Is your Facebook page not getting enough love? As Facebook continues to dominate the social experience, the Facebook advertising platform should become a static component of your online marketing strategy. Facebook ads have become the main driving factor that helps brands reach their target audience.

When creating Facebook ads, it is important to know the ‘ins and outs” of the Ad Manager platform. Without executing an effective ad display, the campaigns won’t resonate with consumers and will ultimately result in an #epicfail moment.

With the recent announcement of Facebook’s ad creation redesign, Facebook has streamlined the ad creation process for brands in order to help create ads that are more directed toward their campaign goals, objectives, and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). It is important that before you begin your Facebook marketing that you identify these to achieve the best ad placement for your campaign.

PHASE 1

Before you begin, decide which Facebook ad selection you want to choose.  Depending on your campaign goals and success metrics, you may want to go with a different ad format.

Promoted Posts

This is a quick and cost-effective way to reach more of your Fans and potential target audience. This is displayed in the news feed based off of your most recent post.

Sponsored Stories

Sponsored stories are posts from Fans from your Page on their news feed. They are regular stories that a friend or Page you’re connected to has shared with you.

Custom Ad

These are basic ads that show relevant and interesting advertisements to you and your friends. Ads can appear in the right-hand column of pages throughout Facebook.

PHASE 2

Creative

Image

It is important to connect your image to your copy. You want to provide a graphic that is relevant to your copy and your promotion. There is a very little space to work with so try to choose a picture that works best in small places. Studies have shown that images with a close up or with a female face tend to perform better.

Copy

You have a 90-character limit to work with, try to keep your copy short and sweet while conveying your brand message. It also helps to give a call-to-action word that pushes the audience toward your campaign goals.

Can you guess which ad performed better based on graphics and copy?

PHASE 3

Targeting

Understanding your audience is key to any top performing Facebook ad. By analyzing your Facebook Insight demographics data, we can pinpoint a starting place. It is also important to target a high opportunity market that the brand may have not reached yet. Marketers should structure their campaigns to reach the highest return, if the target is off; it’s the same as throwing money away.

PHASE 4

Performance Metrics

Facebook provides users with an interactive experience that is constantly changing. If the interaction continues to mature and develop, why are marketers still measuring data from old metrics like Click-Through Rate?

By shifting our attention to a more meaningful interaction that helps us reach beyond the Holy Grail of the “Like”, we can begin to nurture and maintain a progressive consumer relationship. By taking a look at the engagement or Actions gives us a new dimension of insight that can help us evolve our paid ad campaign toward the right audience.

Facebook advertising is not just about improving Likes; it’s about a connection. It’s a way for brands to push their unique brand experience into the face of its target. It is important that all brands begin to experiment with these benefits, as Facebook advertising will only continue to grow.

 

+Anna Lea Crowe Social Media Strategist at Webhead Interactive.