Gone are the days of boosting posts. This is a guide for business owners ready to get awesome bang for their budget buck and make Facebook Advertising work for their business. Here are the 5 things you need to know to take your Facebook Advertising to the next level:
Retargeting
Every business should be running retargeting ads for their brand, no ifs and or buts, everyone. Facebook retargeting capabilities are incredibly smart, easy to set up and can be the difference between washing your budget down the drain on cold ads and CONVERTING with warm ones. You know when you look at a product online and then pictures of it follow you around for weeks online, they may be annoying at times, but these ads convert. Remind your user how much they actually liked it, how they can’t stop thinking about it (with a little help from your ads) and direct them back into your funnel. Set up specific retargeting ads based on the activity your user has conducted like showing users who downloaded your eGuide another download they may be interested in, or your upsell product. You can create ads that specifically target who have:
- Been to your website
- Joined your mailing list
- Watched your videos
- Abandoned their shopping cart
- Been to your landing page
- Downloaded your premium content
Get Local
If you have a physical location you have the unique advantage of being able to hone in on your immediate surroundings and serve ads you know your neighbours will love. Use creative to match this by including images, video and text that your local customers will relate to, such as mentioning your suburb name or sharing photos of your staff to trigger memory and increase recognition in association with your brand.
See how LJ Hooker used this to drive an 18X return on ad spend.
Choose your Placements
When creating your campaign, by default you are assigned Automatic Placements but this can have an impact on your conversions and bottom line when your ads start appearing in places they simply aren’t suited to. The best placement will depend on the type of campaign you’re running but to get started look at how your creative appears in each placement and turn off placements that don’t look up to scratch. Such as your Automatic placement putting a horizontal video into vertical Instagram Stories or placing a well-thought out ad into the the right column and losing most of your copy. Duplicate and adjust your ads for each placement you want to target that doesn’t make the most of your message and creative.
Goodbye Static Images – Gifs & Videos
Facebook loves video and creating ads with video and/or gifs are an effective way to catch your users eye and stop them from scrolling. If you haven’t stepped up to video now is the time and it can be easier than you think, as longer isn’t necessarily better. See the most impact possible from short, sharp 15 second videos that utilise animation and moving graphics or stock video and gifs. There are many online tools that you can use to quickly whip up professional and effective clips such as Slidely, Adobe Spark or Biteable.
Create Ad Targeting Funnels
Designing and building smart funnels that optimise your users experience and exposure to your brand while funnelling them into becoming paying customers is one of the most challenging but enjoyable parts of Facebook Advertising. There are many ways to implement an ad targeting funnel but to get started consider create a video funnel, such as this simple funnel;
- User watches 12 seconds of brand awareness video ad
- User gets retargeted with second video ad that goes into more detail on the offer
- User clicks through to website
- User gets retargeted with hard sell conversion ads
- Days later, user gets retargeted with coupon or promotion to get them back in store.
To optimise this further you can create different ads for different users based on how much they engaged with the different stages of the funnel such as how far into the original video they got, maybe if they only made it 6 seconds in you serve them a different angle to hook them in.
Facebook continues to change and improve the algorithm for ads (annoying know but this is key to ensuring your ads get seen by users who are click-ready) and introducing new features to excite and entertain your audience. Many of the tips above will keep evolving over time, most importantly, they won’t work for all of your campaigns. Keep experimenting with different tactics and approaches to find the ones that work for you, get creative and enjoy the process!
For training or management of Facebook Ads for your business, turn to your co-pilots Social Goodness. We are the experts in conducting strategic marketing that gets you a return on your investment and turns your happy business into a flourishing one. Speak to Rach, the Goodness Goddess, via [email protected] or 0420 499 879.
