How to use Facebook Ads effectively and successfully 07/22/2015
Reach almost 30 million users with high-quality, relevant advertising In recent years, no other advertising format has developed as quickly and has been as successful as Facebook Ads. The largest social network in the world continues to grow and is able to earn increasing amounts of money through advertising, particularly mobile advertising. In 2014, 90% of all Facebook’s income came from Facebook Ads and more than half of this income came from mobile advertising. You can use Facebook to reach almost 30 million active users in Germany. Facebook is also worthwhile for you if you operate in a very small niche market, as you have a very high chance of reaching your target group. You can also reach more users with a lower budget, as Facebook has developed smart mechanisms that make optimal use of your advertising. Intelligent tools such as the advertising module on the Facelift Cloud are available too. At the heart of the module is a dashboard for all your campaigns, which is combined with tried-and-tested functions that allow you to optimize your Facebook Ads in real-time. The advertising module lets you know the optimum timing for an advert so you can allocate your budget in the most efficient way possible and enables you to create and place ads quickly. A number of different options are available to help you plan your campaigns, including accurate targeting using Facebook data sources, to advanced targeting using imported customer data. You can then create appropriate multi-format advertising material and test it in a live preview. Reach your audience anywhere, any time
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Facebook has enjoyed such success since its 2012 stock market launch, not least because the mobile sector has developed so well since then. Actual reach shows that Facebook is part of day-to-day mobile digital life, which means that your adverts are not just displayed when a user sits at a stationary computer in an office, for instance. The mobile versions are much more interesting. You can reach your audience via smartphones and tablets. Since Facebook is able to track its users with their user ID, your adverts will also work across difference devices. If a user becomes interested in an advert on their tablet and becomes a fan of your Facebook page, this user will later see other adverts that are related to you. Therefore, the link between you and this potential customer is strengthened, even before they buy anything from you. Studies have shown that potential customers are more prepared to make a purchase when they already trust a seller or, at the very least, know of them.
Possible placements for Facebook Ads You can take advantage of this effect in your Facebook advertising. You reach just the right people as Facebook’s tracking is so precise, thereby minimizing waste coverage and ultimately resulting in much more effective adverts. Your costs are then reduced and you can use your budget for other measures, such as creating additional content.
Why Facebook Ads work so well The structure of Facebook ads is simple. This simple structure means that users can understand you easily and are not confused. All the required information is communicated concisely. This means that the composition of a traditional Facebook ad is almost always the same:
Facelift brand building technologies GmbH Lehmweg 17 | 20251 Hamburg | Germany www.facelift-bbt.com | + 49 40 605 900 420
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The “sender” of your advert, your Facebook page, is right at the top and this is followed by a text that draws attention to your advert. Then comes an image or a video that acts as an eye-catcher. Never forget that your advert has the best chance if it appears in users’ news feeds. In the news feeds, your advert must be able to hold its own against the competition, which is most likely to happen if you have a sensational eye-catcher. The call to action comes right at the very end and can be used to achieve different aims. For example, you can get new users to like your Facebook page or provide an app download. All the information provided in your Facebook Ad should therefore be geared towards what it is you eventually want to achieve. If you want to generate as much Facebook traffic as possible for your website, your advert must support this aim using all available means.
How you can use Facebook Ads to achieve your business aims Facebook itself makes a distinction between several aims that ads could be used to achieve. These aims are then partially subdivided to reflect, for example, whether a picture or video will be used in the advert.
Adverts with images attract more attention Ultimately, Facebook Ads differ only in the detail and in how they are displayed on different end devices. For example, Facebook recommends that the text for a device display should be no longer than 500 characters, the reason being that this text will only be displayed in full when the advert is viewed on a desktop. If the same advert is displayed in a mobile news feed, then Facebook shortens the text to 110 characters. The same applies for adverts that appear in the right sidebar on Facebook (desktops). Here, 90 characters are available.
Facebook Ads with images increase attention The size of the images displayed also varies. An image is made larger or smaller depending on where the advert appears. Image size does not change in the advertising material itself: Facebook automatically adjusts
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the image used in the advert. This means that advertisers must give consideration to exactly what they want to achieve with their advert. All the information that you want to convey must be prepared in such a way that it is visible in the advert. Your adverts should make an impression and stand out from the rest, as this is the only way that they will really be noticed.
Video adverts increase session length and strengthen the relationship with the customer. Facebook recommends a different size for videos. Whilst images with an aspect ratio of 4:3 should be used, Facebook refers to a 16:9 ratio for videos. This makes sense, as these are the established dimensions used in the film and TV industry: YouTube even uses them. This ratio is of benefit to users as using well-known, commonly accepted image and video dimensions avoid confusion. Your video advert gets through to potential customers more easily and the chance of it failing is significantly reduced.
Text-only adverts are also an option. Of course, you don’t have to use images or videos in your Facebook Ads. The only reason that we recommend you do is because images and videos serve as eye-catchers, which can ensure that your advert stands out in users’ news feeds and gets much more attention. This fundamentally increases your chances of success and has a positive impact on your business goals. Facebook Ads that consist entirely of text might also work. The previously mentioned character limit of 500 characters applies to text adverts that appear in desktop news feeds. There are only 90 characters available for adverts that appear in the right sidebar and in contrast to adverts containing images and videos, adverts appearing in mobile news feeds have 500 characters.
More visitors for your website Facebook is a massive traffic machine. Even if you don’t want to build a Facebook community, you can no longer avoid the world’s largest social network, as the advertising options for attracting attention are too tempting. Ultimately, it all comes down to your business aims and these aims almost always include increasing the reach of your company’s website. Your website is a key element in all your online marketing activities. All your activities must feed into your website, as only there can you decide what to do with the traffic, and only there can you transform this traffic into a positive benefit.
Facelift brand building technologies GmbH Lehmweg 17 | 20251 Hamburg | Germany www.facelift-bbt.com | + 49 40 605 900 420
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Facebook Video Ads are popular and work very well
Facebook Ads are helpful as you can use Facebook as a traffic source if you have a good advert. The benefits for reach mentioned previously should be convincing enough, however clever Facebook advertising can certainly help you earn a lot of money as well. Therefore, Facebook also recommends that you create adverts that attract more visitors to your website, even if that is just one of many options. The format of the advert itself doesn’t change: much more depends on how the content of your Facebook ad is designed. If, for example, you want to make Facebook users land on your website via your advert, then you must ensure that users feel like your advert is addressed to them. Mostly this works better if your images and language are more promotional in nature — remember that we are talking about an advert!
Use calls to actions Whilst it is preferable that you make sure the content of an ad for website traffic uses text and images to convince potential visitors, adverts with a call to action offer an additional means of provoking an action. This call to action might be used to promote an actual offer: vouchers are popular and can be advertised well with an appropriate Facebook Ad. The call to action can also be displayed as a button at the bottom of the advert. This kind of button stands out because, whilst set apart from the rest of the content, it still remains part of the overall design. Many Internet users are also familiar with this sort of button and therefore trust it, ensuring a significantly higher number of clicks. This in itself means that the advert is more effective and achieves a higher conversion rate.
Facelift brand building technologies GmbH Lehmweg 17 | 20251 Hamburg | Germany www.facelift-bbt.com | + 49 40 605 900 420
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Well-chosen calls to action generate more leads and sales Your use of call-to-action buttons doesn’t have to be restricted to offers: Facebook also offers the button if you want potential users to register for an event such as a webinar. The same applies when you want to gain new fans or if it is important that users are able to download your new smartphone app (also applies to app updates). The call to action should back up your advert and be a reliable means of ensuring that your advert has the desired outcome. You should also resort to this element if the success of your advert depends on how well it is structured. So make sure that you use promotional language and images in all of your adverts, however only make promises that you are able to keep. User behaviour characterizes social networks such as Facebook, and if you make a negative impression on these users, it can quickly lead to unpleasant consequences that can have a negative impact on the public perception of your company or you personally.
How to reach the right target groups Facebook offers virtually unlimited opportunities for advertisers; however, simply placing an ad is not enough. Facebook Ads are so successful because they address the right target group with minimal waste coverage. Facebook’s exact targeting tools make this possible: the vast quantity of information Facebook has about its users means user profiles are very detailed. This doesn’t mean that Facebook sells these data to advertisers — quite the opposite, in fact. It’s the range of interests that Facebook users express when they like, comment on or share content that is more important. Facebook uses the connections made by likes, comments and shares to show their users ads based on the information they have published. And because these ads correspond so exactly to their users’ interests, ads
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experience above-average success in comparison to traditional advertising formats.
Precise targeting with website custom audiences If you want to minimise waste coverage even further, then you should use a website custom audience (WCA) for every ad. For the WCA Facebook generates a pixel (an HTML code fragment) that you then embed into your website. Facebook can then verify which users are visiting your website. After a while, a pool of relevant users is created, which is called the website custom audience. You can then use your WCA to create ads. Because the WCA target group aligns precisely with the interests of people who have already visited your website, you can act on the assumption that you will reach only those Facebook users who have interests relevant to your product or service. The WCA does have one disadvantage, however: depending on how many visitors your website actually has, reach can be relatively low — the fewer visitors you have, the smaller the amount of data that Facebook can pull for a WCA.
Increasing reach in a specific theme Facebook even offers a clever solution to this problem by offering “lookalike audiences” in addition to WCAs. Lookalike audiences are additional target groups that can be created using your WCA and that, as the word “lookalike” suggests, are very similar to the WCA in theme and content. You therefore get a second target audience whose interests are very closely aligned with the interests of your website visitors. You can also use this target group to target your Facebook Ads and minimise waste coverage. You can therefore align your advertising precisely to the needs of people who you know are much more likely to purchase a product, for example. Title image: Manamana, Shutterstock.com
Facelift brand building technologies GmbH Lehmweg 17 | 20251 Hamburg | Germany www.facelift-bbt.com | + 49 40 605 900 420
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