It might appear to smaller brands that Facebook Ads are the preserve of the larger, international brands with the massive marketing budgets needed for that kind of advertising. However, that is not the case, as Facebook Ads can be a huge benefit to any business looking to increase sales and grow its profitability.

We wanted to have a look at the lessons, tips, and tricks of the trade we’ve gained over the years, and tell you just what Facebook Ads might just be the thing your marketing efforts could be lacking.

The Importance Of Facebooks Ads

Simply put, Facebook Ads can transform your sales pipeline and boost your profits, if implemented properly. The global reach, power, and intelligence of the behemoth that is Facebook and Meta means that the Facebook Ads tool could be the most important asset in your marketing toolbox.

Consider this: The average Facebook user spends around 20 per cent of their Facebook screen time looking at various Facebook Ads, and regardless of whether your business is B2B or B2C, they will be an overwhelming success for the majority of businesses.
But this is dependent on one thing, and that is ensuring that Facebook Ads is set up correctly and optimised so that your brand can achieve the best possible ROI.

A lot of businesses claim that Facebook Ads is not appropriate because they don’t believe their target audience will see their posts, but this isn’t the case.

Let’s have a look at a few Facebook user demographics

In the UK, there are 44.8 million Facebook users, and 44 per cent of the population use Facebook on a daily basis with the average user spending 23 minutes a day browsing Facebook. The most active is the 25 to 34 age group, with 11.2 million users and 52 per cent of all users in the UK are women.

Globally, 18.1 per cent of Facebook users are aged between 18 to 24, 25.7 per cent between 25 to 34, 18.1 per cent between 35 to 44, 13.6 per cent between 45-54, and 11 per cent between 55-64.

For B2B brands and businesses, Facebook Ads can be very successful, and data has demonstrated that running Facebook Ads for B2B businesses can result in an ROI of three times the investment. This is because the key decision-makers for the majority of businesses are also consumers, and also use Facebook in their free time.

How Can You Make Facebook Ads Successful?

It might seem daunting initially, as initial costs may appear steep, and there is no guarantee of an instant ROI, but as with all marketing, it should be viewed as an investment and something that will take time to find traction and generate leads.

One common mistake made frequently by businesses when looking to boost their Facebook presence is to use the ‘Boost Post’ button to increase the visibility of their organic content, but this is largely an inefficient choice as it almost always only amplifies your content to people who have already seen it. Facebook Ads allows you to target your audience for a greater reach.

Sometimes, a negative experience with Facebook Ads can deter businesses from spending more money with Facebook Ads, but when done properly, an ad should consistently deliver a great ROI. But the key to achieving this is knowing how to get it done correctly, and what to consider when building a Facebook Ad.

Determine What You Want To Achieve With Facebook Ads

You will be presented with a range of campaign objectives when creating a Facebook Ad: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversation, each of which has its own options.

Knowing what you want to get out of Facebook Ads will help you determine which campaign is best suited for you, and how to best spend your money.

If you are a smaller business looking to establish your brand and find an audience that will be more receptive to your organic content, then you should look at the Awareness campaign options. Larger businesses that are already established might be better off skipping this step.

However, larger businesses and brands might want to take a look at the Lead Generation option included in the Consideration campaign objective. This would be a beneficial option as it can help develop the sales pipeline and boost the flow of incoming leads from Facebook.

Selecting the Conversion option within the Conversion campaign objective can achieve the same results, but this is a little more of a risk because of the lack of pre-existing data that helps inform the Facebook Ad.

Getting The Most Out Of Facebook Ads

It is not overly difficult to get Facebook Ads up and running, but it does need time and patience to make it a success by optimising it. The key is choosing your audience and making sure you have the targeting done correctly. No matter how beautifully crafted your Facebook Ad is, if the targeting is off, it will result in a very poor ROI as it will not reach the right audience.

When Meta users are scrolling through their apps, the algorithm constantly makes notes of what the user is doing and the content that they engage with the most. This means you can optimise your Facebook Ad to target users that fall into three categories: Demographics, Interests, and Behaviour.

Using all three categories in your targeting means that you ensure your Facebook Ad is reaching the users who are more likely to care about your advertised product or service.

For example, if you are selling a video game then you would want to target men aged between 18 to 24, who have demonstrated an interest in video gaming, as well as a pattern of previously clicking on a Facebook Ad and making a purchase, combining all three targeting options. The options for targeting are advanced and very in-depth, and if you wanted, you could target users based on their birth year, or even if they have a child of a certain age. The sheer amount of data that users willingly share online means that there is the potential for businesses to target very specific users who are likely to engage with your Facebook Ad.

Facebook also offers a more advanced feature for businesses where they can upload customer email addresses so that it can make a search for any connected accounts and generate a recommended Facebook Ad tailored to target the common Demographic, Interest, and Behavioural patterns – called a ‘Lookalike Audience’.

Formatting The Perfect Facebook Ad

Knowing what your Facebook Ad will look like once posted is the key to developing an ad that will encourage users to engage with it. All Facebook Ads contain:

Primary Text – Attention-grabbing copy with an intriguing hook
Creative – A scroll-stopping image or video
Headline – Copy that highlights your USP and encourages action
Description – Extra content that helps reinforce your headline
Call To Action – A button to drive clicks and conversions with a strong CTA

Fine-tune the copy

The primary text is the core body of text that users will first read, and typically contains the key message and value proposition, demonstrating to the user why they will benefit from clicking on the Facebook Ad and their next action. This advertising copy needs to be snappy and concise.

Selecting the perfect creative

Without a doubt, the image or video used is the most important part of the Facebook Ad, being what the user sees first. Getting this right is important, and you should choose an image that isn’t generic and doesn’t immediately look like just another Facebook Ad. Take time to choose an image that looks natural and organic.

Snappy headline

This is likely the last thing the user sees before clicking on the CTA. It needs to be crafted to grab the attention of the user and appeal to the audience the ad has been targeted towards.

Resources

Your greatest resource is your own Facebook Ad history. Once you have run several Facebook Ads you will be able to analyse what has worked and what hasn’t so you can fine-tune and optimise your Facebook Ads moving forward. Even ads that did not perform well at all should be taken as a learning opportunity.

There will be Facebook Ads that do work well and some that won’t perform as intended, which is why you need to include testing as part of your Facebook Ad strategy. Testing might not provide the result you expect, and it does sometimes return results that do not always make sense!

If you’re looking for help and advice with getting started with your marketing, growing your brand, and advertising, come and talk to the experts at Tonic, where we have years of experience with clients large and small.