As part of our mission to help you focus more on your passion, we at Taxumo will be inviting various experts here on our blog to guide you on how to grow your business effectively.
Below, digital marketing specialist Julian Cañita explains how Facebook ads can be a great platform to reach your potential market.
So you want to run Facebook ads for your business?
That’s great!
As a Facebook Ads Specialist, I understand the power of using the platform as a way to grow businesses and how effective it can be. So if you are just planning to start on using Facebook ads, this piece is for you!
In this quick guide, I’ll teach you the very basics of the Facebook ad platform so you can get started.
Before continuing, I would recommend that you access your Facebook ads manager account. Take a quick look around and even do some tests yourself. This will help you better understand the points I’m about to lay out.
Once you’ve done that, then we’re okay to proceed.
Facebook Ads: Points to Consider
Campaign
When you choose to create an ad, you will see that there are three main divisions of a campaign.
The very first division would be the campaign level.
In the campaign level, the main point is to define your objective. It is key that you actually choose your objective for the particular campaign you are creating.
Most common campaign objectives tend to be conversions, clicks to website, or engagement.
Choose the objective that’s most relevant to your business. No need to overthink this part.
Choosing the right objective is also your way of telling Facebook whom to show your ads to. By telling Facebook what you want to happen, the platform will optimize the delivery of your Facebook ads to help you achieve your selected objective.
In addition, the different campaign objectives have different ad setups. Some ad objectives would require a much larger image while others would need a smaller one. So it’s also important to study how else these objectives differ from each other to help you produce ads aimed to get the optimal results.
Ad Set
Within each campaign are smaller groups called ad sets.
The two main elements determined at the ad set level is the targeting and the deliverability.
Let’s first discuss the most important one which is targeting.
A reason why I really like Facebook ads is its ability to get really specific with the targeting. Not only can you target by demographics like age, gender, job or location, but you can also target by behavior and interests.
Not only can you target by demographics like age, gender, job or location, but you can also target by behavior and interests.
Let’s take Taxumo for example. If Taxumo were to run Facebook ads, the targeting would be towards small business owners, professionals, and freelancers. Facebook’s in-depth targeting options allow Taxumo to do just that!
In order to properly target your ideal audience, you would have to do extensive research. You need to get into the minds of your specific target market so you can define them at the ad set level.
The second element defined at the ad set level refer more to the campaign’s deliverability. These options include:
- Budget – the maximum amount you are going to spend.
- Placements – where your ads will appear (e.g. Mobile News Feed, Desktop News Feed, Instagram, Instant Articles, etc.).
- Schedule – you have the option of running your ads for the whole day or for specific times of the day only.
- Optimization – you get to tell Facebook to whom to prioritize delivering your ads to. For example, if you want to focus on conversions like signups or purchases, optimize for conversion. But if you just want a lot of people to just click on the links to view your website regardless of they convert or not, you can opt for optimizing for link clicks.
It may seem like a lot, but I promise you that you’ll eventually get the hang of everything if you just slowly expose yourself to the platform.
Ad
Then within each ad set are the ads themselves.
The ad level is where you now focus on your main messaging. This is where you try and connect with your targeted audience. If you have a specific offer, this is where you do your best to articulate that offer.
There are several different ad types but we’ll touch on the elements of a basic Facebook ad.
- Ad Creative
The ad creative is probably the first thing that will capture our attention when scrolling through our news feed. These are usually either an image or a video. Ideally, it should capture the idea of the message you are trying to convey whether explicitly or not.
- Headline
The next thing we usually notice in a Facebook post, whether it’s an ad or not, is the headline. It’s a one-liner which basically tells us what the post is about and invites us to consume the rest of the content in the post or click through the ad. For me personally, I prefer putting the main hook or the main offer in the headline.
- Ad Copy
The ad copy is basically the text that accompanies or supports the headline. This contains the meat of the whole ad so you could say that this is the most important part of the ad. There is no best length for ad copy. I’ve seen some short copy ad work and I’ve seen very long copy ads work as well.
- Call To Action Button
As an advertiser, we usually ask the users to do a specific action. This action can be called out by the call-to-action button. This is a button that appears on the ad below the headline. It contains predetermined texts the advertiser can choose from. Example of these button texts include Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up, and more. Adding in the button is optional.
Conclusion
These are the 3 main components of a Facebook ad campaign.
There are a lot of other parts of the Facebook advertising platform which you can use to help grow your business. But if you’re just starting out, mastering this structure is enough for you to see results for your business.
To summarize:
- Highest level is the campaign level where you define your objective
- Inside each campaign are the ad sets where advertisers define their targeted audiences
- Inside each ad set are the ads which contain the message or offer the advertiser would want to broadcast to his or her audience.
Once you get used to this, learning about the other aspects of Facebook advertising will be easier.
Good luck on getting started!