facebook-ads

Is your brand advertising on Facebook?

Today, Facebook has over 1.79 billion monthly active users, which means that the platform has huge, if not unlimited potential when it comes to advertising.

Along with having such a huge user base, Facebook is also one of the easiest platforms to advertise on. This makes it highly appealing to brands both big and small.

Facebook also has a “Boost” option, which allows you to quickly and effectively promote your content to your audience in an effective way for just one dollar per day.

Facebook’s Boost option allows you to track all of the different types of engagements from likes, shares and clicks.

In fact, Facebook advertising is so simple that many marketers don’t even bother to take the time to really tweak their performance.

On Facebook, even a simple Boost can yield pleasing results but there is a way to max out your performance and turn your ads into a huge revenue generating machine.

In this article, we are going to share with you some of our top strategies for maximising the performance of your Facebook ads, so your content can be seen by more of the right people.

Ready?

Let’s get started….

The Difference Between Boosting and Running an Ad

Facebook offers two types of advertising strategies and it is important to understand the subtle nuances and differences between the two.

Boosting a Post

Did you know that 293,000 status updates and 136,000 photos are uploaded to Facebook every 60 seconds?

Because there is so much content being shared on Facebook all the time, Facebook allows you to “Boost” your posts in order to give them more visibility.

Even if you have 100,000 followers on your Facebook page, not all of them are going to see everything you post.

Facebook caps what people see based on their previous engagement with your content. They do this due to the sheer volume of content be shared every single minute.

To get your posts showing up on more feeds, Facebook came up with the idea of “boosting”.

Boosting simply allows your posted content to be seen by more of your followers and appear on the feeds of your target audience.

The more money you boost your post with, and the more engagement it gets, the more likely your post is going to be seen by your chosen audience.

Anyone with a business page can Boost a post in just a few super simple steps like s0-

  • Step 1: Click the Boost button that appears after posting your content
  • Step 2: Select your target audience
  • Step 3: Select the amount you want to spend
  • Step 4: Select how long you want the boost to run
  • Step 5: Click “Boost” and you are done!

Boosting is an easy way to get your content seen by more people. You also have the option of promoting your content to just your followers or to people outside of your network as well.

In fact, Facebook offers the following options when it comes to selecting which audience to boost your post to-

  • People you choose through targeting
  • People who like your page
  • People who like your page and their friends
  • Lookalike audience
  • Custom creation

As you can see, Facebook makes it easy for people with no marketing experience to select their preferred audience and boost a post so it has a better chance of being seen by a larger audience.

Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads is a little more sophisticated and offers a few more options. Facebook Ads allows you to create an ad to-

  • Build brand awareness
  • Build local awareness
  • Expand your reach
  • Increase your traffic
  • Build your engagement
  • Drive app installs
  • Increase conversion rates
  • Sell products in a catalog
  • Get people to visit your store
  • Increase video views
  • Generate leads
  • Get more followers

As you can see, Facebook allows you to set your intention for your ad which then directs you to set up your ad in the best possible way.

Whether you are boosting or running a more specific ad on Facebook, here are some fail-proof tips that will allow you to get the most bang for your buck-

Targeting 

Targeting is the most important factor when it comes to running effective ads or boosts on Facebook.

You could have the best ad in the world, but if it is not being seen by the right audience you are just going to be wasting your time and your money.

Facebook ads also have a lot of competition, which means that you really need to be meticulous when it comes to the audience that you choose to go after.

As previously stated, Facebook offers a few different options when it comes to selecting the best audience.

In our experience, it is best to create your own custom audience as this allows you to have more control over who is going to see your ad.

When you create a custom audience, Facebook allows you to select everything from their age, gender, location and interests.

The more interests you can include, the more likely your posts are going to be seen by the right audience.

Of course, like all good targeting strategies, you will have to do some trial and error to see what metrics are going to work best for your brand.

If you run an e-commerce store, promoting your products to your followers and their friends tends to work well as people are more likely to trust a brand that comes with some form of social proof.

Again, this will be something you need to test to see what fits best with your brand.

Optimise the Copy and Visuals Of Your Ad

We all know how competitive Facebook can be, which is why it is so important to make sure that your images and ad copy stands out and instantly engages your audience.

There are so many different and unique ways you can get your content and images to stand out from the crowd and attract the attention of your audience, but here are some golden rules to remember-

a. Make it Interesting

We know it is easier said than done, but making your ad copy interesting is about stepping away from the generic. You need to instead add some flavour to your copy by asking questions, sparking controversy, or finding a way to amplify the message of your brand.

The same goes for the images that you choose to attach to your ads. Aim to select images that are instantly engaging or captivating. These include images with bright colours and bold objects. Also, try to keep in mind the tone of your images.

Images really do paint a thousand words, so try to assess the overall tone of your image to see what emotions it may evoke alone without your ad copy.

b. Spark Emotion

Emotion is such a huge driving factor when it comes to creating interesting and engaging content on Facebook. It is also worth keeping in mind that emotions are usually what motivates someone to buy or click, not logic.

Before submitting any ad or boost on Facebook, it is important to ask the question- what emotions does my ad evoke or generate?

Here are some more pointers to help you focus on emotions as a way to drive engagement-

  • Instead of making your ad copy data driven, try to instead focus on emotions, if you do want to include data, find a way to add an emotional element to it.
  • Entice people by telling them about the benefits they are going to receive, make them feel good for clicking to find out more or purchasing.
  • Explain to them in just a few words how your product or link is going to change their lives.
  • Find a trigger point or a main pain point for your audience and let them know how your brand is going to help solve it.

When it comes to evoking emotions with your images, keep in mind that research has shown that using human faces stirs more emotional response than anything else. Images of animals also evoke strong responses as does food.

c. Pay Attention to the Psychology of Colour

Another important factor to consider when it comes to creating awesome and clickable content on Facebook is the use of colour.

The psychology of colour has been largely studied and there is a lot of scientific evidence out there on how colours can effect our mood and impact us to take action.

The psychology of colour is also not too difficult to figure out, in fact it is almost intuitive in nature.

For example, red evokes action and passion, whereas blue evokes relaxation and serenity. Green evokes feelings of nature and calmness whereas yellow evokes feeling of joy and lightness.

Experiment with using different colours and see what impact it has on your conversion rates. You may just be surprised how much affect changing one colour can have on your ads.

Create a Valuable Lead Magnet 

This is where the quality of your offer comes into play. You have to be offering something valuable to your audience in order to get them excited to click and continue on further.

Think of your lead magnet as a bribe. Your bribe has to be enticing or it is just not going to be able to have the impact you are looking for.

When you choose the right “bribe” or lead magnet, it almost organically resonates with your audience and makes it a lot easier to get your conversion rates up.

It also makes it easier to grow your audience and develop life-long lovers of your brand.

Studies have also shown that people will judge the quality of your brand based on the type of lead magnet that you offer, so it is important to keep this in mind when selecting the type of lead magnet you are going to use.

If you offer something free for your lead magnet, but then trick your audience into signing up for a subscription based service or something else, you are very quickly going to damage your reputation and have several unhappy customers.

To avoid this, your lead magnet has to be genuine and straight forward for your audience to take advantage of. You also need to avoid collecting too much personal information, as this can also scare away your leads.

The best lead magnets are the ones that offer something in exchange for a simple email address. This model is popular but has shown consistently pleasing results for every kind of business from B2B and B2C.

Some ideas for lead magnets include-

  • Ebooks
  • Articles
  • Video training
  • Webinars
  • Free Tools- e.g. free software trial, free templates, free downloads etc.
  • PDF files
  • Coupon codes

When it comes to picking the perfect lead magnet, it is best to keep in mind your current audience and what their preferences may be.

For example, if you have a huge YouTube following, offering free video training may be more appealing than a free ebook for example.

Make Sure your Landing Page is Top Notch 

Even though you won’t be sharing your landing page directly on Facebook, it is an important part of your advertising strategy.

In fact, your landing page is one of the most important factors when it comes to getting those valuable Facebook clicks to turn into actionable profits for your business.

We all know the basics of creating a solid landing page, but with your Facebook traffic there are a few extra things to keep in mind. These include-

a.) The Heading

Facebook is flooded with content, and chances are even the audience members that are clicking on your link are somewhat distracted by the overwhelming amount of information that they have just scrolled through.

For this reason, your landing page needs to have a strong headline that reminds them what they are doing on your landing page and what you can offer them.

In fact, the headline is one of the most important features of your landing page as if it doesn’t instantly engage your audience, chances are they are going to be clicking the back button before you have even had an opportunity to collect their email address.

b. Highlight the Customer Benefits

The next most important component of your landing page is highlighting the benefits of what your brand has to offer.

With so much exciting content on their Facebook feed just waiting to be read, you have to keep your audience lingering around to find out more and continue through your sales funnel.

To do this, you just have to keep answering the following golden customer question- “What is in it for me?”

If your benefits and copy can clearly highlight what is in it for your audience in the first 10 seconds, you are well on your way to creating a solid converting landing page.

This requires you to focus on the many benefits of your offer and not just the specifics. For example compare the first example with the second-

Example 1:

“Download 8 Video Lessons That Will Teach You How to Read 12 Books a Day”

Example 2:

“8 life changing video tutorials that are going to help you master the art of speed reading, so you can advance your career and unlock your fullest potential in just two weeks.”

As you can see, the second example is far more benefits driven and is typically going to yield a much higher conversion rate than the first example.

Build Your Brand’s Authority and Credibility 

One of the fastest ways to grow the authority and credibility of your brand is to align your brand with already credible sources.

This can be tricky to do if you don’t have a large profile, but even sharing customer reviews and testimonials can be a great place to start.

Building authority and credibility through your Facebook Ad can be tricky, however there are a few ways that you can achieve it such as-

  • Providing social proof in your ad copy -eg. “over 100,000 units sold!”
  • Providing testimonials in your ad copy
  • Including logos of big name brands that your company has worked with, eg. “As seen in Huffington Post”.
  • Having an exceptional Facebook profile

Another way that customers are going to check the credibility of your brand is through social media, and seeing as they are already on Facebook, don’t be surprised if they journey over to your page to see what you are all about.

If you have high engagement rates on your Facebook page, lots of followers and lots of information, chances are they are your audience is going to feel more trusting of your brand.

If they stumble across your Facebook page and see little or no action, this is instantly going to create scepticism in their mind and stop them from continuing to engage with your brand.

For your Facebook Ad to be successful, you have to appear as an authority and credible source.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3….

The final and most important step to running successful ads on Facebook is testing and tracking your results. This is the only way you are truly going to be able to optimise the performance of your campaigns.

Facebook has pretty good data tracking, which means that there really is no excuse for not knowing what is working and what is working.

Part of being a successful marketer is knowing how to track everything on your ads, from the copy to the images and so much more.

By tracking you are going to be able to see what your audience is responding to and where you can improve.

Once you have determined this, you can also experiment and tweak your ads to gain a deeper insight into the mind’s of your audience.

A few ways to do this include experimenting with different colours, ad copy, targeting different demographics and changing up your lead magnets.

When it comes to optimising your ads for maximum performance, it is important to make sure you run your ads for at least 1-2 weeks so you can more accurately determine the effectiveness. This will ensure that your sample size is big enough and will give you more data to work with.

Conclusion 

Running Facebook ads is an easy way to boost your website traffic, find new customers and increase your revenue.

Even though Facebook makes their advertising platform fairly easy to use, following these suggestions and tweaks are going to help you take your ads to the next level.

Here are some of the most important factors to keep in mind when it comes to running ads on Facebook-

  • Know the differences between boosting a post and running a Facebook Ad and experiment with both to see how they work for your brand.
  • Selecting the right target audience is the most important factor when it comes to connecting your post with the right people.
  • When it comes to creating an audience on Facebook, selecting more interests has been shown to yield better and more tailored results.
  • Ensure your ad copy is interesting and engaging and evokes questions, offers social proof and creates emotion.
  • Ensure your images are emotive and include human faces for maximum effect.
  • Use colours to manipulate the emotional overtone of your Facebook ad or boost.
  • Make sure you offer a lead magnet that is enticing to your audience and is going to get theme excited to click through.
  • Make sure your landing page is optimised to clearly explain the benefits of your products and services and what they are going to get out of it.
  • Build authority and credibility by sharing testimonials and highlighting popular brands that your company is associated with.
  • Create an active Facebook page that evokes trust and is highly engaging for your target audience.
  • Keep testing and assessing the performance of your ads to see what is working and what is not working.
  • Tweak your ads by testing out different audience demographics, ad copy and images to maximise your performance.

By following these helpful suggestions your Facebook Ads will shift to a whole new level and will allow you to take advantage of the billions of people who use the social network every single month.