How well can you utilize Facebook Ads as a part of your online marketing? Answering this question is probably an extremely difficult task. However, I have tried to simplify it by formulating two alternatives:
- By understanding who you need to target.
- By understanding the creative part of building ads.
Before you start using Facebook Ads, you need to figure out when and whom you should target. Moreover, understanding what campaigns to run at different stages of the sales funnel is equally important. If you ask me, I do not just want to run an ad. I want to build a plan that I can implement on an ongoing basis.
To make it easier for you, I have decided to show you the top five ways you can effectively run Facebook Ads at different stages, to target different audiences. Are you ready for it?
How to Run Effective Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads to Garner Page Likes
If you want to see who your recent visitors are, you can ensure this through the Page Like Ad. Simply insert a code snippet called ‘Custom Audience Pixel’ into your website to create a ‘Website Custom Audience’. You can view your consumers who had visited your site on the next day, or can keep them in your audience’s list for as long as 180 days.
You can install Website Custom Audience on all the pages of your site or at least on more than one specific page. This type of ad targets any demographic statistics, irrespective of age, gender, or location. Make sure you consider using clear messages and calls-to-action, as ad-text is limited to 90 characters.
Page Like Ad also targets people who have previously signed up for your email list. All you need to do is create a ‘Custom Audience’ and transfer the email list to Facebook. These records are then matched with Facebook users and an audience group for your ads is created. However, the match is only successful when the email address the person used to sign up for your email list is the same as the one that they use for Facebook.
Once you have gathered a good number of new fans, you can start creating the next type of ad.
Facebook Ads to Turn Your Fans Into Email Subscribers
No customers will want to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what your business is all about. Your marketing funnel should be interesting to entice your customers. Building a squeeze page (a page whose call-to-action is an opt-in form) with a signature giveaway is a great way to inspire Facebook users to join your email list.
Giveaway products and services, which not only relate to your business but also appeal to your target audiences, are perfect. Moreover, running a promotion or contest can encourage participants to register their email address to your site. Your fans are probably the best audiences you can have on Facebook and once you achieve a good number of them, you can easily expect a better conversion rate.
But what if the audiences do not find your products and services interesting? For this you need to create an effective landing page that interests them enough to visit, like, and share with others. Moreover, the page should include all the business information, such as address, phone number, email address and creative images to draw their attention.
Facebook Ads to Target People Through ‘Lookalike Audiences’
Facebook can now test a feature called ‘Lookalike Audiences’ to target people similar to your existing audiences. Facebook uses the information that you upload for ‘Custom Audiences’ to create lists of other people with similar profiles. It also uses elementary demographic data to create the Lookalike profiles. Thus, this social media platform is able to accumulate data on a group of audiences that closely resembles the individuals who are already your customers.
This new targeting tool not only allows you to sell products and services to a certain group of people based on how they look, but also ensures that you can reach out to potential customers who share similar characteristics with the current ones. This targeting technique drives a wide range of success metrics, including larger purchase size or increased return on investment.
Facebook Ads to Sell Your Products
Your fans are the best people to help you sell your product. Use your ads to offer them incentives such as coupons and discounts, and encourage them to like your product page. You can also advertise for surveys, quizzes and other engaging content to generate interest and drive traffic to your product page. Invite people to share your page with their friends to grow the community.
Additionally, you can target your email subscribers. After all, this is one of the most qualified leads you can have in your business and website visitors who visit specific product pages within your site. Running an ad by targeting this group can actually work great as a follow up.
Facebook Ads to Promote Your Posts
Facebook ads are a great tool to boost your content. Promote the content through three options:
Promoted Posts
This is the best Facebook ad tool to promote your content directly in a user’s ‘News Feeds’ where they usually focus their attention. Promoted posts help your content reach more of your fans and their friends. Facebook automatically sets the promotion posts to run for three days.
Promoted Page Posts
These ads appear in the sidebar of Facebook and allow you to aim at hyper-segmented markets that are not connected to your Facebook page.
Suggested Posts
These appear in the News Feed just like the Promoted Posts. But the only difference is that you can promote your content to users who are not your fans or friend’s fans. This gives you the ability to reach a wider market.
Summary
Facebook ads can be effectively run at different stages of your online business and target different audiences. Such ads can sell your products, promote your posts, target the right audiences and turn your followers into email subscribers. Be sure to use Page like ads to target people who have previously signed up for your email list.
Facebook Photo via Shutterstock
Don’t overlook the second paragraph. It says you really need to know who you want to reach. That is the foundation that you have to have for these great tips to work.
Know. Your. Audience.