You have stellar Facebook content with awesome creative and excellent copy, but your budget is tight. Follow these tips below and learn how to stretch your dollar to get the greatest return from Facebook paid advertising.
Target Your Facebook Ads
If you are working with a limited budget, it is important to make sure you’re reaching the right people at the right time. Audiences that know you and have previously interacted with you are more likely to convert than those who are hearing from you for the first time. The beautiful thing about Facebook advertising is it provides you with multiple targeting options that ensure you are able to reach your desired audience.
First, target those who know you
Utilize custom audiences to target those who actively visit your website and those who visit occasionally. Custom audiences are simple to create and get your product or service in front of those who are most likely to convert.
Second, target those who like and engage with you on Facebook
Simply add the desired connection type found in the Ad Set menu.
Third, target those you haven’t interacted with yet
Add specific demographic criteria to narrow down broad geographic audiences into your target market.
Finally, create lookalike audiences
These can be created from custom or saved audiences and help you reach new people similar to your current audience in the country that you choose. A smaller initial audience size from a good quality source is recommended for replication. Facebook allows you to target 1-10% of the population of your chosen country. The lower the percentage, the greater the similarities between your original audience and your lookalike audience. By creating a lookalike audience you are able to reproduce high converting audiences with new individuals.
Optimize Your Ads for Mobile
Facebook is consumed primarily on mobile devices (including tablets). In fact, about 85% of the Facebook Ad results at Bluetrain come from mobile. When creating these types of ads, Facebook provides specific mobile design and text recommendations. For the best results, be short and concise with your message and ensure all ads are within the Facebook Ad text requirements since the text on mobile ads will be truncated to fit the smaller screen.
Choose Great Visuals
Make sure your ad images are relevant, clear, and text-free. Images with text or excessive graphic manipulation do not perform well on mobile devices. Facebook will provide you with a warning during ad creation if they think your image will hinder ad performance.
Test Your Facebook Ads on a Mobile Device
If you created the ad on a desktop, we recommend previewing it on your mobile device before launching to ensure that it displays correctly. To do this, you will need to access your ad in Ads Manager and select ‘Edit’. Locate ‘Ad preview’ and select the box with the arrow in the top right. Under View on Facebook, select ‘Facebook mobile News Feed’. Refresh your mobile Facebook app, and the ad will appear within 10 minutes (usually within 1 minute) on your newsfeed as a demo.
Track Your Progress & Rework Your Ad
Keep track of your ad performance and pause your campaign when you are not receiving desired results. Facebook has multiple metrics on which to evaluate performance.
Metrics that are worth taking note of include:
- Impressions
How many times your advert was viewed. A baseline metric of which all other metrics can be compared to evaluate ad success. - Frequency
How many times an individual saw your ad. Monitor frequency rate and try to keep it low. I like to keep it below 4 and will pause and rework ads that are of a frequency of 4 or higher. A high-frequency rate indicates that you are showing your ad to the same individual multiple times which is ineffective if no action is being taken. To decrease frequency, consider expanding your audience or retargeting a different segment. - Link Clicks
Clicks on the specific action of your ad that landed the viewer to your desired page. If link clicks are low or becoming less frequent, consider rewriting your ad copy to improve your call-to-action. - Click Through Rate
Percentage of people who saw your ad and took an action. The higher the better! When your click through rate begins to decrease, consider pausing your ad and changing up creative or ad copy since your current content may have lost its appeal. - Cost Per Click
The cost of each link click. This is determined by dividing the amount spent by the number of link clicks. - Amount Spent
Total dollar value spent on Facebook advertising efforts. Be sure you are sticking to the budget you initially set.
Boost Your Posts
To increase the success of your boosted post, ensure that you have allowed enough time to pass for the post to garner organic results before boosting. Boosting a post with engagement increases the success of your ad since it has natural engagement – which always encourages more.
Before Posting Your Next Facebook Ad
Next time you are on a tight budget, consider the following:
- Am I reaching those most likely to take action?
- Am I reaching my audience on the device they interact with most?
- Finally, am I willing to rework my ad for optimal results?
If your company is looking for additional ad support, Bluetrain offers a wide variety of Online Advertising Services. Contact us today to learn more.
Disclaimer: the tips listed in this article are best suited for those actively running Facebook Ads.