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Facebook advertising: go for it!

If you haven’t tried Facebook advertising, says Tara Dulake, do it now! You will generate new enquiries, reach new audiences and build your contact database.

Tara Dulake

Tara DulakeFacebook advertising lets businesses promote content and ads to specific target audiences. The cost will vary based on the reach or engagement required and the advert can be changed at any point depending on its performance.

Use eye-catching high resolution images so the quality shines through!

Facebook advertising isn’t a piece of cake, you need to test and trial what works for your business in order to make your adverts effective, however some of these top tips might just help you to get started on advertising to your local community.

HERE IS HOW TO GET STARTED:

1 Create a Facebook page and include all your business information on it.

2 Set up Facebook Ads Manager and input your billing details. You can reach this section by clicking “Manage Ads” in the drop-down menu on your Facebook account. There are three levels to Facebook’s campaign structure: Campaign, Ad Set and Ad. Campaign – this is the level at which you choose your objective.

3 Choose your objective Determine the aim of your advert before you start.

  • Do you want to reach a large audience? Choose ‘Reach’.
  • Do you want people to engage with your post? Choose ‘Engagement’.
  • Are you collecting data from them? Choose ‘Lead Generation’, or if you are looking to get them to convert on your website, choose ‘Conversions’.
TOP TIP

If you are aiming to build up your database of people, Facebook allows you to use the Lead Generation objective to add a form to your advert, helping you to collect valuable information from people interested in your business, or the services you provide.

4 Name your campaign based on the objective and audience you want to target. This will help to easily identify your adverts later if you decide to run more than one.

Ad Set – The Ad set level is where you create a target audience, a budget, schedule and placement strategy for your campaign.

5 Select your audience type Be specific on the audience you are targeting and determine which of the following targeting methods are most appropriate:

  • Advertising through Facebook imageLocation
  • Age
  • Interests
  • Gender
  • Languages
  • Education Level
  • Relationship Status
  • Employer
  • Whether they’re connected to your page
TOP TIP

One great aspect of Facebook Advertising is that you can target by location – by postcode or radius. This is great for targeting people who you know are moving within your local area.

6 Choose a budget that is going to maximise your return. A daily budget will spend the maximum amount you enter each day. If you select a lifetime budget, the amount you enter is the maximum you’ll pay during the lifetime of the advert.

7 Create a schedule for when your adverts are shown. The best times of the day to target people tend to be evenings and in commuting hours. Set the hours to the times your audiences are most likely to be online.

SCHEDULE TOP TIP

If you can check what day and times your posts have previously performed, you can use those insights to determine when you should schedule your adverts. You can also run your adverts for a week and check when the best times were and optimise your budget to post at the best times.

8 Choose your placement Now that you’ve decided which users you want to target and what you want them to do, it’s time to think about where to place your advert. There are three main locations on the site that you can choose to display your ad, each with their own pros and cons. Choose whether you want it on people’s desktop News Feed, mobile News Feed, right column, or on the audience network. The audience network is a social network that feeds into other apps and mobile sites. This allows Facebook to extend their Facebook ad campaigns off of Facebook.

9 Create the advert
Choose a format Here you can make the decision on the type of advert you want, whether it is a carousel with multiple images, a single image, a single video, or a slideshow.
Choose the content The text should include a call to action to make it enticing enough so that someone wants to click on the advert. Include your USPs. Why should someone choose you? Use eye-catching images and upload high-resolution images so that the quality of your advert comes through well.

TOP TIP

Rotate your ads regularly to avoid showing the same ad to the same person week-in week-out. You can create multiple ads under one campaign for you to test different ad copy.

June 12, 2017

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