How to successfully advertise on Facebook

Facebook is a marketing goldmine with over 2 billion users and 65 million small businesses advertisers. All those social media junkies are your potential customers so it’s crucial to have a well-planned idea of how to strategically target your audience and turn them into customers.
 
I’m No Longer Afraid of Taking Tests
A/B testing (split testing) on Facebook is used to experiment with different campaign elements- color/imagery/messaging, to find out what works best. A/B testing is done through having a control (previous creative that has done well) and a test (new ways of changing the ad itself or optimizing it on the back end). In the real social media world, there’s no magical shortcut to knowing what’s the best-performing ad design for a particular demographic until you do your due diligence and test, test, test. Analytics aren’t the most exciting way for us creatives to spend our day, but at the end of that day, the pay back is revolutionary.
 
Some Design Software We Like
Canva: Canva is a great way to streamline ad production. One thing I’ve had to learn to do is work quickly with any initial ad campaign we’re testing. I had to let go of some design perfection for first ad tests, and Canva makes the process easy for me. I can create a campaign and get it up and testing within a few hours. With templates, fonts, and imagery at my fingertips the process is (mostly) painless.
 
Facebook Options
Facebook allows you to target people based on demographics, behaviors, and interests, allowing you to create a profile of your target market. The combinations and possibilities are endless, but if you select an audience that is either too specific or too broad, your ad will not perform as well as it could. Focus on creating an audience size with a potential reach of about 130,000 people, and try to target users who have interacted with your page or visited your website. (HINT: make sure your website is gathering data).
 
Put Your Money Where Your Data Is
As soon as your campaign starts delivering impressions, you can identify what’s delivering results and what’s not with Facebook’s side-by-side comparison = data analytics. Cost per conversion, cost per click, cost per like, cost per engagement, yada, yada. Now you can begin to see which ad has the most bang for the buck, and the process of elimination begins.
 
Design That Works
Over the course of discovery, StraightFire has honed in on a few design features that have proven successful with a variety of clients across a range of demographics:
 
Compelling Imagery
No amateur iPhone photos for ads. All imagery is vivid, focused, and uncluttered. You have 3 seconds with a viewer, so your image plays a huge roll in captivating your audience and is worth the investment. Solid areas of bright color, simple 2-3 word headline, logo and your call-to-action.
 
Content Writing and Clever Link Titles
Facebook ads that have added content, have added value. We have noticed a substantial difference to the number of clicks on ads when they provide details and explanation that support the ad itself.
 
CTA Button
Facebook offers phrasing options for this tiny, powerful, little button. Calls to action can be placed in the copy of your ad or chosen as a button that goes on the bottom-right corner of an ad. Some of these options are “shop now,” “learn more,” “sign up” and “donate now.” Some audiences respond to being told what to do, like “shop now”, while others prefer to be coaxed into shopping with a “learn more.” For a target audience to convert to a customer, the next step is a carefully planned and executed call-to-action.
 
We hope you found this information helpful. If you feel you need some guidance through the FB maze, StraightFire is here to listen and help. Free consultation. Always.