One of the most useful features of Facebook advertising from a small business owners perspective is the ability to setup highly targeted marketing campaigns. These highly focused campaigns provide you with the ability to cut cost and lower your total cost of customer acquisition by only advertising to people who you think is your target audience. Setting up a Facebook ad is a straightforward process but should be part of a larger online marketing strategy, here are the basics of what you’ll need to work on in creating your first Facebook ad:
- Ad Copy and Image – This is where you need to get creative. You will want to create an ad title that grabs your target audience member’s attention and promotes action. The image you choose will also be key in moving the Facebook users attention towards your ad.
- A Destination – After the Facebook user clicks on your ad you need to direct them to either your Facebook Page or web page. If you currently have a Facebook marketing strategy where you have a specific plan on how to build your business through Facebook fans then the Facebook Page option may be what you want to use. However if you do not have a Facebook marketing strategy in place yet, you will want to direct the traffic to a specific landing page on your website where you can again push the user to perform a specific action, like sign up for your newsletter or call now for 10% off.
- Location – This is where you will configure where your Facebook ad will be displayed. If you are a florist in Nashville you will probably not want users in Los Angeles to see your ad. Depending on the size of your business, # of locations, delivery area, etc your will need to set where your ad is displayed. Your options include by country, by state, or by city (with a radius).
- Advanced demographics – This is where you can really get creative and do some testing on who responds best to your ads. In this section you can decide which Facebook users are shown your ad based on their profile, likes, and Facebook usage. For example you may want to setup an ad with specific ad copy to men who are in a relationship and between the ages of 22-30.
- Pricing and Schedule – This is the section where you determine how much you want to spend and which model of advertising you want to use. I would suggest to begin with using the CPC pricing model instead of the CPM model. The CPC model is similar to how Google AdWords works, every time someone clicks on your ad you will be charged a price based on several factors.
While this just a first look at how to get started with marketing on Facebook it should give you an idea of the possibilities. I recommend doing a lot of testing with your Facebook marketing and finding what works best for you.
These are very helpful guidelines for setting up Facebook ads. The great thing is that the cost is relatively low and you do get results. If a business can afford the expenditure they can quickly grow the number of “likes” on their Facebook fan page.
Having used these Facebook ads myself, I found them to be far better than other methods for getting the “likes” mainly because those who respond to the ads are genuinely interested in the business and they are real people with real Facebook accounts.
I’m really curious as to how targeted and actually successful are these Facebook ads right now. They might work in some particular niches, but still there are many people that complain they did not convert very well for them. I guess FB ads are primarily focused on you receiving likes and unless you have a powerful call to action, you will just not get much from them.