Clarify your objective.
Your objective should be clear and specific, so it’s easier for you to measure your success. If you want more people to sign up for a new membership program in the next 3-6 months, that’s great! But how many? What happens if you don’t reach that goal? How does that make you feel?
Defining an objective is also a good way of setting boundaries for yourself so that when your Facebook ad campaign isn’t performing as expected, you can look back at the goals and see where things went wrong or what needs work. It’ll help keep your head from spinning when something goes awry.
If running an ad campaign seems like too much work, remember this: just because someone else has run an effective campaign doesn’t mean their approach will be suitable for your business or even applicable to what you’re doing now. Focus on defining your objectives before starting—it’s much better than blindly copying other people’s strategies and hoping they’ll work out well for you!
Build a custom audience.
- Create a custom audience from your website visitors:
If you have an eCommerce site, this tactic allows you to create a custom audience of people who have visited your website (and not necessarily made a purchase) and target them with ads on Facebook or Instagram. This helps you reach the people most interested in what your business has to offer without spending money on ads that may not work for them. The best part is that these prospects are already familiar with your products, so they’re more likely to buy when they see an ad!
- Create a custom audience from your email list:
This strategy works well if you’re selling products, services, or subscriptions online and have an email list associated with those purchases through Shopify, MailChimp, or another email marketing platform. Creating targeted ads based on visitors’ activity is great because it lets you show only relevant content while saving time creating new posts that might not be relevant enough for those particular users yet (e.g., if they’ve never commented before). If there are any questions about how exactly this process works once all of the steps have been completed successfully, then feel free as always
Create lookalike audiences.
Create lookalike audiences.
Lookalike audiences allow you to target users similar to your current customers, which is a great way to target new customers. Facebook and Instagram have algorithms that try to understand the behavior of existing users and then determine what other people might be interested in based on that information. They can then show your ads specifically to those similar people, allowing you to expand your reach without paying more.
The only downside is that they’re not always able to find enough people who are exactly like those already engaging with your brand, so they’ll sometimes include some less-than-ideal matches (like older men who like NFL teams). If this happens, though, it’s easy enough for you to just delete those bad matches from the audience through Ads Manager or Power Editor (depending on which platform you use).
Set your budgets and schedule.
Now it’s time to start setting your ad budgets and schedules. There are three main factors to consider when doing so:
- Ad frequency. This refers to the likelihood of your ads appearing in someone’s feed. You can set this at a shallow rate (1-3%) or as high as 20%. The lower you go, the more likely people will see your ad; however, if there are too many ads in their feed, they’ll be turned off and stop paying attention altogether.
- Delivery type (e.g., automatic vs. manual). Automated means that Facebook will run your ads even when no one is watching or clicking on them—which is costly but can help boost exposure for new products or services. Manual delivery only happens after someone has interacted with an ad by liking or commenting on it or sharing it with their friends via social media channels such as Instagram Stories, WhatsApp Messenger, and Messenger Day Platform.
Choose your ad format and content.
Next, you’ll want to decide on your ad format and content.
- Choose the correct ad format. Facebook and Instagram offer four distinct options for ads: Text Ads, Carousel Ads, Video Ads, and Photo Ads (Facebook only). Each has its strengths and weaknesses; choose the one that best fits your goals.
- Choose the right content. Make sure what you’re showing in an image is relevant to your product or service—it should tee up a conversation about why someone would want what you have to offer them (and not just be a pretty picture).
Review, edit, and publish your ad campaign.
Once you’ve created and published your ads, it’s time to review them. Facebook lets you view performance statistics for each ad under the “view ad” section in Ads Manager. The first important thing to note is that Facebook will only show stats on the last 24 hours or so—if you’re not seeing what you expect, wait a little while before checking again. Second, these stats are only available for live ads—not drafts or unpublished ones.
When reviewing your ads’ performance, keep in mind their target audience and objectives: if they’re not performing well with either of those things, then it might be time to make some changes (maybe change targets or goals). If that doesn’t work either, try changing up images or copying instead! You can edit existing campaigns by clicking on them from the left side pane after clicking on a personal ad; here’s where all those changes can be made!
Once everything looks good on paper (or computer screen), publish your campaign so that it starts running as soon as possible—you’ll want all this hard work out there collecting likes and shares!
To get the most out of your ads, set up Facebook Pixel, clarify your objective, build a custom audience, create lookalike audiences, set your budgets and schedule, choose ad format and content, and review and publish.
To get the most out of your Facebook ads, you first need to set up Facebook Pixel.
- Set Up Facebook Pixel: This analytics tool allows you to track who has seen or clicked on your ad.
Next, clarify your objective. You can choose from the following:
- Lead Generation – For example, asking people for their email addresses in exchange for a coupon or download link. You might also want them to sign up for a newsletter and receive updates about new products or services available in their area.
- Conversion – For example, driving website traffic through an offer like “10% off” if they spend over $100 today (a common practice among online retailers). A conversion might also be collecting contact information at an event such as a trade show so it can be used later on when sending promotions related specifically to attendees’ interests (e.g., “Participants who visited our booth last week may be interested in discounts on .”)
We hope these tips have helped you get started with your Facebook ads. The best part is that once you’ve reached the hang of creating and managing this type of campaign, they don’t require much work! Before long, you’ll be making adjustments and monitoring results like a pro.