In the past, Google Adwords and Bing Ads were some of the best sources of traffic you could send to your website. They’re highly targeted, relatively easy on the budget, and can provide a high amount of traffic with nearly minimal effort.
However, as time has gone on, both Adwords and Bing Ads have gotten incredibly expensive, making them a huge risk for beginners and companies that are working with smaller profit margins than most other companies.
Facebook is the new heavy hitter in town, providing server-crippling amounts of traffic, great costs-per-click, and a fairly simple to use ad management interface. If you’ve never used Facebook Ads before, we’re going to help you get familiarized so you can start your first campaign by the time you finish reading this.
Facebook differs from other ad networks because the traffic is generally considered to be “cold”, whereas traffic coming from a search engine like Google or Bing is already going to be warmed up, and specifically searching for a solution to their problems.
On Facebook, you’re going to have to use “interruption marketing” or plan on interrupting your potential visitor while they’re scrolling through their news feed, grab their attention, and then get them to take action -- whatever that action may be.
Before you start setting up your first advertising campaign on Facebook’s network, you need to take a few “best practices” into account. Getting started on the right foot can dramatically help you lower the amount you’re spending per click and
Facebook Ads Best Practices
When you are advertising on Facebook, everything that you do revolves around two main goals: increasing your reach, while decreasing the amount you spend for every click or interaction on your advertisements.
Doing both at the same time is the holy grail for Facebook advertisers, and not always easy to do, but there are ways that you can increase your chances of reaching more people while spending less money to do it.
Understand The Ad Network
I’ve already touched on the fact that Facebook is different, but understanding the difference between their network and other networks like Google and Bing is critical for being able to turn cold visitors into warm subscribers, and paying customers.
Most times, Facebook visitors are not going to know who you are, or what your business actually does for them. That means your copywriting and ad creatives are required to get their attention, keep their attention, and then create a bridge for them from Facebook onto your website or landing page.
Interrupting people while they’re in the middle of scrolling down their news feed isn’t easy by any means, but it’s also not impossible. Many marketers have made millions of dollars from Facebook alone, so as long as you understand that you’re interrupting people and then attempting to make a connection with someone that may never heard of you before, your life is going to be a lot easier.
Determine Your Objectives Before You Start
What is your plan with the advertising campaign? Are you trying to go viral, and get free publicity? Are you trying to generate new email subscribers? Or are you going straight for the sale, looking to turn your advertisements directly into a return on your investment?
Depending on which objectives you have, the advertisements you create are going to need to be tightly focused towards your goals, or you run the risk of spending more money than you really need to be spending.
Rotate Through Your Ads Regularly
People, especially those on Facebook, have very short attention spans. If they keep seeing your advertisements over, and over, they’re likely to block them out and continue scrolling past them.
That’s why you need to have multiple different versions of your advertisements, so that you can continuously rotate through them. Whenever one stops being as effective, you can easily change it up to a new version and continue right where you left off.
Be Very Specific On Your Audience
The more you’re able to identify your audience, figure out exactly who you’re selling to, and then address the problems they’re having, the more conversions you’re going to be able to make while spending less money to do it.
Targeting on Facebook can get fairly overwhelming, so while you’re figuring out your target interests, always start small and then work your way up. It’s a lot better to have an audience of 100,000 that you know are interested in your offer than it is to have 10,000,000 people that may be less relevant for what you’re selling.
Before you get started, you’re going to need to create your account. A Facebook ads account is separate from your personal or business account, but still attached to them, so you won’t necessarily need a new account or email to start advertising.
Setting Up Your Facebook Ads Account
When you’re creating your advertising account, you are going to have to provide your billing information to Facebook, so that they can collect the money from the ads and clicks that you’ve generated.
First, you’ll need to browse over to your advertising account settings. You can set your account name, to help you easily identify it, which is extremely helpful when you happen to manage multiple accounts or have multiple people working for your company that will be managing the ads.
Fill in all of the information, making sure that everything is correct. Pay close attention to your timezone and currency, because once it is set you will not be able to change it again without creating a brand new account.
When you’ve entered in the billing information, click “Save Changes” and proceed to the next step.
Now, you’re going to need to enter in your credit card information. It’s advised to use more than one, so that your ads will not be placed on hold if Facebook has a problem when they try to bill your first credit card or bank account.
If you have multiple ad campaigns running and your billing info is declined or Facebook is unable to bill you, all of your campaigns will be stopped and you’ll be required to restart them each one, by one, which can create problems if you’re not highly organized.
To add your credit card information, you’ll want to click on “Payment Methods” and then choose either your Credit/Debit card, your Paypal account, or a Facebook ads coupon. Then, insert your credit card information as your primary billing source.
One thing to keep in mind is that you will not be able to delete your primary billing information, so you’ll want to make sure it’s an account that has funds readily available. If you need to remove it down the line, you’ll have to add in a new card and then set it as primary.
Also take note of how often you’re going to be billed. Facebook recently changed this to make it easier, allowing you to hold off until you reach a certain threshold before they begin collecting their money.
As your billing history begins to increase, your threshold will also increase. Starting out, you’ll be billed for every $25 that you spend in advertising. As your payments are processed, your threshold will automatically increase, until it reaches $750 total.