Are you using Facebook ads to help you grow your business?
They are easy and quick to set up, and can give massive results, whatever business you are in.
I made £1,000 in sales in just an hour with a £30 ad spend, for example; a client of mine added 2,000 names to their database in just 10 days and another client has solved her recruitment headache by using ads – now 80% of enquiries come via Facebook ads.
Once you have them set up correctly, you can use them to literally market your business on auto-pilot, freeing you up to do all the other stuff that needs doing to grow your business.
However, to get the best results from Facebook ads, you need to do a bit of simple planning and preparation – just follow the steps I lay out below.
That way, you’ll get the very most from your budget and avoid wasting time and money in the process!
Planning
a. What do you want to achieve?
It’s crucial to plan out what you actually want to achieve with your ads, as only then can you map out the steps you want your new visitor to take after seeing your ad,
The first step you ask them to take needs to be as simple as possible , for example, calling to book a table, or clicking on a link.
b. Is your “Back- end’ set up?
It goes without saying that before you set your ads up, you need to make sure that all the back-end ‘steps’ for your new visitor are in place (you do have people ready to take those calls don’t you?!)
If you’re going to send visitors to your website from your ads then it must be mobile-friendly.
c. Do you want to target your website visitors?
Facebook now enables us to do amazing things like serve ads to people who have visited our website., or to those on our email list.
To do this, you will need to create a custom audience . In addition, you can create a ‘lookalike’ audience seeded from one of your custom audiences – with matching interests and demographics.
These all offer a huge, huge opportunity as you are now able to get in front of a ‘warm’ audience with your message, but you do need to allow time to set these audiences up before you rush in and create a Facebook ad.
(NOTE: Want to get amazing results with Facebook ads, each and every time? You need to know the 10 Essential Elements to Facebook Ads Success. Get your copy of my free, essential checklist by clicking here NOW.)
Research
a. Audiences
Although you can make the most of custom audiences, you often need to run ads to ‘cold’ audiences too. The more you can drill down to who your ‘ideal customer’ is, then more effective your ad targeting will be.
For example, if you know what books or magazines they would read, which ‘big names’ they follow, or even which competitors they might buy from, then you can use these to select ‘interests’ to target with.
Add in additional layers of filtering by setting location, age and gender, and more specific factors such as age of children, relationship status, or employer.
b. Copy
The words you use in your ad are crucial. Remember that people are on Facebook to be social, not to buy – so your wording should reflect the fact that you’re catching them ‘on the off-chance’.
Aggressive sales pitches don’t work; instead you need to tap into the feelings your ideal customer has about the issue you help them with, or the goal you help them to achieve.
The best way to find out which words to use are to listen to your current customers – what words do they use to describe the problem or goal?
Use words that echo the words your customers are using in their every-day lives and your ad will appear attractive, rather than intrusive.
Testing and Optimisation
a. Testing
Before you set off on a full-blown ads campaign, allow some time for testing the waters.
The approach I use is to create an ad, then duplicate it, changing only the targeting each time. In this way, I can test the response of several different audiences before going any further.
Allow the ads to ‘settle in’ for 2 days before you analyse the results, otherwise you may get distorted stats.
You might also want to test the type of ad you create. Sometimes, you can get better results from running a page post engagement ad than from running a website clicks or events ad, for example.
b. Optimising
Once you know which audiences respond the best, you can now optimise the ads you create by testing your ad copy and image.
Remember to only change one variable at a time, otherwise any change in results will be impossible to track back.
Finer tweaks would include the type of bidding you choose, and also whether you choose to show ads at certain times of day only.
Test options one at a time and stop the ad variants that aren’t successful.
Follow the steps that I’ve outlined here and you really will squeeze the most out of every minute and £ that you spend on Facebook!
Not only that, but you will gain massively valuable insight for all your marketing, on- and off-line!
(NOTE: Want to get amazing results with Facebook ads, each and every time? You need to know the 10 Essential Elements to Facebook Ads Success. Get your copy of my free, essential checklist by clicking here NOW.)
Please comment below and let me know what results you get!
Aggressive sales pitches don’t work; <— love this Julia, so many people think by going at FB ads aggressively they'll make more sales. Sadly it doesn't work! If people only take one thing from all the wisdom you've shared, I hope it's that they'll create something that speaks to the feelings and emotions of their audience.
Thanks so much Sarah and I agree with you – that point is probably the one I want people to remember the most! Sadly people are still being sold the myth that Facebook ads are the silver bullet to cure all ills – they are fab but won’t help if you don’t have a good offer for the market you want to attract! And if you can’t speak to your audience on their wavelength, you’re going to struggle!
Just about to embark on FB advertising for the first time so this is very helpful, Julia. Thank you.
Oh that’s great news Caroline – let me know if you need any more info 🙂
Great overview, Julia! I’ll explore your checklist next. Thanks.
Thanks so much Michael – hope you find it helpful – please feel free to ask any questions 🙂
Great advice Julia, thank you. Is there a rule of thumb on how much of your budget you invest in cold audiences and how much in custom ones?
Hi Patricia – thanks so much for your kind words. It’s going to sound cliche, but the amount you spend will depend on what you want to achieve and what sector you are working in. To get your ads in front of a popular audience you will need to pay more than one that is not targeted much. If you are advertising an opt-in to one audience and a sale to another, you may find that you have to budget more to achieve sales, even if the audience is warm. So it’s all test and measure!