How to Run a Successful Facebook Ad Campaign

You’ve probably heard about Facebook Ads (if you haven’t, it’s a marketing tool that I’m totally obsessed with right now).  Facebook offers both “Boosts”, where you are able to pay to have your published post shown to many more people, and “Ads”, where you can create a clear Call to Action for your page.  You have the ability to target specific demographics for each, and Facebook provides in-depth analytics for both tools.  Boosts and Ads are valuable marketing tools in their own right; and today I’d like to focus on running a successful Facebook Ad Campaign specifically.

Consistently posting quality content on your Facebook page and other social media platforms will grow your audience organically, but Ads give you that little nudge to create a specific Call to Action (CTA) and grow your following a splash faster.  I love Facebook Ads because they are:

• Inexpensive, in that you can create any budget and see some sort of result
• Effective, due to targeting a specific audience
• An investment in your business: As your Likes grow, so does your Following!

I am a strong believer that having more Likes on your page improves your credibility and strengthens your brand.  Think about if you were to visit two car dealership pages, and one dealership has 100 likes while the other had 1000. Which dealership would you visit?  Social Proof is the reason we check reviews, websites, and Facebook before doing business with those we don’t know personally.  Does your Facebook page help to establish you as an expert in your field?

Before I get too off track, here’s how to set up your wildly successful Facebook Ad… Facebook Ads can be found by accessing your Ads Manager.  This is your dashboard for any promoted items on your page, and shows things like Reach, Engagement, Cost per Click (CPC), and Total Amount Spent.

Your dashboard also shows past campaigns, so you can compare and repeat what works best for your page.

Creating an Ad isn’t as scary as it sounds.  At the top right, you can choose the green button that says, “Create Ad”.

Choose your marketing objective.  Facebook has recently updated their objectives to make it more simple.  Choose Awareness, Consideration, or Conversion.  For your first campaign, I would recommend Engagement, so you can build your Page Likes.

Facebook makes it very easy to set up your Ad, and takes you through each necessary step.  Choose your Audience (who is your target?), Placements (Automatic is fine), and Budget.  I recommend a Lifetime Budget, starting with a one-week timeframe.

Next, you’ll create the ad itself.

• Use beautiful imagery that represents your brand.  Better yet, use a video!
• You can create up to 6 ads at once by uploading multiple images.
• Images should be 1200 X 628 pixels for optimal quality across all screen sizes.
• Do not use words in the image itself, you can describe your business and what you are promoting in the text area of the ad.
• Keep your text description to 90 words or less.  Facebook actually limits your reach if your text is overly wordy.  (Check out more guidelines here.)
• Establish a clear Call to Action for your ad.  For an Engagement campaign, we want the viewers to visit and like our page.  How can you entice someone to like your page?

The last exciting step is just to submit your Ad!  Note: Facebook approves all Ads and Boosts before they are published, but this usually only takes about 15 minutes.

Analyzing what works and what doesn’t is the key to ensuring your Ads are performing as they should.  It’s a great idea to run multiple campaigns with different targets to see what works best for your business and audience.  Repeat what works, and stop whatever doesn’t perform.

As a starting out point, try budgeting $1 per “Like” you would hope to receive.  If you want to grow your fanbase by 25 likes, start with a Lifetime Budget of $25 and see what happens!  My first campaign had a budget of $70, and since my Cost per Click came out to only $0.66, I spent less than I had anticipated, and added it to my next campaign budget.

Good luck, and happy Campaigning!