Facebook Advertising for Small Business Part 2: How to Create Your Campaign

Facebook is the world’s largest social network — making it one of the most effective mediums for digital marketing. With a total user base of 2.3 billion people, Facebook provides a nearly limitless platform on which to showcase your business and products, but we all know effective marketing doesn’t start with limitless groups of people and demographics.

Rather, successful digital marketing is about precise targeting and calculated investment of your resources. How can you ensure that your message reaches the right people for the right price? Keep reading to find out.

In our first blog of this two-part series, we reviewed some preliminary steps to take before getting started with Facebook ads. Some of those steps include defining your goals, knowing your audience, and setting your budget. In part two, we’ll show you how to create a facebook ad campaign and start showcasing your business to the largest audience on the internet.

All Facebook ads have the same origin story:  the Ads Manager. When opening the Ads Manager, you’ll see four large tabs at the top of the page:

1. Account Overview
2. Campaigns
3. Ad Sets
4. Ads

If you’re not sure what all of these categories reference, don’t worry! We’ll explain each tab and discuss its basic functionality, so you can feel confident and informed when creating and managing your ads.

The first tab, Account Overview, provides a quick glance at your campaign performances. On this page, you can view helpful data, such as how many people your campaigns have reached, how much money you’ve spent, the total impressions your campaigns have made, and the number of clicks your links have received. You can also break down this data according to time period and individual campaign.

Campaigns are the foundation of every Facebook ad and allow you to focus your reach by selecting 1 of 11 advertising objectives.

Building on your campaign is Ad Sets which, after selecting an objective, lets you determine an audience for your ads.

Finally, after finalizing your objective and audience, you’re ready for Ads, that is, the message and content you want to communicate.

A single campaign can have multiple ad sets and ads within it so using these tabs in the Ads Manager to view analytics will prove incredibly helpful as you utilize Facebook ads more and more.

After becoming familiar with the Ads Manager, you’re ready to create a Facebook ad. Start by clicking the green “Create” button on the left-hand side of the Ads Manager. Your first task will be determining your advertisement objective and campaign name.

After you’ve completed this initial step, you’ll be able to focus the reach of your message in Ad Sets. In this section, the true power of Facebook ads really starts to shine as you’re able to narrow the reach of your message from a base of 2.3 billion users to just a handful of people and anywhere in between.

One of the most helpful tools in Ad Sets is creating audiences. As we mentioned earlier, you can have several ad sets in a single campaign, which means you can create multiple audiences for your ads as well.

A good practice for advertising on Facebook is to begin with 2-4 audiences so that you gain broader insights into who views your ads. When creating target audiences in Ad Sets, you’ll want to start by selecting basic demographics, such as location, age, and gender. However, Ad Sets also allow for detailed targeting in order to truly narrow your audience and ensure your ads reach the right people.

Here are just a few ways you can further target people:

• Relationship status
• Education
• Job title
• Politics
• Interests
• Life events
• Mobile device users

With detailed targeting, you’ll also have the option to exclude certain groups of people who wouldn’t fit in the intended audience. For example, if you wanted to increase awareness for your new yoga studio, you could target people interested in both meditation and yoga but exclude anyone interested in hot yoga. The more specific your audiences are, the more effective your ads will be so get creative. Once you’ve finished narrowing your audience, remember to name and save the group so that it can be used for future campaigns and ad sets.

After completing all the necessary steps in Ad Sets, you’ll be taken to the Ads section of the Ads Manager. Here, you’ll be able to determine what content your ad will contain and how it will appear on Facebook and other platforms.

A Facebook ad has three primary elements  — text, headline, and image / video — and each one can make or break your ad.

When writing the text for your ad, think about what you want viewers to know about your company. Who are you? Do you have a sale? Can you solve a problem? Let your audience know in one or two short sentences.

Next, develop a strong headline by including a simple call to action. For example, if your content is intended to promote a sale or promotion, a possible headline might be, “Claim Your Discount.”

After finalizing your ad’s text and headline, you’ll need an eye-catching image to round it all off. Unless you choose to use an existing post, you’ll have three standard formats to choose from when adding images to your ads:

• Carousel: Two or more images or videos that scroll from right to left in your ad
• Single Image or Video: One image, video, or slideshow that will appear with your ad
• Collection: A mobile-exclusive option which presents a group of items that open into a full screen experience when clicked on.

If you’re unsure of what kind of images to include with your ad, Facebook recommends using images that highlight real people using your products. Since ads often run in people’s feeds next to pictures of family, friends, and everyday life, a personal touch will make ads more appealing and familiar to your audience.

Also, no matter what kind of image you select for your ad, remember to abide by Facebook’s design recommendations which are outlined in their Ads Guide.

Now you’re ready to create your own Facebook ads and take your digital marketing to the next level. If you want to learn more about using Facebook and other social media platforms to promote your business and increase revenue, we’re here to help!

Contact Keyhole Marketing today for professional support with all your digital marketing needs.