Facebook Ads are such a powerful way to target your ideal customers –
I love them!
In this blog I’ll reveal my 8 top tips for Facebook advertising.
But before I begin, let me tell you the difference between Facebook Ads and Boosting a post. Boosting posts is a waste of your money – you rarely see a return on your investment. When you boost a post, Facebook will send it to people they know will engage and interact with it making it look as through you’ve had great results, with lots of likes and clicks – but these are not necessarily the people who will buy your product or use your service.
When you create a Facebook Ad you get to choose who you want to target and the actions, they are likely to take such as click a link or watch a video. The options are incredible, much wider that when you just boost a post. For example you can target mums with teenagers, who like tennis but don’t like football and have visited your website in the last 180 days – the options are endless. Remember – Facebook holds an immense amount of data based on what we tell it, what we post and who we follow. A marketer’s dream!
The ads will be seen on your targeted audience’s Facebook newsfeed, in their stories, on their Instagram feed, they can also be seen on the right-hand side of a screen – they go further afield than just Facebook itself. Exciting isn’t it?
Top Tip #1 Serve your Facebook Ads to your followers
The term ‘serve’ is a ‘techy phrase’ for where you place your Facebook advert, ie who sees them.
Let’s start with one of the best Facebook advertising tips, but one that isn’t always the most obvious – make sure that your current followers see your ad! You already know that your followers are interested in what you have to offer, you have already started to build trusted relationships with them BUT only around 3-8% of them see your ‘regular’ posts. Creating an ad and targeting your existing followers will massively increase the chances of them seeing your post.
I’d suggest you steer clear of selecting a wide audience and definitely avoid a sales pitch! Think about how you reacted last time a company you have never heard of popped up in your newsfeed trying to sell you something – it’s very off-putting isn’t it?
Top Tip #2 Set up your Facebook pixel
Don’t worry, it’s easier than it sounds and 100% worth it.
Your Facebook pixel records who visits your website or landing page – this enables you to target these visitors with your advert. When people visit your website it’s usually with an intent to make a purchase; seeing a Facebook ad is often the ‘gentle nudge’ they need to actually commit and become a customer of yours. You can find out how to create a pixel by clicking here.
Top Tip #3 A ‘warm’ audience performs better
Think of this Facebook page advertising tip as ‘warming’ up an audience at a live concert, building them up for the main event!
This Facebook page ad tip is to be used when you select an audience who may not have heard of you or your business. To get them to stop scrolling and take notice of your ad make sure you’ve created a great introduction. This could be an amazing initial offer or some information that teases their curiosity into finding out more about you.
Blatantly selling to a cold audience doesn’t often work on social media so don’t do it!
Here’s what I’m doing at the moment. I’m using a Facebook ad to make people aware of my new online course teaching people how to set up and manage a successful Facebook business page. In my advert I don’t use any sales pitches instead I offer them something useful which adds value. I have also chosen to target people who are not admins of business pages as they are likely to have little or no experience in this area and need support. If they are interested, they can click through to view my website.
You see, no hard sell, just a helpful and influential way of turning them into customers.
Top Tip #4 Invite to like page
When you run an ad, you’ll notice that the post gets a lot more likes and comments than usual – this feels great!
One of my favourite Facebook advertising tips for small businesses is to use these likes and comments to your advantage. It’s Facebook ads best practice to invite these people to like your page – easily done in just one click!
This is one of the most effective ways of growing your page with the target audience you want.
Top Tip #5 Test different images and content
Wondering how to improve Facebook ads? Test them out and see for yourself.
I don’t recommend just selecting one audience group and sending one advert. You’ll never get to the bottom of it, if the ad didn’t do well.
What you should do is set up different audiences – maybe mix it up and set one for men and another for women. Which audience gives you the better return on investment – there’s only one way to find out and that’s to give it a go and record your results.
And it’s not just the audience you can test, there are a variety of elements you can test with Facebook Ad such as images, ad type, ad placement, landing pages etc. It could be that your perfectly targeted audience prefer to see a carousel of moving images rather than a short video. Get creative and identify what works best
Top Tip #6 Make sure your Landing Page speaks to the ad’s audience
Let’s set the scene, shall we? You’re organising a wedding and an advert pops up on your newsfeed for vintage wedding cars – brilliant, this is just what you are after – so you click on the ‘call to action’ button directing you to the website.
But when you get to the website, there are no beautiful images of brides stepping out of gorgeous vintage cars set in front of fairy-tale castles. Instead, it’s a garage with bland pictures of a row of cars.
Hmmm, that’s not going to inspire or influence a sale. If the ad talks about ‘the perfection addition to the best day of your life’ – make sure that your landing page is themed the same way.
Top Tip #7 Get your Facebook Business account in great shape
We’ve all done it. We see an ad then click through to have a look at what else the company has posted on their Facebook business page. We’re checking for credibility, checking what else they do, and maybe even checking out their reviews.
If your page isn’t up to scratch, and your posts are infrequent and dull, the recipient of the advert won’t waste any more of their time checking out what you have to offer – they won’t like your page.
Also, Facebook favours accounts who are active and managed successfully, you may find that the ads you are offered are cheaper too. Winner winner!
If you are still unsure, or even wondering if your business needs a Facebook page, why not have a read of my blog Why B2B’s should be on Facebook? It will give you a great insight to the importance of a Facebook business page. Presence is everything.
Top Tip #8 Review your posts that have performed well
The last of my Facebook advertising tips for beginners encourages you to review your past posts on your Facebook Page. Facebook analytics are a great source of marketing information and they’re free! You just need to know where to look.
You can find out how all of your posts have performed: the number of reactions, comments and shares and their reach. From this data you can identify the formula that works for your audience – maybe they like a certain kind of image, a certain style of content or it could be that they love to interact when you post a video.
Replicate what works well organically (on your Facebook page that you haven’t spent money on advertising) and place the favoured elements into your ad. Don’t worry about repetition either as your ads don’t appear on your timeline (unlike Boosts).
Look what has really engaged your audience in the past and repurpose this for your ad campaign.
My Online Facebook business page course
I really hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about my Facebook page advertising tips 2020 and I’ve got you thinking about getting your Facebook business page in the best shape. For an in-depth tutorial on building the right Facebook ads for your business and best possible methods of promotion why not check out my Facebook Ads online workshop for beginners?
Always make sure your Facebook page is set up correctly and performing well organically (without paid ads) before you invest in advertising.
If it’s not then my online course “Creating and Managing Successful Facebook Business pages” guides you through everything you need to know in convenient non-techy, bite-sized video tutorials – everything from getting the set up right for your business, engagement techniques, how to rank high in searches and how to use the free data to monitor your success. Get this right and you may never need to advertise on Facebook!
Bye for now,
Becs
