Facebook has long been a popular advertising platform. Although Facebook has been around for a long time, marketers still rely on it as a channel that will reliably boost brand awareness and bring in new qualified leads.
While many brands and companies have experience creating boosted posts, due to Facebook’s user friendly interface for the function, running a full ad campaign is a different ball game.
But if you are afraid of taking the leap, launching an ad campaign on Facebook is simple if you make the right preparations. Some marketers, especially for small businesses, find that they can launch small campaigns and see huge results.
I learned how to run ads on Facebook from BizHack, a business education service run by businessman Dan Grech. They really made this process much less overwhelming, had I attempted it on my own. The procto
And while your first ad campaign might not have HUGE results, I learned so much since my first advertising launch. I have used that knowledge for subsequent campaigns and I am steadily gaining momentum. Here is what I have learned so far,
Lesson 1: Define Your Story
Running a first advertising campaign should be about establishing a voice, and name for that brand. I learned that crafting a story is really engaging to audiences. Why you began your business and what your mission is, is a great place to start when crafting your brand’s voice.
By putting that story into 60 seconds or so, I could pin down exactly who we are, what we do, and why we do it. These are pretty essential questions leads need to have answered even before considering purchasing.
I practice saying my script out loud. I asked myself, does it sound genuine and convincing? Leads want to buy from a human being, not a business or corporation. That human to human connection is essential to marketing. Especially with social media marketing and advertising on Facebook.
Once you have a story that you are happy with, you need to find the right audience for that story.
When you launch your Facebook ad, you will first need to create an audience for Facebook to target your ad to. So in order to get the best idea of who I was speaking to, I created something called “buyer personas.”
You can create these buyer personas on two popular platforms, SEMrush and HubSpot. These buyer personas are fictional people who have the attributes of your ideal customer. You will then use these attributes to create a target audience within Facebook to be the target of your advertisement.
Marketing B2B? Still use buyer personas! When I learned about buyer personas, I thought it would not be relevant to B2B buyer personas. But this is not the case. I find my B2B buyer personas to be great for understanding that I am still marketing to people rather than an “organization.”
Your customers and leads will still be people, just like B2C companies! Create buyer personas for the person who will see your ad, and for the person who will make the buying decision on behalf of the company.
Here is an example of a buyer persona. Also, check out my blog on buyer personas and how to create them!
Lesson 3: Determining the right size and demographics for your audience.
When creating the target audience on Facebook, it can be easy to end up with an audience that is too small. After all, you have just finished working on your buyer persona, which is a very specific, ideal customer. But casting a wide net, and collecting data is more valuable than fine tuning an audience on your first attempt.
If your business operates in person, or for whatever reason needs to be local. Then, most obviously you have to advertise to only your geographic area. This is a great way to narrow down an audience, but there is no need to be exclusive to one neighborhood or county. Even if you think people will not travel to your business, it can still get the word out about your brand.
Lesson 4: Have KPIs
Key Performance Indicators or KPIs help you to determine if your ad was successful. By setting KPIs before you launch your campaign and keeping them the same throughout your campaign, you can collect the most useful data for your business.
At first I wasn’t really sure what my KPIs should be. But by breaking a campaign down into three parts: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision, I was better able to understand what the purpose of my ad should be. For my first ad I wanted people to just become aware of Highbrid Media so metrics like thruplay, impressions, and reach were important to me.
Some KPIs to consider (that Facebook lets you set up with your campaign):
- Reach- this is how many people see your ad. This is a great one to use if you are trying to build brand awareness in your area and/or demographic.
- Thru play: If your ad is a video (which I highly recommend) this is the amount of people who have watched your ad all the way through.
- Page views: This is how many people have viewed a specific page on your website. Ideally, your ad will lead people to a landing page.
Lesson 5: Analyze Your Results and Start Planning Your Next Campaign- Now that you have run your campaign, it's time to see the results. Remember, the first ad you run should be about collecting data rather than getting tons of new leads (however, it’s great if you can do that too!)
Here’s some extra honorable mention tips:
- Facebook favors video ads over almost any other format. Videos get a lot of interaction on social media in general, but especially on Facebook. As a result, the Facebook algorithm favors video content for advertising.
- Write an awesome call to action! Call to actions are a great way to really compel leads to your website. A unique and interesting call to action, that is not commonly used, can be the key to getting those page views.
