Social media marketing: success with Facebook ads

1. Selecting the right campaign structure

In Facebook’s ad manager, there are many different campaign types to choose from. From placing an ad on your own Facebook page to carefully targeting individuals within a given radius, there are many options for creating the ideal ad.

Aiming to reach the right target audience is by far the most important step when planning an ad campaign. Carefully following this step helps ensure that your ad finds its intended recipient. In order to set up the campaign as efficiently as possible, it is imperative to use individual ad settings and define a custom audience. An alternative possibility involves using Facebook’s targeting options.

Custom Audiences
Custom Audiences defines special target audiences for your Facebook advertisement. This function requires information from former customers, such as telephone numbers or e-mail addresses. By uploading this data to the ad manager, Facebook is able to detect customers that are also Facebook users and with that information, can automatically create a custom audience.

Website Custom Audiences
Relying on valuable data gathered by your website can prove to be an even more effective choice. With re-targeting, former website visitors that are registered on Facebook are targeted with ads. The main advantage here is the relatively low scatter loss. This is because targeted users have already viewed your website’s content or products and are potentially more interested in them than users who have not accessed those same sites. Re-targeting can be used for Facebook ads by embedding a code excerpt on your website (pixel).

Lookalike Audiences
For those who have already created a custom audience, Facebook is able to detect what’s known as a Lookalike Audience based on varied characteristics. The goal here is to find additional users that most closely resemble your own customers. Should matches be found in terms of location, age, sex, and above all, interests, then Facebook rates this user as similar to those in the custom audience list.  Following this, Facebook ads are then displayed to this new group.

Standard targeting options
Facebook offers those who do not have access to an existing data pool the option of using a targeting tool. Depending on your product or campaign type, you can limit your target audience according to the following criteria:

• Location: A boutique in Manchester aims to reach customers that are either from the area or visiting the city, whereas a nationwide car rental service naturally wants to offer its services beyond its corporate HQ. Facebook lets you address users with ad campaigns in locations and regions that are relevant to your business. Locations can be narrowed down to country, region, city, or even post code.

• Demographic data: For many products, it makes sense to separate users according to factors like age group or gender. By taking advantage of such demographic data, you can avoid large scatter losses when placing an ad. Further characteristics, such as educational, occupational area, or income level, can also be taken into account. 

• Interests: Define your target audience by selecting your category from a list of predefined interests. Facebook defines such interest categories according to specific user metrics, such as ‘likes’ or ‘check ins’. For a more fine-tuned selectivity, it is worthwhile to select interest-targeting criteria manually. By selecting appropriate categories (e.g. ‘Linux’ instead of ‘software’) a more precise target group is defined.  

• Connections: The proper use of connections is another means for adding to your targeting efforts. Users that ‘like’ special Facebook pages, use certain apps, or participate in an event can easily be included or excluded from your target audience. A further combination of these connections is also possible: friends of those who have liked a particular page, post, or article can be included into the target audience of your Facebook ad.

During the manual targeting process, the Facebook ad manager displays a target group barometer on the right side of the display. This is where data is summarised and a potential advertising range is established. By tinkering with various settings, you can determine whether your selected target audience is too specific or too broad. Once the selection has been accounted for, target audiences can then be saved and used again at a later date.

3. Planning your budget and ad schedule

There are essentially three options for laying out the budget of your ad campaign on Facebook:

• Daily budget: Those aiming to run their ads non-stop should consider opting for a budget calculated on a per day basis. Each ad group has a certain budget. Once the allotted money has been used, it’s no longer displayed.  
• Lifetime budget: A start and end date can be assigned to ads that are to appear for a limited period of time

4. Designing ads and completing campaigns

Once the campaign type, target group, and budget have been set up, it’s then time to configure the advertisement itself. With the advertising editor, users can select images, videos, texts, and links.

Select images or videos
The first steps involve integrating pictures, graphics, or videos in your ad. The carousel format provides up to 5 images and/or videos per ad and displays these in a sequential fashion. Users have free access to a range of stock images or are also able to upload their own. There’s no need to adjust the size of photos prior to upload as this step is carried out for you in the editor.

Selecting text and links
The next step involves completing the ad’s text and corresponding link. After creating a concise description, set up the title in the right hand column (if desired) as well as target view (e.g. timeline, map, rating). In the right portion of this function, users can determine where the ad appears (desktop newsfeed, mobile newsfeed, right hand column of the desktop).