Guest blog post by Keran Smith is the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of a social media management agency, LYFE Marketing.
If
you have products to sell there is one thing you cannot get enough of:
low-cost exposure to your target audience. Luckily, Facebook has
over 968 million daily active users and is still one of the best
places to advertise a product and acquire new customers. In fact,
e-commerce brands advertising on Facebook typically see a 152% return on investment. Facebook’s advertising
platform contains a number of key features that make it worthwhile for any
e-commerce brand.
If
you sell products, and want to start advertising on Facebook like a social media marketing company, here is a guide on how to best advertise your
products on Facebook...
Use Facebook’s Power Editor Over Facebook’s Ads Manager.
Facebook
makes advertising very easy with its Ads Manager. The user interface is simple
and almost anyone could start advertising right away
with limited instructions needed. Unfortunately, the easiest
way is not always the most effective way. While Facebook’s Power Editor
may take more time to get used to, it provides a ton of features that
Facebook’s ads manager does not.
Here are a few features of Facebook's Power Editor:
•
Ability to create ads using multiple images
•
Ability to set a Display URL
•
More than 90 characters allowed in the Headline
•
Special characters allowed in the Headline
•
Enabling multiple tracking pixels
•
Bulk editing
Choose The Proper Objective
The
first step when creating an ad for your product is choosing the proper
objective for your ad campaign. Facebook offers a number of objectives.
Here are the top 3 objectives relevant to a product ad:
1. Clicks to Website: Ads
to encourage people to visit your site
2. Website
Conversion: Ads to promote a specific action on your site, such as
checkout
3. Page Post Engagement:
Ads that boost your posts and increase likes, comments, shares,
video plays and photo views
*Pro Tip: Use the Website Conversion objective and place Facebook’s
conversion pixel on your post check out page. This objective takes
optimization and analytics one step further by telling you exactly how many
conversions (sales) a particular Facebook ad has generated.
Input Your Budget and Ad Schedule
There
are two types of budgets to choose from: Daily Budget and Lifetime Budget.
A daily budget will allow you to safely spend a specific amount of money
each day on your ad(s). A lifetime budget will allow Facebook to spend as much
money as Facebook deems fit on a daily basis over the course of your ad
schedule.
Once
a budget has been chosen, select an ad start date and end date. If using a
lifetime budget, Facebook allow the option to run ads on a schedule -
specific days of the week and times of the day.
*Pro Tip: Start with a modest budget to test ad copy and targeting. Later,
optimize and increase your budget for the best combination of ad copy and
targeting.
Define Your Target Audience
Facebook
is one of the best advertising platforms when it comes to the ability to narrow
down to your exact buyer persona. While it is easy to reach a lot of
people with your ads, reaching the right people should be the mission when
targeting and Facebook makes it easy to do.
Here are the options for
targeting on Facebook:
•
Custom Audiences: Audiences that can be comprised
of email addresses, phone numbers, website visitors Facebook users IDs or
app user IDs you have collected over time.
•
Location: Countries, counties/regions, cities, ZIP/postal codes,
addresses or Designated Market Areas ® to show or exclude your ad to
•
Age: Minimum and maximum age of your target audience
•
Gender: Choice between men, women, or both
•
Connections: People who have a specific kind of connection to your Page,
app or event.
•
Language: Specific language of your target audience
•
Interest: People who have a specific kind of connection to your Page,
app or event.
•
Behavior: People based on purchase behaviors or intents, device usage
and more.
*Pro Tip: Make use of Facebook’s “Behavior” option when targeting. This allows you
to narrow down your targeting further. Under “Purchase Behavior” are a
number of categories in which your target audience is frequent purchases of,
including clothing, pets products, and much more.
Create Your Ad
When
creating your ad there are a few things you must keep in mind. First,
Facebook's suggested ad size is 1,200 x 628 pixels. Secondly, Facebook does not
allow for more than 20% use of text within your advertised image. How do you
know if your image contains more than 20% text? Use Facebook’s grid tool to check; it will save a
ton of time on headaches and frustration.
Here are the steps to
creating an ad:
1. Connect the Facebook page
you want to advertise from
2. Create an ad or use an
existing post on your page
3. Enter the website URL you
want to promote. Ex: http://www.example.com/page
4. Enter an optional Display
URL
5. Enter text that explains
to the target audience what the ad is about
6. Enter a brief
headline
7. Provide a description for
the link and why people would click
8. Choose and image or
multiple images
9. Add a
call-to-action button
10. If available, choose a conversion the appropriate conversion pixel
to track conversions
*Pro Tip: Create 3-4 different ads that include different pictures and
ad copy. Never assume what combination will work the best for your target
audience. Let the data tell you which combination works the best.
Track and Analyze Results
Once
the ad campaign has launched, be sure to monitor the results of the ads
with Facebook reports on a daily basis, at the least. Check the cost
per click, number of conversions, number of clicks, reach,
demographics of target audience and cost - all in an effort to determine
the most effective ad or clues on how to optimize the targeting
and/or copy for the best results.
*Pro Tip: Turn off underperforming ads as quickly as possible. When running an ad
with the Website Conversion objective, the ad that has the most conversions is
the ad that is the most effective, not the ad with the lowest cost.
Good
luck and good sales!
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