Making the Most of Facebook Ads
Facebook has been our source for opportune stalking, promoting ourselves, promoting our businesses and overall wasting time for more than a decade now. Think about that. That’s 10 years. What were you like 10 years ago? Odds are you’ve changed, and yes, Facebook has too.
We used to love that Facebook had no ads. It was so clean compared to its predecessors MySpace and Friendster and probably some others that we don’t even remember. But if Facebook were to turn into the giant corporation it is today, netting nearly $11 Billion in ad sales this year, it had to turn to advertising. With so many companies finding value in advertising on Facebook, the question now is how does Facebook determine what ads to show to whom? How do they deliver ad impressions that really mean anything to businesses paying for ads?
Facebook is always changing its algorithm – that is, the way it determines what you as a user see in your news feed. When it comes to ads, there are two major components:
1. The Advertiser
The business placing the ad tells Facebook who they are looking to reach. Maybe it’s really specific like men aged 18-24 that live in Las Vegas, Nevada and are interested in football. Or, maybe it’s a broad target, like anyone over the age of 21 that lives in the US. Either way, this helps Facebook narrow down the audience.
2. The User’s Interests and Activity
Whenever you “like” a page or a post, or click on an ad or really do anything at all on Facebook, your interests and activities are being tracked. Facebook can determine an awful lot about you as a person just by analyzing what you look at on the site, and even off the site if you don’t have your security settings locked down.
Using these two things, Facebook determines what ads you see, hopefully only showing you ads that are relevant to you. Now, this isn’t always the case. As a female, today I saw an ad for Dollar Shave Club, clearly a men’s gig. Luckily Facebook has included some options so I can tell them I don’t want to see that ad again. And I haven’t.
Now that you know why you’re seeing certain ads, here’s how you can make the most of Facebook advertising for your business:
1. Determine your objective
What is it you want to accomplish with this ad? Is it to gain page likes or to promote a specific post? There are seven different types of ads on Facebook, so setting your goals prior to placing an ad is a must.
2. Know your target audience
Unless you’re Verizon or Wal-Mart, it probably isn’t the most efficient use of your money to do the shotgun approach and pay Facebook to feed your ad to everyone in the country. So narrow it down and get specific. The more specific you are in choosing your audience, the more qualified people will see it giving you the best bang for your buck.
3. Use a great photo
With the amount of ads people scroll through each day, yours needs to stand out with an awesome photo that makes people stop and look.
4. Use smart copy
Once you get people to stop and look at your ad, make sure the copy is something that incites further action. Whatever audience you’ve targeted, make sure this ad works with them.
5. Try multiple campaigns
You can run multiple ads at the same time, so start with a few different photos and some copy variations. Monitor to see which ones are working better than others. Remove the ads that don’t work and focus your money where it’s more successful.
Amy Demuth, Account Executive
@amydemuth
