Facebook Ads For Marketing Your Small Business

Facebook Ads What’s The Real Story:

With the Facebook IPO and GM pulling their Facebook ads there has been a lot of talk regarding the effectiveness of running ads on

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook.  We’ve run several ads for clients on Facebook, like with all advertising, the execution, the category and the set goals will have everything to do with how you feel about the platform.

Don’t let GM’s decision have anything to do with whether or not Facebook Ad’s are right for you, Ford is doing wonders with Facebook Ad’s, but that shouldn’t have anything to do with your decision either.

Targeting Your Facebook Ads

For business’ that target a more local or regional audience using Facebook ads as a complement to another campaign that you are running will increase the rate of success tremendously.  For most of our clients we like to run either Facebook or Google AdWords as a secondary layer to a marketing plan.

With Facebook not only gain exposure through impressions, but gain quality ‘likes’.  Facebook gives you have the ability to target, geographically, demographically, psychographically.  Target, target target.  Use the ability to target your Facebook ads who you want to spend your budget on.

There are two basic Facebook Ad’s one is more targeted to people clicking through and landing on your page and one is more geared towards generating likes.   Choose what’s most important.  Is this a campaign to make people aware of an event or sale, or long term and ‘likes’ are the most important goal?

Once you know ‘WHY’ you’re doing this and have some goals and objectives, here is what you do:

1. Compelling body copy- Keep it short and straight to the point. Facebook now only allowing 90 characters for copy, say what you need and let the destination of the ad speak for itself.
2. Crisp images- The image is the most important as it is the first part of an ad that a person sees. A clear image- sized to 110×80 pixels on Facebook- will drive a person to then read the copy, and then click on the ad to interact with what you are promoting.
3. A clear and focused destination –  Where would you like for them to land.  On your timeline, or a specific story or post.  If this is about a specific event or sale then you’ll want to have them land on what you’re specifically trying to promote.

1.  Segment Your Campaigns – Identify the different audience groups you are targeting and create 3-4 well-targeted ads for each group. You can target by location, age, gender and interests.  Test which audience responds best to each ad. Adjust your budgets to focus on the high-performing ads.

Summary:

Facebook Ad Campaign Checklist

1. Run Facebook Ads to build up your fan base.
2. Once you have around 1000 fans, use Sponsored Stories to interact with friends of fans.
3. Structure your campaign by segment then test 3-4 ads per campaign.
4. Use compelling copy and images for each ad, tailoring your message to the right audience.
5. Track ad performance on Ads Manager every couple of days.
6. Pause low performers and adjust budget; play around with ad text and images. Remember: Only Sponsored Stories that are doing really well appear in news feeds. So, monitor and optimize your Sponsored Stories, in particular.

• Facebook ads – focus on growing and engaging your fan base (freshnetworks.com)
• Do Facebook Ads Work? (optimalweb.biz)
• Designing Facebook Ads: Which Ads Offer Effective CTR? (social-mediahub.com)