Statistics clearly show that an increasing number of businesses are starting to use Facebook ads for advertising purposes. These businesses are persistently spending more, shifting their budgets away from the traditional methods of advertising. What exactly is fueling this growth?
The answer is fairly simple. Facebook advertisings works; in fact, it works wonderfully. Before we jump into discussing how you should be using Facebook ads for your advertising campaigns, we need to talk about why Facebook is such a great tool for online (and offline) businesses.
Comparing Demand Generation and Demand Fulfillment
Let’s start by discussing the different between Facebook’s advertising and its main competitor, the Google Adwords.
The concept of Google Adwords is pretty straightforward, and if you have been around in the marketing industry, you would know how it works: a user searches using a keyword, they see relevant Google Adverts, click it and are led to the product/services’ page. This is pure demand fulfillment. Nonetheless, there are a number of issues with Google’s Adwords system:
- For each product or service, there is a limit to the number of keywords that may be used for promotional purposes. If there are a number of competitors bidding for the same set of keywords, it can get really expensive.
- It can only be used to fulfill an already-existing demand; and in many cases, target audiences do not search actively for the solution on Google.
On Facebook, on the other hand, a company does not have to worry about what the user is searching for. All it matters is who the target audience is, hence, people are actually targeted based on what their hobbies, interests, and jobs are – not the keywords they search for.
How Facebook Advertising is Improving Everyday
Facebook advertising has become a mature platform that has a lot of room for continuous innovation and improvement: and the Facebook team continues to introduce innovative solutions frequently. For example, over the last few months, Facebook has dramatically improved their Custom Audiences feature, allowing marketers and advertisers to more accurately target a certain group of users. As a result of such improvements, the customer acquisition cost incurred by businesses using Facebook advertising has decreased by a whopping 73 percent!
Getting Started with Facebook Ads
Before you can start to churn out adverts on Facebook, you need to spend some time setting up your Facebook advertising account. While this is not exactly rocket science, many new businesses prefer to have professional marketers do this for them. The account needs to be set correctly including numerous factors such as permissions, spending limits, and other critical details that can have colossal effect on the success of an advertising campaign.
When setting up the advertising account, the following things will need to be set:
- Account information (name, address, etc)
- Billing (payment methods)
Types of Facebook Ads
There are numerous types of Facebook ads available that cater for a certain objective. These varying types of ads are designed to meet the needs of all kinds of businesses.
Objective: More Traffic (and Leads) to Website
Suitable Ads: Domain Ad, Page Post Link, Multi-Product
Domain Ad
The Domain ad is placed in the Right Column and is the simplest of all ads. You can add a title, description, and a URL that can lead users to your company website. While it has seen a decline in the click-through rate (CTR) over the past few months, it is among the cheapest ads available.
Page Post Link
This ad can be placed in the Right Column and Newsfeed and also has support for mobile devices. It is ideal for promoting external websites and allows the advertiser to show a large image which can grab the attention of a user quite efficiently. A catchy title and description can further provide an explanation.
Multi-Product
The multi-product ad supports mobile devices and appears in the Newsfeed. It is an excellent option for ecommerce advertisers who wish to showcase multiple products found in their store.
Three different products can be advertised in a single ad along with a title for each.
Objective: Engagement & Likes for Facebook Page
Suitable Ads: Page Like, Page Post Photo, Page Post Video, Page Post Text
Facebook ads can also be extremely efficient to increase the number of likes for your Facebook Page and to encourage greater engagement.
Page Like
For all those who are new to the world of Facebook advertising, the Page Like ad is a must-have as it helps to increase the number of page likes (therefore the number of fans) of a business. This ad can help you establish your presence on Facebook by attracting users to like your page.
This ad can be placed in the Right Column, Newsfeed, and has support for mobile.
Page Post Photo
Facebook is all about engagement. There could be no better way to engage your page fans than through the Page Post Photo. Choose the right image, and you are bound to get likes and comments!
Insert a link in the description, and you may even get a decent amount of traffic to your website. However, do not solely depend on this ad for traffic.
Placement options include Right Column, Newsfeed, and mobile.
Page Post Video
Video advertising is relatively new to the Facebook advertising arena; however, it is slowly yet steadily increasing in popularity. The reason behind the slow growth is the fact that it takes time and effort to produce a high quality video – not to mention the expenses involved in actually creating the video.
Nonetheless, when used as a part of a clever marketing and advertising strategy, the results can be impressive to say the least.
Page Post Text
While not as effective as photo and video page posts, the ad can be effective in some cases where bits of information are needed to be passed onto the users. However, try to avoid this as photo ads are far more attention-grabbing and effective.
Conclusion
A basic understanding of the types of ads available on Facebook and why you should use a particular type is crucial for deriving effective advertising campaigns. A professional Facebook marketer can discuss your advertising needs and recommend a suitable plan based on your budget.
Wait no more. Facebook marketing is the way to go – especially for small businesses that are trying to gain a stable position in today’s competitive industries. Facebook marketing is not only effective, it’s also quite affordable and looking back a few months from now, you’ll be glad you launched your first campaign!
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