Most people have mixed feelings about Facebook Ads. See if you can relate to any of the three camps below:
Camp 1: You’ve tried Facebook ads in the past with dismal results, so you’re not a believer they work for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Camp 2: You’ve never tried ads because you don’t have a big marketing budget and think Facebook ads would cost too much to get real results.
Camp 3: You’ve tried them, seen some results, but would love to supercharge your ads to get much bigger conversions.
If you can relate to any of the 3 above, you must keep reading!
If you’re new to my blog, my name is Amy Porterfield and I teach Facebook marketing strategies to entrepreneurs and small businesses. Over the past year I’ve been diving in deep with Facebook ads to see what works and what doesn’t. I recently reached out to nine of my peers (nine extremely knowledgeable, highly skilled Facebook marketers!) and I asked them to share their best Facebook ad tips.
If you’re serious about increasing your leads and sales on Facebook, this EPIC post is a MUST READ. Take 10 minutes to check it out – it could change your Facebook marketing success overnight!
#1: How to Convert Ad Dollars Into Sales As Quickly As Possible
Brian Moran
Most businesses using Facebook advertising make the mistake of focusing solely on the number of fans that the ad is generating. It’s a nice number to focus on, only because it’s so easy to improve. The real metrics that are going to keep your ad campaign running is how many of your clicks are turning into paying customers, and how fast is it taking?
Think about it this way: if you can quickly make more money in sales than you’re spending in advertising, you now have a campaign that pays for itself, which allows you the privilege of having an unlimited budget. What’s the benefit of that? Well, now you can scale your campaign, and reach as many people as you want without limiting your budget.
The single best way to focus on monetizing your ad traffic, is to figure out which webpage is your “money page.” Which page on your site generates the most sales for your business. Is it your lead capture pages, a blog post, a dedicated product sales page, etc? Figure this out, customize that page for your ad traffic, and send your advertising traffic there first.
Brian Moran, Facebook Expert and Founder of Get10000Fans.com
#2: Get Laser Focused With Your Ad Targeting
Jason Keath
Facebook ads are powerful because of the targeting options it gives to marketers. Where else on the web, or anywhere for that matter, do we freely volunteer so much data about ourselves? On Facebook we have the opportunity to reach exactly who we want.
Let’s take a look at two valuable targeting options: Precise Interest and Broad Categories.
Precise Interests
This option allows advertisers to target Facebook users that have listed a specific interest on their Timeline. These precise interests are pulled from their Facebook profile activities, interests, job titles, education, pages they have likes and groups they belong to.
Precise interests are very powerful. Jenny Craig can target ads at Facebook users who like the Facebook page for the Biggest Loser television page. Targeting the fans of other pages can create a lot of relevance for the ads a business runs. Target competitors, publishers with known demographics, celebrities, locally relevant pages, and more.
You can even use “Precise Interests” to target fans of Facebook Pages who have a fan base that is aligned with your brand.
Broad Categories
Consider broad categories a larger audience bucket, compared to precise interests (usually a smaller audience). These are pre-organized audiences that Facebook creates by examining basically anything a Facebook user does, clicks on, or writes anywhere on Facebook.
There are lots of options in Broad Categories that may be appealing, but for the most part these are very large groupings of Facebook users that should be chipped away at using other targeting options. Here are a few examples of the types of Facebook users a business can target with this option:
- Small business owners (6.4 million in the US)
- People engaged for 1 year (2.3 million in the US)
- Has a birthday in the next week (2.8 million in the US)
- Soccer fans (8.7 million in the US)
Remember, Facebook ad targeting is only as useful as the strategy behind the ad campaign. Click here for a more in-depth look at Facebook targeting strategies.
Jason Keath is a social media consultant and speaker and CEO and Founder of Social Fresh.com.
#3: Get Out Into Your Fans New Feeds With Promoted Posts
Isaac Wardell
Promoted Posts are designed to help you increase engagement and overall reach for your Facebook page. They are the first type of paid advertising that is viewed in users’ News Feeds. They are also the first type of ad to reach the mobile user market, which is up to 70% of Facebook traffic.
According to Facebook, the average page only reaches an average of 16% of its followers with any specific post, however, Promoted Posts allows status updates to live longer in the feeds. Additionally, they reach the friends of your fans, with the and include the names of the friends associated with the post.
Here’s an example of the different dollar increments you can choose to promote your post in the news feeds of your fans and your fans friends.
To learn more about optimizing your Promoted Posts, check out this short video: http://youtu.be/g9cvw9GpEO
Isaac Wardell, Social Media Strategist at IsaacWardell.com
#4: Target Business Decision Makers Precisely
Dave Kerpen
Facebook ads can be especially useful for B-to-B marketers and salespeople. Using Facebook’s ad targeting platform, you can target people by job title and/or company. So if you’re looking to just reach architects, or dentists, or CEO’s, or Office Managers, you can.
Also, if you’re looking to reach executives at the top 50 Fortune 500 companies, or the 20 largest companies in your town, you can. Combine both criteria to reach exactly who will make the decision to buy from you. For instance, at Likeable we’ve used Facebook ads to drive Marketing Directors and CMO’s at Fortune 500 companies to take notice – and it’s worked.
When creating your new ad in the Ads dashboard, under “Choose Your Audience” you will see “Precise Interests.
When creating your new ad in the Ads dashboard, under “Choose Your Audience” you will see “Show Advanced Targeting Options.” Click that link and the “Workplace” field will appear.
Dave Kerpen is a New York Times Bestselling Author and CEO of LikeableMedia.com.
#5: Hit Your Ads Tipping Point with Demographics
Jeff Widman
If you’re running any sort of ads for a fan page, then you want to target the ads very tightly on demographics to try to hit people who are friends with each other.
Facebook uses the actions of your friends to decide what information to show you. So you’re paying to hit a tipping point within friend circles.
Two places where you can hit the tipping point:
#1: Page Suggestions. If you hit a group of 10 friends, then you might have to pay for ads to get the majority of them to “like” your page. But then Facebook will start highlighting the page in the “Suggested Pages” slot (see image below) to the remaining friends because the page suggestion algorithm says “Oh, a bunch of this persons’ friends like this page? Probably this person will like it too.” It’s basically free advertising.
#2: Newsfeed stories.The EdgeRank [edgerank.net] algorithm says that as two people become closer connected, their actions impact each other more. So if you publish a page post, and one fan comments on the story, then another fan will be slightly more likely to see the post. But if the two fans are also Facebook friends, then the commenting action of the first fan makes the second fan far more likely to see the post.Again, it’s like free advertising.
Jeff Widman speaks regularly about Facebook Analytics & EdgeRank. He founded Glue and PageLever. Find out more at JeffWidman.com.
#6: Create Ad Images with Calls To Action
Andrea Vahl
Get creative with your ad images. Use the picture area in your ad (currently 100 x 72 pixels) to add more words to your advertisement. Images of people tend to convert better than a logo but you will have to do your own testing. Make sure your messaging is consistent but don’t be afraid to try something unusual to get more clicks. Use both the title and the picture to tell a story.
Using text and images in your ad image will grab the attention of your ideal audience.
When you know what will attract your ideal audience, using text only graphics in your ad could be a very smart strategy.
And if you want to get ideas for your ad images, check out your Facebook Ad Board. When logged in to Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/ads/adboard and take a look at all the ads that are currently running that are targeting your demographic. That will help you get some good ideas for your ad. These are only the ads that would be targeting your profile in the Targeting section so you won’t see all the ads currently running but it’s a good place to start.
Andrea Vahl, Co-author of Facebook Marketing AIO for Dummies. Community Manager at Social Media Examiner. Find out more at AndreaVahl.com
#7: How to Use Facebook Insights to Create Better Ads
Nate Riggs
There’s tons of different ways to examine and measure Facebook advertising campagins, and all are based solely on what your business objectives are. That said, one of the very basic steps that I feel marketers often miss is first focusing on increasing their page fan base in the right audience segments and geographic areas where people can actually someday become customers. This is especially true for smaller businesses with limited budgets and resources.
You’ll want to make sure to watch the make up of your fan base, using Facebook Insights or 3rd party tools like PageLever , EdgeRank Checker or Simply Measured to make sure that your Like ads are driving fans to your page and getting Likes from the right audience in the most critical market areas for your business. Second, spend significant time reviewing your click-through rate (CTR) for various different ads you are testing.
Remember that ad copy and images will have a direct effect on this metric. Create multiple versions of the same ad, with slight changes in the design and copy, and then test each for a determined amount of time. After the initial campaign runs, review to Ad manager insights to see which ads are preforming the highest, and then optimize your campaigns to deliver those ads. This approach is called multi-variate testing.
Nate Riggs specializes in helping mid-sized and enterprise companies use the web to win and keep the attention of their customers. Director of Social Business at The Karcher Group. Find out more at NateRiggs.com.
#8: How To Turn Your Facebook Page Into Your Very Own Groupon
Victoria Gibson
The new Facebook Offers feature is a revolution in Facebook Marketing, and the best opportunity for local businesses to start turning Likes into Sales.
The new Facebook Offers feature allows you to post special offers and discounts to your Facebook Page, in the form of a coupon that can be claimed by your Fans as well as other Facebook users.
When a Facebook Offer is claimed, the offer gets sent direct to the Facebook user’s email where they can print off the offer and the terms and conditions as well as share it on their Page and with their friends.
Offering “Daily Deals” on your Facebook Page requires some strategy, but this is a fantastic opportunity for businesses with a physical location. At the moment you can only access this feature if your Facebook Page is categorized as a “Local Business.”
Think about running an offer or discount that will not only appeal to your Facebook audience, but will also be good enough to be shared, but not too good that it devalues your brand or impacts on your full-price sales.
Aside from being free, there are two other distinct advantages to Facebook Offers:
#1: Viral Potential: The first is their viral potential that is driven by their ease of sharing and the huge demand for offers and special discounts on Facebook. In Facebook Offers I have run for my clients, we have seen up to 14,000 Claims on a Page with 4,000 Likes. That is some serious sharing!
#2: Mobile Newsfeeds: The second benefit is that Facebook Offers show up in Mobile newsfeeds, unlike traditional Facebook Ads. With more and more people logging into Facebook via mobile phone, this is a distinct advantage.
Although Offers work well on Pages with any number of fans, you can amplify their impact by creating a Facebook Offer Ad. Just use the option to advertise a Post about your Page and select the offer post to create your Ad. These can be targeted to users who don’t yet Like your Page but fit in to your target market. The best part is viewers can claim and share the offer right from the Ad, so this will get you even better exposure and results.
Facebook Offers are set to progressively roll out over the coming months, so if it’s not on your Page yet, it should be coming very soon. Good luck and let me know how it goes!
Victoria Gibson, Facebook Ads Specialist at FB Ad Queen. She offers Campaign Management, Coaching and Online Training at www.fbadqueen.com.
#9: How to Out-Last Your Competition on Facebook
Jennifer Sheahan
The volume of traffic available on Facebook is mind-boggling. To make the most of this unique opportunity, you’ll need to know how to craft your advertising campaigns to stand the test of time.
Ads fade into the background, and become less noticeable over time. After a few days, Facebook will stop showing these ads and your campaigns will stall.
Keep your ads from turning into “virtual wallpaper” on Facebook by:
#1: Batching: “Batching” your ad creation in groups of ten. It’s more efficient to submit a batch of ads to Facebook for approval, and switch out as needed. Then you’ll always have a few new ads to activate if/when your current ads die out.
#2: Click Thru Rate: Closely watch what is “clicking” with your audience (higher CTR), and make variations of the winners. Within the first day of a campaign, a “stallion” will emerge from the “ponies.” Make slightly different clones of that “stallion” to see how you can boost performance.
Pause non-performing ads quickly, before they reach rock-bottom. It pays to keep your campaign average CTR as high as possible.
What many people do is create one or two ads, submit them for approval, run them on Facebook, then go back and create one or two more. You have to wait for Facebook to approve them and that can take a long time. If that happens you’ve lost momentum.
To implement this strategy, submit multiple ads that are very similar, but with very slight changes. Facebook will approve the entire batch and you can then activate and pause them for testing.
Jennifer Sheahan is a Facebook Ads Expert and Speaker and Founder of FBAdsLabs.com.
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