Getting the most out of Facebook advertising

22/04/2020 14:44:12
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With more than 2.23 billion monthly active users, an array of options and features, and enhanced targeting capabilities, Facebook advertising could be your doorway to business success.

We are here to help


We help our clients with a host of social media activities, including Facebook advertising, to help them reach more of their target audience. We now want to share some of the knowledge we gained through years of managing accounts, running campaigns and building up networks with you. In this blog we touch on what you can promote, which are the best options, the audiences you can target, budgets, competitors and how to get the most out of your adverts.

Facebook advertising offers many different options so let’s start by breaking down some of them, and highlighting things to consider.

What you can promote:

 

You will need to decide which is the best option for you depending on your business, what it offers and who you want to target.
Boost a post
Promote your send a message
Promote your page
Promote your business locally
Promote your 'contact us' button
Get more website visitors
Get more leads

However, for most businesses, the preferred options are usually to ‘Boost a post or ‘Get more website visitors. 


Boost a post:


This is the simplest and easiest to do: create your post and then promote it by putting it in front of your target audience. If you get your post message and the target audience right, you can get great results. However, there are limitations as to what you can do with the adverts, which should be considered.

The first is that if the web page you want to link to is not set up correctly, sometimes the wrong image and content will be pulled through on posts. Also, if the web page is about a wider topic and there is a particular message you want to get across, it is better to create a separate post and boost it. You can set the target audience, location, budget, etc., but it doesn’t allow you to edit the post in any way.

This is the best and easiest option if your web pages are not set up correctly.

 


Get more website visitors:
 

This gives you a lot more options and more control over the advert, but again, it can be a pain if the linked web page isn’t set up correctly. However, done correctly, the ads look much better and generally produce better results. You can enter the exact URL of the web page you want to promote, add images, and set the headline and content.

Another nice feature is the ability to change the call to action on the advert with options such as ‘Learn More’, Sign Up’ and ‘Book Now’, but you do need to have the right webpage for the expected user journey. For example, it would look odd to use the ‘Book Now’ call to action with no means of booking a place on the page customers are sent to. Asking them to make another click to book is not acceptable.

Target audience

 

The main options are: 

  • People you choose through targeting, 
  • People who like your company page, or 
  • People who like your company page and their friends. 


If your page only has a low number of likes, it's not really going to be worthwhile targeting the people who like the page and their friends. For the majority of campaigns, you should define your target audience by using the people you choose through targeting. 

 

In terms of targeting options, Facebook offers the following:

  • Gender
  • Age range (minimum and maximum)
  • Location (countries, cities, towns, with radius options)
  • Demographics
  • Interests
  • Behaviours
  • Job titles

 

You also have the option to ‘Exclude’ and ‘Narrow’ audiences by setting two or more criteria they have to meet.

Warning!


We can’t stress enough how important it is to get the target audience correct as you can create the best advert, with a great message but if you put it in front of the wrong audience, then it is never going to work and you will just waste your budget and resources.


Want to see examples?


To give you an idea of the type of targeting you can do and the sort of volumes you can expect we have included some examples.

Objective: to promote fire detector training courses to electricians

Example 1: Electrician Job Titles

Gender: All

Age: 18 -65+

Location: UK

Job titles: Electrician Assistant, Electrician Helper, Industrial Electrician and Master Electrician

Potential audience size: Fewer than 1,000 people

Thoughts: Not everyone lists their job titles on Facebook, so while targeting based on job titles doesn’t give us a big audience it does mean we are getting in front of the right audience.

 

Example 2: Electrical and fire related interests

Gender: All

Age: 18 -65+

Location: UK

Interests: Electrical Engineering, Electrical Technology, Electricians Mate, Fire Safety, Smoke Detector, Master Electrician, Institution of Electrical Engineers and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Potential audience size: Around 1,200,000 people

Thoughts: As you can see from the potential audience size, targeting based on interests gives us a much bigger audience, but not everyone will be electricians. It will be a real mixture, but at some point they have all shown interest in the areas listed above.

Budget

 

This works similar to Pay Per Click (PPC) where you can set a daily budget, with tolerances, and either set an end date or end when your budget is used up. The more budget you throw at it, the more the advert will be seen but the advert that is displayed isn’t based on who is willing to pay the most. Facebook needs visitors, and people won’t come back if they are bombarded with non-relevant, poor adverts so they put a lot of emphasis on making sure your advert is high quality and relevant to your target audience. Essentially, they want you to bid the right amount, not the highest, but also have good quality and relevant ads so that your ads get a good estimated action rate. Get all these right and your ads will be seen by your target audience.

 

Defining the objective, the message and the right target audience is key, or you could just end up wasting money. You can do the research to work out the numbers, but you need to define these first.

 

Competitors

 

A great place to start and something to keep your eye on is your competitors and what they are up to, as this could really help you define your campaigns and give you ideas as to the most effective approach. Look for competitors who are active and successful, and monitor two or three to gain insight but whatever you do, don’t copy them. They will be targeting your target audience, so you don’t want to send out exactly the same message. Be unique and have fun.

How to get the most out of your adverts  

 

Getting your adverts and company page seen is the main goal so you need to use all the tricks to achieve this. Here are some tips for giving things a good boost:

  • Invite your Facebook friends to like the page and get them to ask their followers to do the same
  • Ask your colleagues to like and share the page and adverts, and ask them to invite their friends too 
  • Ask suppliers, clients and any other organisations that you work with to do it
  • Promote your page on your website and emails
  • Look for other opportunities to promote your page; for example, on delivery notes, flyers in product catalogues or on hold messages
  • Run a contest with a decent prize to gain followers, likes and shares 
  • Be social, join groups, follow others, share, like and comment; the more you get out there the more people will notice you.

Finally, remember that everything you do on Facebook should be pointing back to your website. There should be a clear user journey that takes the user from seeing the post to them completing your goal, whether that be making a purchase, completing a form or picking up the phone. We have seen many great Facebook campaigns fall down due to the website not being up to scratch, so give this area the attention it deserves.

SEO and keywords


NEW TO FACEBOOK FOR BUSINESS?
 

Then check out our previous Facebook blog post that covered creating a business page, getting your activities started and how to get your first 100 followers. 

Have questions? Want some help getting your Facebook Advertising producing results?
 

The Partners Group can be your Facebook partners and give you as much support as you need. 

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