opt into a special "members only" club that offers content just for them.

 

Test Your Facebook Ads and Try New Things

What works with some audiences may not work for others. Every potential market for your business has its own characteristics, so one type of ad will not work for everyone. This is why it is important to test your ads. You need to try out different ad types to find out which ones will be the most effective. Experience is the greatest teacher.

When you test your ads, you are bound to have some missteps, and if you see them as failures you may be discouraged. If you see them as a chance to gain knowledge, you will be more comfortable testing out different methods and trying new concepts and strategies. Eventually, you will discover ideas that are novel and effective, and that will make the testing worthwhile.

Some suggestions on what aspects to test can be found in the Facebook Ads Manager; let the menu be your guide. Play with the different objectives available, such as the ad placement, schedule and bid per click options. The Ads Manager has many settings you can change to personalise your ad with a variety of different configurations.

Testing does not have to be expensive. You can even use different social media platforms, like Twitter, to gain valuable but inexpensive information regarding your target audience's reactions to your ads. When you run an ad on Twitter, even an ad as modest as 5 dollars, it will provide information on the people who clicked on your ad, such as what interests those users have in common. Only Twitter provides this extra information, but you can use what you learn to adjust your Facebook marketing.

 

Use Facebook Ad Reports to Maximise Value

Your business stands to benefit when you understand and utilise the knowledge gained from the Facebook ad reports.  After you have run several different combinations of ad objectives and ad placements, you can make the best use of these reports. These Facebook ad reports can give you details about which ad placement performed the best out of your selected campaigns. The reports can also break the results down by the objectives you chose for each ad. You can cross reference the two pieces of data to find a winning combination.

These reports will also show you what a conversion or a click for each combination cost you. That way you can know what is the most cost-effective combination. Some combinations may be more expensive, such as targeting desktop users, but desktop users may also have the highest conversion rates, which drive the per conversion cost down. So the campaign initially looks more expensive but is actually a better value.

The Facebook ad reports also let you see ad performance by country, state and region, so you know where your ad is making an impact and where to stop spending money.

The ad reports can show you not only who clicked on your ad and engaged with the subject of the ad, but it can show you where else they clicked and the additional conversions the ad made. For example, if you run an ad offering exclusive content in exchange for an email address, the ad manager will show you who accepted your offer, but it will also show you where else that customer clicked and any other conversions made. Even if the person did not accept the offer made in the ad, the report can show where they did click and what they ultimately did.

 

Use Audience Insights

Facebook Audience Insights is a free tool that is available to page owners. It allows you to get to know your Facebook audience by providing you with a breakdown of their demographics, including age, gender, lifestyle, relationship status, job title and liked pages. You didn't think you put all of that personal information on your Facebook profile page for friends to see, did you? Much of the data provided to Facebook by its users is used by businesses for advertising purposes. These insights can be seen in the ad manager of your Facebook page.

Advertising on Facebook doesn't need to be difficult. Using these insider tips will not only give you greater insight into your audience but also the areas where your money is best spent. By creating captivating ad campaigns and using Facebook's ad tools, you'll be working smarter, not harder.