Creating Your First Facebook Ad Campaign
Why create ad campaigns on Facebook?
With over 2.45 billion monthly active users (Statista) Facebook’s ability to deliver a marketing message to any segment of the world’s population is unrivaled.
Every active user voluntarily gives Facebook a vast amount of information which allows you to target users based on their age, location, interests, employment status, and behaviors.
Facebook’s targeting abilities means you can place your ads in front of users who are most likely to purchase your good or service, driving a favourable return on investment.
Time short?
At Unstuck Agency, we believe most business owners who are able to invest the time and money can become effective social media marketers. However, as a small business owner, I know it’s not always possible to find the time needed to learn new technical skills.
For a limited period only, we are offering all our services at a 40% discount for your first 30 days with no obligation to continue thereafter.
Click here to get in touch with me directly for a free consultation.
In this short guide we will cover:
1) Choosing your objective
2) Setting your budget
3) Choosing your target audience
4) Creating your content
5) Tracking users
Campaign Level: Choose your objective
For the purposes of your first campaign, I would advise you to select Traffic as your campaign objective. With a traffic campaign, Facebook will automatically place your content in front of users most likely to click on your advert, maximising the number of users who click through to your landing page. More information on choosing your landing page can be found here
Steps:
1. Go to your Ad Manager. If you’ve not created an ad manager you can find an instruction manual here
2. Click ‘+ Create’
3. Select ‘Traffic’ under the Consideration column
For learning purposes keep budget optimization off for your first campaign as this won’t be needed.
Campaign Level: Set your budget
Choose a budget that is appropriate for your business. As this is your first campaign you should view this as a data-gathering exercise. It is only through a process of trial and error that you can improve the efficiency of your campaigns to achieve the return on ad spend your aiming for. You should therefore view the money you put towards this campaign as a sunk cost and should not proceed with the expectation of making an immediate return.
Based on my own experience I would personally spend a minimum of £100 on Facebook and Instagram ads over the course of a month when starting out.
Pay close attention whether you are setting a lifetime or daily budget. Lifetime budgets have a start and stop date whereas daily budgets roll on indefinitely.
Ad Set Level: Choose your target audience
Now you have completed setting up your ad at the campaign level you can move down to the ad set level. The ad set is where you choose which Facebook and Instagram users are targeted with your advert.
Steps:
1. Select your optimization for Ad Delivery – for a traffic campaign select Link Clicks or Landing Page views.
2. If you’re running a Lifetime Budget campaign fill in the start and end date.
3. Select the locations you wish your ad to be shown in. Make sure you select ‘Living In’ that location if relevant for your business.
4. Choose the Age range.
5. Select Gender if relevant.
6. Fill in Detailed Targeting – type in relevant terms to narrow your audience by ‘Interests’, ‘Behaviours’, and ‘Employment Status’. For example, if you run an online weight loss programme, you should search for terms like ‘Diet’, ‘Personal Trainer’ and ‘Weight Watchers’.
7. Finally, to complete the ad set stage, select ‘Automatic Placements’. Placements dictate where your content is shown on Facebook and Instagram such as in ‘Stories’, ‘News Feed’ and ‘Facebook Right Column’.
To find out more about Custom and Lookalike audiences check out this video
Ad Level: Create your content
It’s now time to get down to the creative business of building your advert. Ads are composed of 3 main components: the content (video or photo), ad copy (descriptive text) and call to action (instruction).
Choosing your content
Steps:
1. Think about what videos or imagery resonate and grab attention for your target market.
2. Consider what assets you already have available. Utilise any high-quality photos or video that show off your product or service. If you don’t possess any content of your own look online for stock free videos or photos that represent your product or service.
3. Upload your chosen content.
4. Choose a thumbnail if using a video.
5. Select the page you wish your ad to show from.
Writing ad copy
People use Facebook and Instagram primarily to socialize and engage with interesting content. Its therefore important to keep your text snappy, with a maximum of two short sentences.
Steps:
1. Think about the benefits of your product or service.
2. In the ‘Primary Text’ box, describe the benefits using phrasing that will resonate with your audience. For example, B2B firms would potentially be more suited to using more formal language than B2C.
3. Fill in the ‘Headline’ box. You can use the name of your product, describe a USP or generate a sense of urgency. Urgency can be created using sentences like ‘Hurry, stock running low’.
4. Choose your website URL, this will be the landing page prospects are sent to who click on your ‘Call to action’
5. Pick your ‘Call to action’
Ad Level: Tracking users
Every time someone engages with your content Facebook registers the user’s engagement. This tracking process allows you to retarget the user at a later date using custom audiences. As users are unlikely to make a purchase on their first exposure to your ad, it’s important we track them so we are able to retarget them again at a later date.
Facebook automatically tracks user engagement on its platforms, however by installing a pixel on your website or landing page, your able to target any Facebook users who have visited your website.
Check out this article on how to set up your Facebook pixel.
Steps:
1. Set up your Facebook pixel following the above article’s instructions.
2. In the tracking section turn on your Facebook pixel.
Once you’ve set up your pixel you are ready to click ‘Publish’ (sometimes shows as ‘Confirm’) to launch your campaign. Once published the review process will begin, this usually takes a couple of hours. Once approved Facebook will send you a notification.
After publishing your ad, I would advise double checking the budget, targeting, content and ad copy are correct.
For further information on reviewing your ads performance and testing check out this video
If you would like any assistance setting up your ads, I’m on hand to give advice free of any charge. You can contact me here.
