Facebook has an unprecedented potential to expand your small business reach. And this can be achieved without breaking the bank, as the average cost-per-conversion of Facebook ads is 35% lower when compared to other forms of online advertising.

We have recently worked with a family law practice, based in North London, and they admitted to spending as little as £20 a week on Facebook ads and generating two new clients (not enquires!) a week!

But that’s not all. Facebook offers one of the best-targeted advertising programs available currently online. This is due to an overwhelming amount of personal information held by the platform. What does it mean for a small business owner? That you can be razor sharp with your campaigns when selecting an audience, with specifics like age, occupation, location or family circumstances.

So whether you are preparing your first Facebook campaign or need a refresher on the rules of Facebook advertising, we’ve got it covered. We’ve listed below 7 top tips on how to use Facebook ads to ensure success:

  1. Determine your objective. This is your very first step, even before you decide on how much you are willing to spend on your campaign. Clarify the main aim of your ad by selecting one of the following options:
  • Boost the number of likes – increasing the number of your page likes adds more credibility to your brand and extends the reach of your posts
  • Increase traffic to your website – main aim here is to drive visitors to a specific page within your site, i.e. your company blog. Users can click through the ad and land directly on your website
  • Page post engagement for promotion of specific posts – this ad can extend the reach of the post you already published to a wider Facebook audience, allowing you to generate more likes, shares or comments
  • Increase installs of your app – main aim is to increase the number of people using your mobile app
  • Boost attendance to your events – will allow you to gain more exposure for your upcoming events as well as generate responses from people you’ve sent invitations to
  • Increase website conversions by encouraging users to perform a certain activity on your site, i.e. download or subscription. This feature requires adding a Facebook pixel to your website
  • Offer claims- allows users to claim coupons. Can be very useful for finding new customers on Facebook. Everyone likes a bargain!

Remember that every time your target market takes the desired action, Facebook will charge you money. So be crystal clear on your objectives.

  1. Choose a name for your campaign

Facebook will mark your campaign with a default name, so make sure that you rename it to something meaningful to you, it will ensure clarity when you will be assessing different campaigns through reports.

  1. Set up the targeting – choosing your audience

This is a crucial step in your Facebook advertising journey, as you need to ensure that your ad is visible to the relevant audience. Facebook’s segmenting ability is second to none and can be done based on age, interests, location or relationship status, to name a few. The location feature is very specific, you can filter it down to city and postcode, example: London, Camden Town. You can event target your ads to users who recently moved to your area.

But that’s not all. You can take it a step further and create Custom Audiences for your Facebook ads, by using information from your internal database, like newsletter subscriptions, current client list or any other group of contacts, as long as you have their email addresses.

By customizing your ads you can step-up your personalization efforts and boost performance of your advertising efforts. When creating campaigns for custom audiences, try to create different ads for different demographic groups within your target market.

  1. Decide on the budget

You can set the budget for your add on daily or lifetime basis. Facebook also allows users to set up the start and end dates for their ads.

  1. Design your ad

Facebook gives you an option of adding more than one image to your add for the purpose of split testing. This allows the platform to measure the success rate of ads with each image and show the best-performing ad more often.

Remember that your ad can be changed after is has been created. Simply click ‘Edit’ next to the Creative area.

  1. Keep your ads fresh

The price of your campaign will vary depending on reach and engagement received by your ad. If Facebook users see the same add too often they are very likely to get bored and lose interest in your message. This has a direct impact on your spent, as when the click-through-rates decrease, the cost of each click goes up. To prevent this from happening rotate your ads every 5-7 days.

  1. Monitor your results

It’s important to monitor results of your advertising efforts in your Facebook Ads Manager. The tool provides a variety of insights, including the current status of your ad, results based on your ad’s objective, the reach of your ad, cost per engagement and the total spent. Reviewing  the progress of your ads on regular basis will help you to assess what type of ads work best for your audience.

If you haven’t included facebook advertising into your online marketing efforts, you should certainly consider it now, before this form of marketing will become too popular which will lead to more competition and increased prices.

Remember that while Facebook advertising is one of the best ways to advertise your brand online, in order to maximize business results on facebook you should combine it with quality, organic efforts. So that the audience that was driven to your page and a site will remain engaged through quality organic content.

 

 

 

 

Joanna Michaels

Founder of Beyond Social Buzz
Joanna is a digital marketer, specialising in Social Media Marketing for forward thinking businesses and professional firms looking for differentiation and engagement in today's competitive marketplace. She is a founder of Beyond Social Buzz, a leading digital marketing consultancy that assists small businesses and professional firms in their social media marketing journeys.

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