Tag Archives: Facebook ads

Get Started with Your First Facebook Ads

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:

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!

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

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.

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!

Facebook ads, Facebook Marketing, pay per click ads, social media marketingDecember 12, 2014

Facebook Boosted Posts: Get More ROI

Facebook Boosted Posts are a Facebook Ad product that increases reach for specific Facebook Page updates.

Boosted Posts are labeled “sponsored” and appear at the top of the Newsfeeds (web and mobile) of people you target. When people interact with your Boosted post, that interaction is seen by their friends.

Facebook doesn’t sell engagement

You can’t pay Facebook to increase engagement on your Page posts, but you can pay for more reach (the number of people who see your update).

You are free to boost any update you choose (under these terms), and the shareholders will be happy to take your money. But as a general rule, it’s best to select ONLY updates that have a high engagement rate (more on this below).

NEWS: 4 New Ways to Target Boosted Posts

In the past, Boosting a post was like firing a shotgun. And like Elmer Fudd shooting at Bugs Bunny, you would rarely hit your intended target (or at least not effectively).

Now, you can target Facebook users with four options:

Location – You can be as specific as cities or as broad as countries.
Gender – Male or Female
Age – 13 and up
Interests – Target people based on Pages they like, closely related topics, apps they use, and specific ads they’ve clicked.

These new targeting options make Boosting a post is like shooting a bow and arrow, which is a lot more accurate than a shotgun.

Why bother targeting Boosted Posts?

Developing a practice of targeting ads accurately, has at least three benefits:

Save Money – Ads that are well-targeted cost less than ads that are targeted too broadly.
Avoid Spamming – targeting ads to people who are most likely to engage with the post lowers the likelihood that people would market as unwarranted or spamming.
Think Strategically – Targeting ads based on location, gender, age and interest forces you understand your audience, a critical part of any social media strategy.

Getting Started with Facebook Boosted Posts [step-by-step guide]

When you pay to Boost a post, you’re only paying for more people to see that post. If you target too broadly – including people who will never support your cause – you’ll waste money.

First, let Facebook tell you what to target

Targeting people interested in your cause will result in a higher click-through rate (CTR) than targeting just anyone with a heartbeat.

Here are three ways to research the best targeting options with Facebook:

Use Facebook Insights: Visit the “People” tab within Facebook Insights, and click on the “People Engaged” report (shown below).

This report shows you demographic information for people who have engaged with your page content. Using the gender, age, and location criteria to target your Boosted Posts will increase the engagement rate for that post.
Use Facebook Graph: You can also use Facebook graph search to help you define interests for your boosted posts. In this video, I show you several ways to use Graph Search to discover what your Facebook community likes.
Use Facebook Ads: Finally, you can research the likes and interests of your donor database, using the Facebook Ad tool.

How to Boost a Facebook Page Post

After you’ve defined the demographics and interests that you’ll be targeting, you’re ready to boost your post.

All you have to do is follow these steps:

1. Click Boost – Click the Boost button at the bottom of any Facebook Page post (you have to be an admin first).

2. Target Your Post – Once you click “Boost”, a new window pops up, showing you two targeting options:

People who like your page and their friends (way too broad)
People you choose through targeting

When you select the second option, targeting fields will display (as shown below).

Fill in these fields with the information you discovered from using Facebook insights, Graph search, and your Custom Email Audience.

3. Save Your Audience – You’ll want to save your targeting criteria for future posts.

Give your audience a name and click “Save”.

4. Select Run Dates – Next, select the run dates for your boosted post (click “More Options”).

Your choices are 1 to 7 days. If you want your ad to run longer, you’ll have to use the advanced advertising options.

5. Click Boost – After you click “Boost” a pop-up window will appear stating that Facebook has to review the ad (this usually takes 15 minutes).

5 Tips for Boosting Facebook Posts

Here are five tips for Boosting Posts that you can remember as the BOOST method:

B – Boost Your Best
O – Optimize Targeting
O – Optimize Content
S – Synch Channels
T – Test and Measure

Let’s go over each one of these in greater detail.

B – Boost Your Best

When you boost only your best stuff, you increase the likelihood that people who see it will engage with your post. That’s because it’s good stuff!

Use your Page Insights to select from the top 10% within a given time period.

Start with three months or 100 posts, whichever is greater.

Decide which posts you’ll Boost, based on high engagement rate AND how relevant it is to your current marketing goals.

O – Observe Your Engaged Fans

You want to get your posts in front of people who:

Want to see it.
Won’t hide it.
Will comment, like and share it.

Again, engagement is your ultimate goal, not reach.

To select the best demographics for Boosted Posts, view the People Engaged report within Facebook Insights.

O – Optimize Your Content

There may be cases when your best performing updates aren’t directly related to your promotion. If so, simply edit the post description (or status update) and include a call-to-action and link to your campaign landing page.

Make sure your edits feel natural and aren’t forced.

S – Synch With Other Marketing Channels

The best type of plan is a well orchestrated plan.

Make sure you use other marketing channels to create more quality reach for your Boosted Posts:

SEND AN EMAIL: Send an email message to a targeted group of subscribers talking about a particular update, and how you love to hear their comments as well.
SPREAD IT AROUND: If the updated photo, post it on Pinterest and link back to your Facebook update. Publish 2 to 3 pins for each boost to post, but publish these overtime. Extend this idea to Instagram and Tumblr, but keep in mind that you need an engaged community for this to work.
BLOG ABOUT IT: Find a way to write a blog post about your upcoming event our fundraiser, and tie-in one of your top-performing posts. This kills two birds with one stone – creating more reach for the update, while sourcing high-quality content for your blog. You’ll look like a hero!

T – Test and Measure

If you’re serious about using Facebook to create awareness for your cause, eventually you have to buy ads. Developing a habit of testing various approaches to Boosting posts to find out what works best for your community.

How are you using Facebook Boosted Posts?

Facebook ads, facebook boost posts, Facebook tipsAugust 4, 2014

How to Setup a Facebook Custom Audience Retargeting Ad

Overview of Facebook Audiences

Custom Audiences from your website make it easy to reach a high percentage of people who have visited your website (or TabSite app) back on Facebook. The pixel knows they have been on your website or app, then when they are on Facebook again, you can deliver an add to them.

Since this can be a specific ad to just those people who you know were on a website page of yours (or a TabSite App of yours), you can deliver the right specific message just to them on Facebook.

It helps you:

Bring your website or app visitors back again via the cycle: they visit your site, you reach out to them via a Ad on Facebook, then click and come back to your site
Target people across both their mobile and desktop devices

Setup

Build an audiences list

To build a Custom Audiences list using information from your website or TabSite App, go to the Ads Manager and select the Audiences tab in the left-hand side menu
On the Audiences page, select Create Audience in the upper right-hand corner.
A lightbox will appear with a variety of options. Choose Custom Audience from your Website.

In order to identify the people who visit your website or TabSite App, you’ll need to insert the special code on your site. Here’s how:

Place the code provided by Facebook across your webpages or in your TabSite App. To do this, copy the code from the Create Web Remarketing Pixel box, and paste it between the <head> and </head> on all pages of your website. Or in the box provided by TabSite in the App setup Advanced area.

Location in TabSite app to add Audience pixel code.

Once the code has been added, click Create Audience

Notes:

You may need to work with your website developer to get the code added to your webpage
Be sure to copy 100% of the pixel code so that it works properly
Once you’ve created your pixel, you can see its status. Your pixel must be installed properly and viewable on your website to become verified so that you can begin using it to run ads.

Create the Ad

To create an add once you have your custom audience pixel set:

1. Go back to Audiences in your Ad manager

2. Find the Audience you created

3. In the right side, click to “Create Ad”

Then select the type of Ad you want to use. We recommend driving traffic to your website or landing tab (Clicks to website) but other Ads can serve other purposes you have.

Complete the Ad setup and your Facebook Custom Audience Retargeting Ads will be live serving ads to just that Custom Audience you reached on your website or TabSite app.

Facebook adsJune 23, 2014

Facebook Remarketing Ads Can Work for your Page Apps

Facebook Ads, love ’em or hate ’em, they can really work!

Facebook Ads are becoming more mainstream in use by smart marketers, and Facebook is making them simpler to setup and manage.

Why do they work? Because you can reach your ideal audience where they spend time… on Facebook and in the News Feed of Facebook.

How is this possible? Facebook knows a LOAD of information about each user by the profile information each person adds to the Pages they Like, the friends they have, and the items they comment on. All this is data that can work for you in Ads!

Plus, since research says it often takes 7 touches with a brand before a company is comfortable making a purchase from them, it makes sense to find ways to reconnect with your visitors.

Facebook is helping with that! Custom Audiences (or Audiences) provide an easy means to reach AGAIN, a very high percentage of people who visit your website, by enabling you to deliver another message back to them on Facebook.

See How to Setup a Custom Audience and a Facebook Custom Audience Ad for instructions

Now, TabSite Apps support Custom Audiences
enabling you to remarket to visitors of your app!

Here’s an example you could do:

Reach Fans Again:

Use a Sweepstakes App and run a “Enter to win!” promotion. Users enter and of course according to your promotion, maybe 1 or 2 people are selected as random winners. However, by adding the Audience pixel on your App you can then run a Facebook Ad to all those who visited the App (on Facebook or embedded on your website) and didn’t win.

Since you can target ONLY them, you could run a “dark post” (created in Facebook Ad Manager and only seen in News Feed by those you are targeting) that gives them a 1x 30% off coupon. That’s only one example!

The key is that you can reach out again to those who visited your app!

Bonus: Track Ad Conversions!

One additional item we are offering in our Sweepstakes, Sweepstakes Plus, and Form & Survey Apps is the ability to track conversions. This let’s you know the ROI of a Ad campaign by allowing you to add a Conversion Tracking Pixel to the “thank you page” so that you know when someone clicked on a Ad, came to your app and submitted the form!

Where to add:

In each App in the TabSite manager we have a Pixel Tracking code area for Facebook and/ or Google Ads. By installing the pixel code from those services, you are then able to target visitors to your promotion back on that service with ads.

Facebook Audience Pixel Tracking Code:

Simply paste the pixel tracking code that they provide. Full instructions on setup >

Facebook Conversion Tracking Code:

We offer the ability to track conversions (entry submissions) on your Sweepstakes, Sweepstakes Plus, and Form & Survey Apps that were generated by Facebook Ads. You would need the Conversion code from Facebook and you enter it in the area shown below.

Again, here’s the basics on Remarketing and then below we have some info on where to add your pixels for tracking in a TabSite App.

How Facebook Remarketing Ads helps you:

Allows you to reach your app visitors again on Facebook with an Ad
In your Ads you can then brings your app visitors to your website
Target people across both their mobile and desktop devices

How Custom Audiences from your website works:

People browse your App
Some enter, some don’t. Some share, some vote, etc.
You can reach them on Facebook by creating ads reminding them of their visit and inviting them to click and visit a special page on your website.

How Conversion Tracking helps you:

Tracks the “submit” or entry/sale only from the Facebook Ad
Gives you direct ROI info on your Facebook Ad investment
Users complete your form (for a sweepstakes, survey, ebook, whatever you outline) and when they successfully complete the form Facebook notes this and tracks the “conversion”.

So now you have ability to really fine-tune and extend the life of your promotion. The promotion can help you grow leads, grow fans, build our email list, and now even market again going forward to those who showed interest by coming to the app.

Have you used Audiences or Conversion tracking yet on Facebook?

SEPTEMBER ONLINE EVENT! Check it out and share the news!!

Facebook ads, Facebook Conversion Tracking, facebook tracking pixelJune 10, 2014

How to Market your Business on Facebook [Infographic]

Want a simple road map to market your business on Facebook?

Facebook offers businesses of all sizes and industries a great way to connect with their ideal audience and to move the awareness and interest dial closer and closer towards the “raving customer” zone!

The fast facts: Facebook has the biggest audience, the most active (by time spent per visit), and the greatest breadth of all audience demographics.

This animated infographic (perfect for Pinterest 🙂 ) outlines 7 keys for the savvy Facebook marketer to learn from and implement.

7 Tips for Marketing your Business on Facebook

How to Market a Business on Facebook – An infographic by the team at Wyzowl

1. Attraction Content:

Content is still king! People are on Facebook to connect, engage, and be entertained.

Your content mix needs to fit within this! Here are some recommendations…

A. Capture Attention

Images, videos, infographics and more. This helps catch the eye of the user in the News Feed, inspiring them to engage.

B. Be Social

Brands on Facebook need to post in a social way. There’s a style of writing that is not directly sales speak but communicates socially what you have to offer. Check out this post by Starbucks for an example of promoting their Pumpkin Spice Latte without directly selling it.

C. Be Helpful

As Jay Baer says, “it’s difficult to be amazing all the time, but you can be helpful 100% of the time.” Struggling with “what” you can post about? Be helpful! A real estate agent’s fan page can’t push the newest listing in the market each day, but they can inform their fans about school redistricting, new businesses coming to town, community resources, and more.

2. Use Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are powerful! Whether targeting via the Boost Post or more advanced with Custom Audiences, the right ad can be so helpful to your success!

For as little as $10-20 you can reach a ideal audience by location, interest, employment, and more options. It’s simply a great way to increase the reach of your best posts to your best audience!

Facebook knows a ton about each user. This sets it a part as a great place to use your ad dollars!

3. Custom Tabs

Custom tabs are power-packed apps to turbo-boost your page! Remember, we noted that people are on Facebook to engage and be entertained. So by offering a deal coupon or the opportunity to enter to win a prize or gift certificate, fans can get excited to participate and engage with your page.

The ability to post about a contest on your page and drive interested persons from the news feed to your tab where they can enter and you collect the much coveted name and email address is a win-win potential! They can have a chance to win or to get the coupon, while your business grows your email list with the ability to nurture market to the fans via email in the future!

4. Partner to Grow

Got partners with big fan bases? Can you collaborate on a “joint-venture” where you both drive fans to your Page tab where you have a Like Gate to grow your fan base and they enter to win a prize from both? You can share email addresses if you outline that in your promotion terms!

Work together!

5. Run Contests

Who doesn’t want to win?

As noted in the tab area, contests and giveaways are a great way to promote your business. Whether a contest in the News Feed or a Photo Contest, for example, there are many ways to easily run a contest that can drive engagement and new business!

6. Be Responsive

A little bit of responsiveness and help can go a long way!

Too many pages are not responding to fan comments and questions. It’s a simple but powerful way to build loyalty and traction.

They ask, you answer! Keep it simple. Just do it!

7. Socialize your Website with Facebook plugins

It’s not rocket science….

Add a Like box to your blog and fans can Like your Facebook Page while on your blog!

You can add the the “Like” button, a “Comments” area integrated with Facebook, the activity feed from your Page and more. Make it simple for visitors to your website to find and engage with your brand on Facebook. See the Facebook Social Plug-in options >>

Don’t you love that animated Infographic??

Facebook ads, facebook contests, Facebook Marketing, facebook pages, Facebook tipsApril 15, 2014