Facebook Advertising.

Facebook is still the leading social media channel of choice for Irish businesses.  However, with less than 5% of organic content being shown, many businesses have recognised the need to start advertising.

Facebook Ads

Ads Manager is a useful tool that allows you to create your advertisements and manage them in one dashboard.  This is where you will go to create your advertisements for both Facebook and Instagram.  You can access this through Facebook Business Suite.  Facebook Ads need to be more than a ‘boost post’ and some thought needs to go into planning your campaign.

Your Campaign Objective

You have three main marketing objectives with Facebook Ads:  Awareness, Consideration, Conversion.

Awareness:  This is where you will start for your first advertisements.  Here you can introduce your brand to people who do not already know about it.  It is the place to create a story and get them interested in visiting your website.

Consideration:  The next step in your advertising campaigns, here you want to attract customers to consider your brand.  This will be advertising to people who are already familiar with your brand, perhaps they are your followers on social media or they have visited your website.

Conversion:  These are the campaigns that get you the sale by advertising to those who have visited your website more than once.  They are highly likely to purchase either for the first time or make a repeat purchase.  As this will be a smaller pool of people, it can be cost effective and very targeted.

Some Advice for Facebook Ads

When you are targeting, exclude as well as include behaviours and interests to get a better audience.   Broad audiences cost less, remember this when you are running an awareness campaign.  You can target on competitors Facebook pages once they have a significant presence there.   Test different versions of your ad, test different times of the week to run the ads, test and learn.

Your Ad Copy

Simple things like using an image with little or no text on it will make it perform better.  Get your message right in the ad – stop them scrolling, identify their pain point and offer to fix it.  Have a call to action that links back to a great page on your website that helps them convert to a sale.  Grab their attention, but do not sell AT them.  Remember ask yourself ‘would I say that sentence to a real-life customer right in front of me?’ and your answer will let you know if the ad copy is suitable.

Facebook ads are a great tool for any business but only if it has careful planning and thought.  Remember, start with the customer and get the message right for ultimate success.