Before you even think about how you can optimise your Facebook Ads, you need to understand the power that the platform holds.
Facebook advertising is one of the most effective ways to market your business in order to raise brand awareness, increase your revenue and create an army of loyal followers
With over 3 million businesses advertising on Facebook it’s the place to be and, if you’re still not convinced, take a look at these stats:
Facebook’s Active Users
According to Statista, there are around 2.85 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2021, meaning that Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide (an active user is classed as anyone who has logged into Facebook in the last 30 days.)
Facebook became the first social media platform to boast over a billion users way back in 2012.
Source: Statista 2021
During the first quarter of 2021, the company stated that 3.45 billion people were using at least one of the company’s core products (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, or Messenger) each month.
Here in the UK, there are around 44.84 million users and the largest age group using the platform is the 25 to 34 year olds, with 11.2 million users.
And we’re spending more and more time on these platforms; the average user spent 2 hours and 24 minutes per day on social media in 2020 and (surprise, surprise) Facebook is the most popular, costing people an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes each day.
Why Are Facebook Ads So Good?
To start with, the targeting options on Facebook are outrageously good. You can target users by location, demographics, age, gender, interests, behaviour, income and so much more.
When you’re building a social media campaign, you have complete control over your daily budget and maximum cost-per-click and you can get an instant return on investment if your ads are done right and you have worked out what your profit margin is.
As well as using static images, you can use videos and image to video transformations as part of your ad creative and videos are proven to increase conversion rates (You can find out more about this in our video marketing blog.).
If your business is B2C then it’s definitely an avenue to explore!
Getting Started with Facebook Ads
There are so many options when it comes to crafting your Facebook Ads that it’s easy to get lost or confused.
The fact that they’re so incredibly versatile and effective is wasted if are struggling with the basics.
You can spend a lot of money on ads as well as investing a lot of time into creating the actual ads themselves but if you’re not using the platform to its best then it can be an expensive exercise.
So, if you’re struggling to reach the right people, want to see better results and increase your return on investment then here are our 5 tips to optimise your Facebook Ads:
Tip 1 – Get Inspired
The Facebook Ad Library is a great resource for checking out what other advertisers in the space are currently doing. You can get a good idea of what types of creatives, design, ad copy and offers they are currently promoting.
Don’t just look at the imagery though, follow the links and see where they take you. What page do you land on from the ad? What is the checkout process like? Is it mobile-friendly? Are there videos on the page, is it text heavy?
We’re not saying copy off them – please don’t – but do learn what you can from them because they’ll be spending the big bucks and doing a lot of the testing for you.
If you’re looking for further inspiration, we’ve put together of list of 4 examples of awesome Facebook ads.
Tip 2 – Make Sure You Have Facebook Pixel Installed
Despite the recent ios14 update which has disrupted the Facebook Ads world, the Facebook Pixel is still an important tool.
The pixel is a bit of code that tracks people coming to your site and what they do when they’re on there (called events.)
These events can include things like submitting a lead form, adding a product to a cart and purchasing a product.
You can use the ‘Facebook Event Setup Tool’ to configure the events and what buttons or URLs someone has to click or land on to trigger them.
The best part of this is that is requires no coding at all!
Having tracking set up correctly is one of the most important steps to a successful Facebook campaign.
Tip 3 – Set Up Custom Audiences
This is essential if you want to remarket to people – and why wouldn’t you?!
Remarketing means you’re targetting ‘hot’ audiences who are aware of your brand. This may be based upon them following you on social media, email lists, or website visitors.
These people are generally the people who are most likely to convert and also usually have the highest return on ad spend.
Additionally, if you’re running a campaign for leads, you may not want to keep showing people adverts once they have filled in your lead form. You can now ‘exclude’ these people so you’re not wasting your budget.
Tip 4 – Optimise Your Ads for Placement
So many advertisers simply run with a standard newsfeed image and don’t spend the time tweaking it so it’s optimised for everywhere your ad might be seen.
One of the most popular (and profitable) places for your advert to appear is in stories, so make sure your creatives are optimised for this element (and any other placements).
Stories come with no headline or text so you need to make sure you’re getting your message across in your description.
Tip 5 – Test, Test, Test… Once You’re Done Testing, Test Some More
There so many variables that you need to test when running ads, from the audiences that you’re targeting, to the creatives and the ad copy.
Always have a test running and keep an eye on it.
Some audiences respond better to videos, whilst some prefer carousel ads.
For Facebook Ads you need to take away your ego – it’s not what you think works best or looks good, you need to follow the data.
Dig deep into the facts and figures that your audience is giving you and then you can make informed decisions to improve the performance of your campaigns.
If you’re still struggling and would like to know more about how our team of paid and social media experts can help you, then contact us now!