Get Started with Your First Facebook Ads

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Social media marketing is here to stay!

It’s gained popularity over recent years making it an integral part of any online marketing campaign and strategy.  Three things that set Facebook apart from other networks are the massive volume of users, the time spent per day per user, and the incredibly ability to target exact audiences with Facebook Ads.

Since users enter loads of information about themselves, and Facebook users then Like and Comment on posts and Pages that just happens to all be tracked by Facebook, the result is that within the Ads Manager is a powerful monster of targeting that Facebook offers businesses. It offers more targeted ad delivery than any other online platform, and for as low as $1 a day, it is a great fit for everyone from big corporations to Mom and Pop businesses.

Advantages of using Facebook for advertising and promotions

On Facebook, you can use text and images, infographics and videos. A properly run social marketing campaign can leverage both ads and various multimedia content for an excellent outcome.  Research has shown that Facebook users are more likely to respond to advertisements and posts with multimedia content (photos and videos) versus text-only content.

Facebook also allows businesses to start small and scale their promotion, allowing you to advertise for as low as $1 a day. Businessesand individuals are able to advertise without investing too much money to determine what works.

Using Facebook ads

When creating a Facebook ad, consider the following:

Who is your target audience? 

For Facebook ads to be more effective as part of a marketing campaign, you should determine beforehand who the target audience is. Facebook allows the selection of your ad’s based on many variables including education, location, job title, pages Liked, relationship status and personality to mention just a few.

Set your ad goal. 

What do you want to achieve with your Facebook ad? Sales, Lead Generation, Likes or Engagement?  In my opinion, your best ROI for Facebook ads is to use them to invite people to sign up for your email list via a special offer. That way you can market to your subscribers over time.

How will you measure your Key Performance Indicator?

If you want more likes or engagement it’s easy because Facebook will measure it for you. If you want more email subscribers, make sure to take a baseline measurement before you start the ad.

For more advanced tracking, Facebook allows businesses to add conversion tracking to the confirmation page of e-commerce sites and the “thank you” page of forms.

What is your budget? 

How much do you want to pay each day for your ad?

Remember, as little as a $1 a day for 10 days is a good way to start and learn!  That’s only $10 and you can experiment a great deal.

How to create a Facebook Ad:

Below is a step by step guide when creating a Facebook ad:

Login to your Facebook account. Go to the page that you want to create the ad for.

Click the dropdown arrow on the top menu and select Create Ads.

You’ll arrive at the “Advertise on Facebook” screen. You can start creating your ad campaign right away!

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Step 1

Choose the objective for the ad campaign.

  • Boost your posts – To get more people to see and engage with your page post
  • Promote your page – Connect more people with your page
  • Send people to your website – Increase website visits
  • Increase conversions on your website – Newsletter sign-ups or other specific action
  • Get installs of your app – Send people to your store where they can download/purchase your app
  • Increase engagement in your app – Get more people to use your mobile app or Facebook app
  • Raise attendance at your event – Promote your Facebook event
  • Get people to claim your offer – Promote discounts and deals

Step 2

Fill out the information needed for Facebook to create your ad on the right side of the Create Your Campaign screen

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Step 3

Create your ad account

Step 4

Facebook allows you to target their ad by geolocation, age, gender, language, interests, and behaviors. More demographics allows you to target users using relationship, education, work, income and net worth, home type and ownership, ethic affinity, generation, if you are a Mom or parent, politics, and life events.

On the right side of the screen, you’ll see an audience definition area which will give you the potential reach of your ad. Here you’ll be able to tweak your audience.

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Step 5

How much do you want to spend? In this area, you’ll be able to specify your budget per day or over the lifetime of the ad.

In the Advanced options area, you can optimize your ad for clicks or impressions. You can then choose if you’re going to pay per click or per impression (how many times the ad is seen) for the ad.

Step 6

Create your ad content. This is the final step in creating a Facebook ad. Upload your images here and choose the Facebook page you want to connect the ad to. You’ll add in your ad headline, text and call to action button. You can also preview the ad here.

Once your content for your ad is entered, place your order. Once paid, you’ll wait to have your ad reviewed and run.

The most important area of the Facebook ad setup is the audience target area. You’ll want to do come research because this will make or break your ad. Try searching Facebook to find other pages that are similar to yours or sell the same type of products or services you do. Include the page names in the interests area of the ad setup area. Then your ads will get served up to people who have liked the page.

You can see how well your ad has done in your insights area. Or get a deeper view of your stats by going to the reports area on the left sidebar.

Some important points to remember to improve your results:

Images must contain less than 20% text

Image size for ads are 1200 x 627px and can also be 600 x 315px

Target similar pages audiences by adding them into the interest area. Not all pages will be there, but the large ones will.

So that’s a wrap on getting started!  Remember, a $1 a day for 10 days can get you going.  Try three different ads in that time period including “Promote your Page” for getting Likes of your page targeting your ideal customers.  Then try a “Send people to your website” option and drive link clicks to your offer on your site for email sign-up.  Finally, try a “Boost Posts” ad to drive more engagement on a popular post.  Then review your website analytics, conversions, and Insights to view the results.

How did it go?  Let me know!

About Mike Gingerich

Mike Gingerich, President of Digital Hill & TabSite is a business blogger Marketer and Consultant. Part geek, part marketer, part strategist, total fitness and running junkie. Mike is an author and speaker, having presented at Social Media Week Lima, Social Media Camp (Canada) and more. Mike is a marketing, social media, and business startup enthusiast with 10+ years experience building apps, consulting, and training businesses with winning integrated strategies. Mike loves deploying tactics to increase awareness, sales, and maximize ROI in both B2B and B2C markets via digital media.

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