Anyone can create a Facebook ad. But making an effective Facebook ad is a whole different story. It’s no easy feat: truly effective digital ads that drive conversions require a clear strategy, strong creative and measurable goals. But where do you even start? Well, you’re in luck! We’ve created a roadmap to help with driving sales from Facebook ads.
1. Define your goals
Define your goals prior to even considering running ads, or any marketing for that matter. Make your goals tangible, attainable and measurable, and consider including dollar amounts if applicable. Consider your current marketing and sales performance: dig into your website analytics and other advertising efforts to determine your current standing and go from there.
2. Identify your audience
Consider creating buyer personas for your target audience(s). If you’re unsure how to, start with the following questions:
- What interests and demographic info apply to your buyers?
- What language and imagery might make your audience tick?
- Where are they geographically, and would you want to target them based on that?
- Do you have email lists to target Facebook users directly or create a lookalike audience with?
Be sure to install the Facebook pixel if you decide to retarget your website visitors! Custom audiences perform exceedingly well: especially when geotargeting, retargeting or using email lists.
3. Set a monthly budget
With Facebook ads, go ahead and accept you’re gonna have to pay to play. Plan to start small and adjust placements and budgets as needed, but consider your total marketing budget and plan to allot at least 25% of it to digital ad spending. Just one of the reasons we love digital so much: after the first month or so, you’ll know exactly what that money got you. Dollars spent are directly compared to ad impressions, clicks to your website and customer conversions tracked on it!
4. Get creative
Considering your buyer personas, craft short, zippy ads with strong calls to action, keeping in mind the character limits for headlines and body copy (as well as the 20% rule!). Then, make a few different versions in order to A/B test and see what performs the best for your specific audience; experiment with different images; try pictures with and without image text as well as variations of the same ad copy. You can also experiment with different placements like Facebook Stories and Instant articles, but keep in mind they have their own requirements and best practices when you’re creating them! The best thing to keep in mind is that not every placement and ad will be a perfect fit for your audience, so trial and error is a key component to any ad strategy.
5. Measure results
Tracking impressions, clicks and engagement from Facebook Analytics is important, but strive to go a step further to track ROI reliably. Be sure to set up Conversions with the Facebook Pixel to track website actions resulting from social ad clicks. Start by installing Google Tag Manager on your website and installing the Facebook Pixel within it. You’ll be able to set up custom actions in the Facebook Pixel to attribute website conversions to your ads, and access the results all from Facebook Analytics.
6. Hire someone
If you want to get serious about Facebook Ads and don’t know where to start, our advice is to hire someone. Trusting an expert whose sole job is to keep up with the constant changes to each of the different platforms and who optimizes ads of all kinds will get you the most bang for your buck, without wasting money on something that proves to be ineffective because of inexperience.
A lot of times that kind of insight just can’t be achieved with the myriad of other objectives business owners face in-house daily. If you’re feeling the Facebook Ads struggle or if you’re just tired of spending good money on bad marketing, give Rally a shout.