The messages in Facebook ads are snippets of conversation that businesses use in their voice to inform their customers about the goods and services. The aim is to reach the people that matter the most for commercial success. Based on the messages, advertisers design campaigns that have goals, which are called advertising objectives.
For instance, a company may create an ad because it wants to get people to visit the store. When they design the ads with this goal in mind, the most appropriate text, images, and audience are chosen that will help them bring visitors to the store.
The Benefits of Facebook advertising
During the first four months of 2022 alone, Facebook reported 1.96 billion active users. 51% of marketing spend in the US was used on digital ads between Google, Amazon, and Facebook, and Facebook Ads are only increasing their market share with time. So, if you are in a dilemma about which digital platform to use for advertising, trust the marketers on this.
The Process of Facebook advertising
When creating ads on Facebook, you can create custom audiences based on the type of customers you want to target. However, it gets bigger and better. There are also highly targetable options and super customizable features. This process of FB advertising makes reaching your prospective clients and potential buyers even easier.
The Challenges of Facebook advertising
To advertise on Facebook, you need strategizing and a level of expertise that not all companies understand. They run the risk of creating several issues that can result in campaign failure. The most common issues that businesses face when they try to manage their FB ads are the following:
- Targeting the wrong audience
- Omitting a website link
- Unable to track conversion or click-through rates
- Improper A/B testing
- Failure to use the right images
- Using the boost button
- Not spending enough time
- Misunderstanding of Facebook rules
- Hyperlinking the text
- Creating busy advertisements
Facebook advertisement is not the same as boosting a Facebook post. The materials, goals, and the audience chosen for both differ. Do not use it interchangeably.
Let us now walk you through the 10 steps on how to advertise on Facebook.
1. Fix your browser settings
Facebook allows you to optimize its Facebook ad targeting by using automation tools that create scheduling ads and multiple posts. But the efficiency of the software can sometimes decrease due to the way you have set the browser settings. If you are working on a Mac computer, the Facebook automation system can get slow.
Mac creates files that are called caches when you use Facebook for the first time, which piles up. Those caches are then used by the browser for faster loading. Clear cached files on your browser settings and remove other junk spots from your device to fix its slowness. You can optimize the campaigns better by clearing the caches occasionally.
It is an easy process to clear the caches on your computer. On your Mac, click “Cache” – it appears from the Activity monitor app. Or you can access content caching from the System preferences of the Apple menu. After clearing the caches, quit and reopen the Activity monitor, and you will see in the Cache information that the caches are cleared.
Further Reading: The Top 16 Facebook Ads Tools You Didn’t Even Know Existed
2. Create a business account
The Business suite and Business manager are merged now into a single entity. Creating a business manager account will bring you to the Meta business suite account. Although you are allowed to access the old interface, your best bet would be to get yourself familiar with the new interface, i.e., the Business suite, for long-term purposes.
Creating an account is easy. Simply go to the business page on Facebook and create an account using the drop-down tab on the upper right menu. There you would have to fill in your details, such as business name, business email, and your name. Your account is set after you have confirmed the email.
Meta business suite in Facebook is a tool that centralizes the social media platforms in a single place. It is a free feature that is designed to save time, get better results, and connect with people. Meta business suite also allows you to manage all your social media accounts using a single interface.
Further Reading: How to Create a Facebook Business Page in 12 Easy Steps
3. Connect your business page
If you do not already have a Facebook page, you must create a page. As you create your page, you can supply just enough details to open the account. However, it is highly recommended that you build it fully before you publish the ad campaigns since users can navigate there from your ad.
- Go to the very bottom of the page and click on Settings on the left-hand side of the page.
- It will automatically prompt you to go to Business settings. If not, click the gear icon you see. Both will land you up in the same area.
- On the left, you will see pages. Select it and click on Add. You can either create a page, request access to a page, or add an already existing page.
- Fill in all details as much as you can and optimize it to suit your business needs, which differ from company to company.
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4. Add the Meta pixel
This step is not necessary right now. However, if you wish, you may set it up at this stage. Eventually, you may have to set it up. Pixel tells you what the viewers do on your website. Insights from this snippet of code help you to optimize your ads and create retargeting audiences when you advertise on Facebook, which tends to do well. With the expiration of cookies and privacy updates, it is highly suggested to set up Conversions API as it will give you a host of insights about your data.
- Select pixels from the data sources on the right and click add. Facebook will then prompt you to install it either manually or with an integration.
- If you click on manual installation, it will give you a snippet of code that you can install on your website.
- Partner integration installation is designed to make the process easy without using code.
5. Create an ad account
Your ad account on Facebook is crucial because that is where you put in the details of the payment account. Most people choose to pay by credit card. This place is also where you can see the analytics and insights, such as frequency, engagement, and reach, related to your campaigns once the ads start running.
- Navigate to the left-hand side of the page and click on Ad accounts, where you have an option to create an ad account on the right side
- Provide your account name, currency, and time zone. You will have to select whether you are going to use it for your account or a client account.
- Add permissions and people if you think several people are going to manage the accounts.
- Choose your name, and now you have full control over the account, including adding and deleting campaigns.
- Click assign and add payment details, usually your credit card details, and your ad account is set up.
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6. Determine ad campaign objectives
There are three categories of objectives in Facebook campaigns. They are awareness for reach, consideration for engagement, and conversion for sales. It is essential to choose the most appropriate advertising objective for your results. The objective you choose should depend on what the advertising is for and the target audience.
Some advertisers adopt a full-funnel strategy. In this strategy, different campaigns are created for each funnel stage. Full-funnel helps to determine the best objective for the campaign. Then you can use the objective that brought you the best results. For the conversion campaign, you must configure the pixel and web events.
Awareness objectives make people interested in your service or product. Increasing awareness is about communicating to people what makes the company valuable. Consideration objective, on the other hand, gets people to consider your business and ask for more information. It can be a way to make people visit your site to learn more.
Further Reading: Facebook Ads Strategy: 15 Powerful & Effective Strategies for 2024
7. Fine-tune your ad campaign settings
After you have chosen your objective, you will be asked to set up the ad campaign details such as campaign name, special ad categories, campaign details, A/B test, and campaign budget optimization. Most people skip the A/B test session as it is not necessary to set it up at this stage.
Use a campaign name for each of them that would make sense so that when you return, you can easily identify it. Declare that you fall into a special ad category only if it is relevant. Otherwise, it may ask you for further documentation to complete the ad setup depending on the advertising policies.
Build your ad campaign audience, and Facebook will show your estimated reach and tell if they are too small or too big using the meter. This feature allows you to target interests or likes on Facebook, demographics, and even behaviors. All of them allow you to design very specific audiences, which is vital when Facebook ads.
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8. Use the right budget and schedule
Choose either a lifetime budget or a daily budget for your Facebook advertising campaigns. You will choose daily budgets if your evergreen campaign wants the best results or if you want to regularly change your budget. But if you want to run your campaign on a specific schedule, then choose a lifetime budget. This budget has an end date and a set budget.
If the daily budget is set too low, your campaigns will not collect enough insights because they show less. Therefore, Facebook will not be able to optimize for maximum performance. You can also set up the scheduling to run the ads only when it makes the most sense for your audience or business.
Alternatively, you can create an ad on a schedule and another ad with a daily budget. Compare them and check out the conversions. If the number of conversions is the same at a lower cost, run the ads on a schedule. If the conversions are less at a higher cost, then use the daily budget.
Further Reading: 9 Ways to Enhance Your Facebook Ads ROI
9. Determine your audience targeting
In this stage, you choose who you want your Facebook ad to target, which you define based on age, location, gender, behaviors, and interests. Due to privacy concerns, recently, audience targeting has taken a back seat. However, it is still powerful since users provide detailed information about their web usage.
To advertise on Facebook, you can make use of three categories of audiences. They are core audiences, custom audiences, and lookalike audiences. In a single campaign, you must choose one type of audience you would like to target. In other words, for any given campaign, you can only choose a single category of audience.
The core audience is based on age, demographics, behaviors, and interests. The custom audience, which is pixel-based, not only targets but also retargets leads and customers. However, for this type of campaign it is important to do research via lead generation Facebook forms. This will allow you to get more detailed information about your custom audience geo, gender and interests. Lookalike audiences are people that have the same characteristics as your existing customers. Stick to a particular interest group, so you know what is working and achieve maximum ROI.
Further Reading: Facebook Ads Targeting: The 3 Options You Have And 8 Tips To Maximize Them
10. Hit the publish button
After entering the ad copy and your website address, set up the CTA, which is a call to action. It should be something that makes sense for your advertisement campaign. Then make sure your website tracking is installed correctly. You can set a URL specifically to this ad so the system can identify your website visitors from this campaign.
At the bottom of your screen, you will find a green button that says publish. Hit it, and an algorithm can review for any ad disapprovals. It can take up to 24 hours for approval. When your ad starts running, it will gather the data it needs and decide who and when to target.
If you find that your Facebook ad is not working, there is nothing to worry about. It could be because your objective and your goals do not match. Or your ad copy is too bland, and it lacks a message match. It can also appear that you target the wrong leads Whatever it is, go back to your ad, tweak them, and hit publish again.
Further Reading: 10 Ways a Facebook Group Can Increase Lead Generation
Conclusion on How to Advertise on Facebook
Companies advertise on Facebook to engage the right audiences appropriately and urge them to take a particular action to meet the business goals. For that, it is critical to learn to effectively advertise your products. This article gives you ten essential steps of FB advertising. Make use of them and leverage your marketing efforts.
Hero photo by Oberon Copeland on Unsplash
Author Bio
Anna Lysiuk is an outreach specialist and writer. She is passionate about marketing, business growth trends and technology.
