A Comprehensive Guide to Getting Started with Facebook Ads

Facebook ads tips and tricks

As the world’s most popular social media platform, Facebook is attracting more and more businesses to open up a business page and run ads to boost their reach, sales, and revenue. 

Figures show that small and medium-sized businesses opened up as many as 80 million business pages on Facebook in 2019 – merely showing that if you’re not on Facebook, you might be missing out on a lot of opportunities.

But these days, it is not enough to only have a Facebook business page. You also have to run advertisements to reach as many of your potential customers as possible. 

That is why Facebook is one of the leading advertising channels online. In the United States alone, businesses spend 51% of their total advertising budget on Facebook ads.

Discover the power of Facebook advertising as you read the rest of this article.

What are Facebook Ads?

Facebook ads let you promote your business using extensive targeting options and ad objectives, allowing you to reach your target market effectively and boost your revenue. 

By opening a Facebook advertising account through the Facebook Business Manager platform, you get to have a one-stop-shop for all your marketing and advertising needs. You not only get to manage your ad accounts but also work with agencies so that they can help you manage your ad campaigns.

5 Reasons Why You Should Use Facebook Ads for Your Business

If you are still on the fence about giving Facebook advertising a try, here are five reasons to do so:

Facebooks ads are effective.

As the most popular social media platform in the world, Facebook has over 2.6 billion monthly active users monthly and 1.73 billion daily active users

With such a vast network, you may find your target market in there somewhere. After all, a survey of American consumers revealed that 78% of them found their products on Facebook. One in four Facebook users who click on Facebook ads also make a purchase.

And with Facebook continuing to grow year after year, it makes sense that Facebook ads will continue to help you connect with your target market and generate revenue.

It is easy to set up and manage.

Once you have your Facebook account, creating a business manager account becomes a lot easier. Though there is a bit of a learning curve, you can set up a payment method and publish a campaign within minutes.

You have the option to boost a single post from your Facebook business page or create a more sophisticated campaign that targets specific customer segments and produces even better results. 

You also do not need a huge budget to get started, as you can start driving traffic to your website for as low as .10 cents a click. This is considerably lower compared to other advertising channels. 

You can target your ideal audience.

As previously mentioned, Facebook has so many users from all walks of life that it is virtually impossible not to find your target market.

Plus, people spend a lot of time browsing their social media accounts. In fact, the average person spends 50 minutes every day on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.

With Facebook ads’ features, you can reach your ideal audience based on their demographics, location, interests, likes, engagement, and even their behaviour on your website. 

All these targeting options place your offer in front of your target market. Doing so gives you a better chance to produce a high ROI.

You can easily customize your Facebook ad campaigns.

Facebook offers a wide range of ad formats to choose from, allowing you to attract your ideal audience.

For instance, you can create video ads, multi-product ads, and event ads, depending on what your target market best responds to. 

The variety of ads also enables you to target prospects based on your objectives – do you want to increase your brand awareness through likes and shares? Do you want to generate leads by sending them to a landing page with an opt-in form? Do you want to send them directly to your online store?

Other areas of customization include ad design, copy, landing pages, bidding, and delivery optimization.

Facebook continues to update its features.

Studying Facebook ads is a never-ending process because Facebook continues to update its algorithm and features to provide the best experience for both advertisers and consumers. 

Aside from this, the constant updates enable you to keep in step with the latest advertising trends so that you can always leverage what you know to boost your business.

How to Set Up Your Facebook Ads Account

FB ad guide to driving traffic to your stores

Now that you are convinced of the power of Facebook ads, the first thing that you should do is set up your Facebook ads account. Here are the steps to do that.

Step 1: Set up Facebook Business Manager.

Assuming that you already have a Facebook Business Page, you then need to create a Facebook Business Manager account to allow you to run ads for your page.

Go to your Business Manager home page and click Create Account. Make sure to use the login details of your business page to set it up.

Add an advertising account by going to Business Manager Settings -> Accounts -> Ad Accounts -> Add Account CTA -> Create a New Ad Account.

Step 2: Set up your ad account information.

The next step is to fill out all the relevant information about your business. You can do this by going to Business Manager -> Accounts -> Ad Accounts. From there, you can enter your company name, address, and other business details.

You may also choose your billing currency and time zone, but be careful about these since you cannot change them afterwards.

Step 3: Enter your billing and payment information.

You cannot publish any ad campaign without first setting up your payment method, as this will subsidize your ads.

Click on Ad Account Settings -> Payment Settings, then enter your credit card details. Aside from credit cards, Facebook also accepts PayPal payments and other options, so you can decide on the most convenient way to pay for your ads.

You will then land on the Billing page, where you can add new payment methods, edit your current payment methods, set your spending limit, and see your next bill.

It is best to set up multiple payment methods to prevent Facebook from stopping all your campaigns should your primary method expire, reach a limit, or get blocked.

Facebook bills you either every month or once you reach your billing threshold if you use a direct debit method.

Step 4: Review your notification settings.

To stay informed about important updates in your advertising account, you need to check your notification settings.

Simply go to Ad Account Settings -> Notifications, then add or remove any reminders you want to be notified about. You may choose to receive newsletter and product updates, ad creation reminders, ad review decisions, dynamic ad alerts, and test and study updates.

Step 5: Review your ad account roles.

If you want to collaborate with other people, you need to invite them to your team.

Go to Ad Accounts -> Account Roles -> Add People to add new users and edit the roles of the existing ones.

Step 6: Install Facebook Pixel.

If you are planning to run dynamic ads, you need to install Facebook Pixel so that you can identify the people who visited your site and retarget them with your ads.

Step 7: Create audiences.

To start targeting specific users, create and save audiences that are most relevant to your brand. You may customize them based on demographics, interests, behaviours, and connections.

Doing so allows you to label your audience so that you do not have to enter their information and specifications in case you want to target them again in a future campaign.

Step 8: Start creating your first ad.

Identify your ad objective, then select the format you want for your ad. 

You can now start creating your first Facebook ad using an existing post or a new advertisement.

The Different Types of Facebook Ads

After opening your account, you can start posting ads and campaigns in line with your business goals.

But before going through the different ad formats you can use, it is crucial to ask yourself first – what do you want to achieve with your Facebook ads? This will guide you into selecting the ad format that best suits your business objectives.

3 Facebook Ad Objectives

In general, you can choose from three general Facebook ad objectives: awareness, consideration, and conversion.

Awareness

The purpose of awareness ads is pretty self-explanatory – they let people know that your company exists.  With billions of Facebook users, there is bound to be people who do not know about your company yet.

Awareness ads help people discover your brand and build their interest in your product or service. To do this, you have to create a memorable ad that features high-quality imagery, infographics, and short videos.

Facebook lets you further narrow down your awareness campaign objective into:

  • Brand awareness – encouraging people to discover your brand
  • Reach – showing your ad to as many people as possible

Consideration

If people are already aware of your brand, the next step is to get them to start thinking about your business and look for more information about it.

With these types of ads, you can drive people to view content on your site and app, like blog posts, coupons, and video testimonials. You can also ask them to subscribe to your email list.

Here is a closer look at the types of consideration ads Facebook allows you to choose:

  • Traffic – send people to a website page
  • Engagement – drive engagement through page likes, post engagement, offer claims, and event responses
  • App installs – encourage people to install your app
  • Video views – generate video views
  • Lead generation – acquire new leads through a Facebook lead form
  • Messages – send ads straight to people’s Messenger accounts

Conversion

The main goal of conversion ads is to get people to purchase your product or service or commit time to your events. 

Though the results are easier to track and measure, conversion type ads also tend to be more costly than other types.

Some examples of how to execute this ad include sending users directly to a check-out page, completing event registration forms, and sending people directly to your store. 

This is often used in conjunction with a Facebook pixel – a snippet of code that follows users around the web so that you can track their behaviour and remarket to them.

Narrow down your conversion objectives into:

  • Conversions – drive action to your website
  • Product catalogue sales – increase product sales
  • Store visits – drive foot traffic to your physical store

15 Facebook Ad Formats

Once you know your objective, it is easier to find the ad format that best suits it. 

You can select from the following formats available to you:

Video ads

Best used for brand awareness and consideration campaigns, video ads use videos to attract leads. You can also use a 360 ad where users can drag their finger or turn their device to see the video ad.

With over 100 million hours of video watched by 500 million people on Facebook every day, it makes perfect sense why you should consider using video ads for your business.

Some tips in using Facebook video ads include:

  • Use native videos (those uploaded on Facebook directly) instead of linking it from somewhere else, as they get 478% more shares than videos from other sources.
  • Make sure that you capture your audience’s attention during the first three seconds of your video, as 65% of viewers only watch those.
  • Add captions to your videos to increase viewing time by an average of 12% and allow people to still understand what your video is all about even without sounds.
  • Make your video less than 60 seconds if you are planning to cross-post it on Instagram.
  • Upload your video in high resolution in aspect ratios 9:16 o 16:9.

Photo Ads

As the easiest Facebook ad format to create, photo ads usually consist of one image, a call to action, and a link to your website, landing page, or online store.

You can pretty much use Facebook photo ads for any campaign objective. Create an engaging photo ad by:

  • Using powerful, realistic imagery that tells a story, captures attention, and leaves a lasting impression
  • Including a benefit, like a discount or free offer, in your ad text
  • Investing in photo tools to create captivating images
  • Making sure that your image is the right size, ideally at 1200 x 628 pixels
  • Avoiding a lot of overlaid text – it should not take more than 20% of your image

Slideshow Ads

If one photo is not enough, you can use a slideshow of pictures to tell a story. It is essentially a looping video containing 3-10 images. You can even customize your slideshows by adding branded formats, text overlays, and music. 

Unlike video ads, slideshow ads load more quickly, so they can play on any connection speed.

You can use slideshow ads for displaying multiple products or a single product from different angles. It is also helpful for showcasing tutorials and before and after transformations.

Just like photo ads, make sure that you invest in high-quality photos. Choose a captivating thumbnail since this will be the image that will be displayed before the play button is clicked.

Carousel Ads

Carousel ads show various cards depicting up to ten images or videos that you can scroll through. Each image or video has a link to a different destination.

This ad format is best used for product catalogue sales, although you can also use it for both awareness and consideration objectives. You can use it to tell a story about your brand, show a product from different angles, showcase a transformation, or explain a process.

Facebook can also track which one is the best performing card, so you show it first.

Canvas Ads

Did you know that 95% of Facebook users access the platform using a mobile device? If you want to target mobile customers, then you should try using canvas ads – also known as instant experiences.

Canvas ads provide a full-screen and interactive ad experience that allows people to click, scroll, swipe, and tap to engage with brands using the Facebook app. It is as if your ad is a microsite of its own.

It is best used for brand awareness and traffic ad objectives.

Dynamic Product Ads

Recommended for product catalogue sales, dynamic product ads automatically promote products to people who have expressed interest on your app or website. They target people based on their past actions on your site using the Facebook tracking pixel.

You simply upload your product catalogue and set up your campaign, and then Facebook automatically handles the retargeting for you.

Since people will be redirected to your website with this ad, make sure that your website product catalogue is tight and updated. You would not want people to get turned off by any broken links or out-of-date items.

Lead Form Ads

When people click on an ad, your prospective lead will be asked to fill out a form so that you can collect information from them. 

But instead of leading them to a landing page, you can use Facebook’s lead generation objective to collect information without leaving the Facebook app. You can customize the fields that you need or use a template from Facebook.

It is recommended for lead generation and building an email marketing list.

Collection Ads

Another type of ad that is best showcased on mobile devices is collection ads. They are a collection of images that your audience can swipe through and interact with by zooming in and out or tilting the photos. You can also have multiple calls to action within this ad type.

To build collection ads, you have the option to create a new one or choose one of Facebook ads’ existing templates.

Post Engagement Ads

If you consistently post on your Facebook page, you can drive more engagement to them using post engagement ads. You can evaluate which of your posts are doing better than the others so that you can turn them into ads and generate more activity in them.

You can use this type of ads to generate more organic followers, as well as likes, comments, and shares.

Event Responses

Event responses are ads that drive brand awareness in specific geographic locations. 

You can use these if you are opening up a new store or just want to boost awareness for one of your existing stores.

Offers

Offer ads enable you to customize them with a specific call to action, like signing up for a promo or learning more about it.

These ads are best used for discounts, holiday deals, and other content-specific offers. You can direct your visitors to a landing page on your website so that they can claim the offer you promoted.

Page Likes

Use Facebook ads to expand your organic reach by using the page like ad type, which encourages new users to like your page. Doing so allows them to see your organic content every time you post one.

Page likes are best used for brands wanting to establish a substantial social media presence, as well as those that produce a lot of Facebook content.

Right Column Ads

These are ads that you see on the right column of your Facebook feed on the desktop. They are pretty straightforward as they feature a photo, small description, and link to a web page.

You can use these ads for brand awareness and engagement as they are a great way to put your business in front of interested leads.

Facebook Stories ads

Facebook stories are images or videos that disappear after 24 hours unless you save them. 

As the fastest growing ad format, Facebook Stories can be used to increase reach, traffic, app installs, video views, conversions, brand awareness, and leads.

Facebook Messenger ads

You can also place ads directly in your user’s inbox with Messenger ads. They can be formatted as a video, image carousel, or dynamic ads. 

If your business is active on Messenger, you can also use a Click-to-Messenger call to action in your standard Facebook ads, placing you in direct conversation with your customer. You can even send them Sponsored Messages once you have already opened up a conversation with them.

At first, it might take a while for you to master Facebook ads. You might need to experiment with different ad sets, targets, and formats to see what clicks for your brand. 

But once you get your Facebook ads up and running the right way, they can help you reach your business goals faster – whether it be reaching a vast number of people, getting more store visits, or securing more sales.