Since they introduced the ability to boost posts, Facebook adverts have been a great way to reach specific target markets. Roll on a few years, after an awful lot of work into demographics and user behaviours and various high tech algorithms, Facebook adverts now produce one of the highest ROI (return on investments) on the web. With lower PPC (pay per click) costs than Google Adwords, you don’t necessarily need a huge budget to generate leads from Facebook. In this article we go through some of our top tips to using Facebook adverts.

Using Facebook Adverts

A word of warning! Like all online advertising, things are not as easy as they look. I have seen a few people spend a few hundred pounds on unsuccessful Facebook ads. Don’t let the horror stories put you off. The rewards are there to be had.

Here are 8 top tips that should help when composing Facebook Ad Campaigns:

1. Be specific, know who you are targeting and with what message. Profile the end user, habits, interests, age, location etc. When are they likely to be using Facebook and will that be via a desktop or mobile device? What single sentence will capture their interest?
2. What do you want? Know what outcome you want, should they be directed to purchase a product, sign up for a special offer or browse a brand? Remember to be specific with your targeted message.
3. Visual Impact. Make sure you grab a ‘scrollers’ attention by using a relevant but highly impactful image or 5. You can even use video that will auto play.
4. Set your budget. How much should you spend? How long is a piece of string? Be appreciative this is an advertising campaign and put a real budget aside to accomplish real results.
5. Test, test, test. Run a short campaign to test the response rates, use different images and wordings to find the right formula and trial different audiences and demographics.
6. Be vigilant and monitor your campaign, be prepared to answer queries in a timely fashion and beware the trolls. Avoid copy and paste answers to questions, that isn’t going to build brand trust.
7. After every campaign review the data, not just the Facebook stats but your Google Analytics too. Look for ‘dead ends’. For example if you drive 5,000 people to a particular product but only a tiny portion buy, you can use Google Analytics to see at which stage they left the site. Was it during check out? Did they even click on the product or sign up form? At which stage did they abandon? There are times when a tiny glitch in the system or just the wrong expectation has resulted in lower than expected numbers. Most of these are exposed during the test period, but it pays to be thorough.
8. Repeat, refresh or regroup. There is a reason why TV ads are repeated, you need to drip feed your message and reach people a number of times before they will buy from or buy into what you are offering. Small tweaks, split testing and a rethink can make huge differences to campaigns and how they are perceived.

Using Facebook Adverts: If you need a team to devise your Facebook adverts, monitor and report on the effectiveness of each campaign and design the creatives to go with them, then call our social media ads team on 01604 654545 or email sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk to set up a consultation appointment.