The Facebook Advertising Platform is incredibly powerful. It’s also very daunting for most first time users. I’ve been fortunate to run a TON of ads over the last couple years in a diverse arrangement of industries. This article will show 3 items I think are really important to understand before you dive into advertising.
1. Know Your Goal.
The Facebook advertising algorithms are incredibly smart. Way smarter than us. My best advice to everyone is just let Facebook do the work.
Think about how much data passes through your phone and computer. The locations you visit while GPS is running in the background. What Siri is listening in on… We don’t really know how much data is out there compiled on all of us, but if you start to think about it, you can imagine it’s quite a bit. And if you were logged into Facebook, it probably knows the data as well.
Facebook uses that data and many other factors to determine the best way to connect advertisers with consumers. It’s easy to see why it’s quickly growing into the most effective ad platform out there.
Alright, I said Facebook is smart, but what I really meant was Facebook is very knowledgeable at doing its job. It’s actually nowhere near as smart as you are about your business. That means you have to give it direction.
In your ads manager, that direction is called the Campaign Objective.
It’s really important to pick objectives that will give you the results you actually want for your business.
Facebook is going to use every data tool it has available to optimize the results for the objective YOU pick.
So when you hit “Boost Post”, you’re actually creating an Engagement campaign. And if you hover over engagement, the info button reads, “Get more post engagements, Page likes, event responses or offer claims.”
Is that what you want? Or are you looking for website visits, or purchases, or video views, etc?
Bottom line, is Facebook will do it’s best to meet your goal, but you need to start by picking the right objective.
I recommend hovering over each objective to gain a clear understanding.
2. Facebook Pixels Are People
One of the most powerful tools within Facebook is the ability of the advertising platform to track information on your website about everyone that is logged onto Facebook when they visit.
They do this through a bit of code called the Facebook Pixel which relays information from the users on your website back into the Facebook data base.
If you ever plan on running Facebook ads in the future, I’d definitely look into installing a Facebook pixel as soon as you can. It can start collecting data in the meantime, even before you run your first ad. If you’re already running ads, it can help you get information to the right audience and optimize for conversion objectives.
Here’s my warning. When you start to use the pixel, you begin to build up custom audiences of really focused groups, say purchasers, or website visitors, or video viewers, etc. This gives you an opportunity to send ads directly to these targeted groups.
When you start doing this, your results are going to improve, but you’ll also be adding some responsibility to your plate.
Pixels are people. Or atleast they represent real people. You have to be very careful to thoughtfully segment the pixeled audiences. Keep your eye on frequency, so you’re not over sending ads, and get the right message to the right audience at the right time.
My best tip for this is to use exclusion audiences within your ad sets, and create multiple ad sets to segment pixeled traffic.
3. Be A Stop Sign
Facebook Advertising falls within disruptive marketing. Meaning that people are on Facebook to do something else, other than see your ad. They’re also in a pattern of doing that something else – in this case – scrolling.
It’s your job to disrupt that pattern with something so engaging they can’t help to stop.
This means the image or video you choose is very important. Before you post, ask yourself, what makes this DIFFERENT than everything else they’re seeing in their feed? What are the colors like? Do they stand out amongst the Facebook blue? Where is their attention drawn? Can your video have movement that draws them in?
After that initial stop, you want to filter the right people towards your goal, and let the rest move on. So, your text should qualify a group upfront, then qualify your topic, then move into your story or explanation.
We’re really lucky at Filmpac to have a ton of intensely creative videos at our fingertips. Here’s an example of how we used video and our founding story in a disruption ad: facebook.com/filmpac/posts/10102841943594248.
Don’t be afraid to write a lot of words. Most of my top-performing ads have enough words that they would work well as an email.
There’s a lot to know about the Facebook Advertising platform, but I hope this built some concepts to consider if it’s a good fit for your business.
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