Are you looking for Facebook advertising tips that ACTUALLY work? It's your lucky day! Today's topic is all about Facebook advertising tips that will get you the results you have been looking for.
Facebook ads can be very powerful and generate a ton of leads.
In 2017, Facebook generated 39.94 billion U.S. dollars in ad revenues. If this number doesn't make you hop on the Facebook advertising train, then I really don't know what else will. People don't spend this kind of money if it's not working.
Facebook Advertising can yield unbelievable results your small business will absolutely benefit from.
Let me stress that Facebook Advertising can be a GOLD MINE...if it's done correctly. Your small business can definitely reap awesome benefits from Facebook ads, but you've got to know what you're doing.
The following Facebook advertising tips will help you get started off on the right foot.
Let's jump to it...
1. Get Your Audience Right
Targeting the right audience is one of the most important things in any type of advertising. You can have the best copywriting ever and fail if you target people who don't care about what you have to offer. You've got to have great copy, an excellent offer, AND spot on targeting for an ad to be successful.
When you target the right audience with your products and services you can expect a high return on investment if you've got a compelling offer.
In Facebook advertising, results are typically much better when you can target a specific type of audience called a warm audience.
Warm Audience versus Cold Audience
A warm audience is a group of people who’ve had some sort of interaction or exposure to your business. These people have visited your website, signed up for your newsletter, liked your Facebook page, or done business with you already. A warm audience has already expressed some interest (even if it's only a little bit) in your business and what you have to offer.
A cold audience is a group of people who have no idea who you are or what you do. A cold audience needs to be "warmed up" before they're going to buy. They have not heard of your business and are probably not interested in doing business with you...yet.
Obviously, your results will be much better when targeting a warm audience compared to a cold audience. However, you will target both cold and warm audiences in your marketing efforts.
Facebook advertising offers some incredible tools to help you target the right audience. It lets you create two powerful targeting options- Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences.
Facebook Custom Audience
The first thing you must do if you are going to use Facebook advertising is to install the Facebook Pixel on your website.
The pixel will help you measure, optimize, and build audiences for your ad campaigns. It is a must-have piece of the Facebook advertising puzzle.
Below you can see the different types of audiences you can create with a custom audience.
The option you choose will depend on what you are advertising and your goals.
A Facebook custom audience is considered a warm audience because it's a group of people who have interacted with your business in some way, shape, or form.
You can learn how to create a lookalike audience in this article.
For most small businesses, a custom audience ends up being a fairly small audience, which is why you may want to also consider creating a lookalike audience...
Facebook Lookalike Audience
A lookalike audience is an awesome way to reach new people who are LIKELY to be interested in your business.
When you create a Lookalike audience you start with a source audience like a custom audience you've already created or people who have visited your website.
From there, Facebook does its magic and creates an audience that is similar to or looks like the source audience. This is an unbelievable way to take a warm audience and find other people that are similar.
I wouldn't necessarily consider a lookalike audience to be a warm audience, but it's not exactly a true cold audience either. Let's say it's lukewarm.
Learn how to create a lookalike audience in this article.
If you shift from targeting cold audiences to custom and lookalike audiences I guarantee you will see better results from your Facebook ads. We've seen click-through rates DOUBLE when doing this!
2. Don't Forget About Video Ads
Did you know that Facebook videos get 8 billion daily views? Oh yes! Facebook users love to consume video content. It's engaging, entertaining, and educational.
Your small business can absolutely benefit from using video content.
I can't tell you that video always outperforms static ads because it depends. You won't know how it works for you unless you give it a try. Testing a combination of video and static ads to support your entire ad campaign is definitely something to try.
Using video in your ads has a ton of potential benefits. Here are a few...
Video is Engaging
Unlike images, video can really help connect your business with a new audience. The sights and sounds in a video are incredibly engaging which is exactly what you want from an ad.
Video Helps People Get to Know, Like & Trust You
People buy from those they know, like, and trust. Using video in your ads can help with all three, increasing the chances they will actually take action from your ad!
It's Easier to Explain Things in Video
Sometimes it's really hard to communicate everything you want in text without getting really wordy. A video makes it much easier to communicate the nuances when trying to entice someone to take action.
The following articles have additional information about video marketing with some great takeaways for using video in your Facebook advertising...
Tip #1: Create different videos for specific purposes
Tip #2: Make sure to keep your videos short and sweet
Tip #3: Optimize your marketing videos through A/B testing
PUSH THROUGH YOUR REVENUE ROADBLOCKS!
Get the outside eyes and feedback you need to get on the right path with your marketing.
Gain clarity and understanding. You'll leave your discovery call knowing where to focus your marketing efforts right now to get the best return on your investment.
3. You Must Have Compelling Copy
Incorporate some of the elements below in your Facebook ad copy to make it more persuasive and compelling.
- Be Authentic
Write in your own voice and be authentic. - Simplify
Don't use college-level thesis language. Using big words will hurt your conversions and your results. - Write for Homer
Write at a fifth-grade level. We all know who Homer Simpson is...act like you are writing so Homer can understand it. - Show Proof
When targeting cold audiences, having some social proof that what you are saying is actually true will go a long way in helping people get to know and trust you. - Use Questions
Questions get people thinking and help to engage them in your copy. - Answer Immediately
If you ask a question in your copy, make sure you immediately answer it in the following line of text. This will help lead your prospects to take action from your ad. - Use Revealing Words
Don't overstate or exaggerate. Revealing words are not overblown or exaggerated. They are words that imply new discovery or novelty. - "You" Rules
"You" is a very powerful word and can capture attention. Just note that with Facebook advertising you can't use "you" in relation to a personal attribute. For example, "Do you want to lose weight?" would be a no-no. - Use "Non-Standard" Callouts
Capitalized words, brackets or parentheses can be a great way to frame text in your ads. - Embrace The Ellipsis
Ellipsis are those three dots you see in text...
They help lead the reader from one thought to the next. - Mix It Up
We'll talk about testing below, but trying different things in your ads to see what works best is really important. - Employ Emojis
Emojis can be another great way to draw someones attention to your ad copy.
4. Test, Test, & Test Some More
Finding the right audience, crafting visual content, and having compelling copy isn't enough to achieve consistent success in Facebook advertising.
If testing is the only Facebook advertising tip you take away from this article you'll be head and shoulders above your competition.
Most people approach marketing as a set it and forget it scenario when it's actually an ongoing process.
Testing Facebook ad campaigns will improve your performance significantly over time. Think about it, if you make even incremental gains through testing each time you launch a Facebook ad campaign, over time those incremental gains become something significant.
When I say test, I mean continuous testing. Did you know that most companies only have 1 ad, but the best had 100’s?
This only means that performing multiple tests is required to realize the full potential and get the best results from your Facebook advertising campaigns.
To build a strong testing plan, it's very important to understand the structure or foundation of a Facebook ad campaign. These are the 3 levels of a Facebook ad campaign:
1. Campaign
The campaign defines the objective of your Facebook ads.
For example, choose the objective ‘Website Conversions’ if you want to direct people from Facebook to your website and convert them into subscribers or customers.
Here's another quick Facebook ad tip, limit the scope of testing to a single campaign because running testing across multiple campaigns isn’t a necessity and it makes data more difficult to analyze.
2. Ad Set
An ad set defines a particular target audience and is also used to define your budget, schedule, and bid type. A campaign can contain multiple ad sets and each ad set can either target a different audience or the same ones.
3. Ad
The ad is the creative that people see on Facebook. It’s possible for each ad set to contain multiple ads.
Facebook published best practices for split testing in their help section that you might want to check out.
Testing can get very complex if you let it. It can also get overwhelming.
The easiest way to start testing is with multiple ads in an ad set. For example, you might try two different headlines or two different images to see which one performs better.
Only test one thing at a time! If you change multiple items in two different ads there will be no way for you to know what made the difference.
That's it! Remember these 4 important things when launching a Facebook ad campaign: Audience, Video, Copy, and Testing. These elements are essential to the success of your campaigns.
If you think you can't handle it, don't hesitate to ask for help.
Here are a few additional resources if you'd like to dig even deeper:
- How To Target the Right Audience on Facebook
- Why Use Facebook Video Ads? 9 Benefits You Just Can’t Ignore
- Facebook Ads Testing: The Keys to Finding Success
Facebook advertising can get very complex, but it doesn't have to. These easy Facebook advertising tips will go a long way to helping you get those conversions and sales that your small business needs.
Once you master these 4 tips, you can always get more complex if you'd like. For now, keep it simple!
I'd love to hear from you...feel free to comment below and share.
Need more lead generation tips? Check out our entire Ultimate Guide to Lead Generation.
PUSH THROUGH YOUR REVENUE ROADBLOCKS!
Get the outside eyes and feedback you need to get on the right path with your marketing.
Gain clarity and understanding. You'll leave your discovery call knowing where to focus your marketing efforts right now to get the best return on your investment.
Header image courtesy of Pexels.com.