How to optimize your Facebook ads?
As far as an online presentation for your business, a website is definitely the best option.
However, when users see a nice and useful site, they obviously will want to share the information about it with their friends via the internet. Thus, social media integration, with its pros and cons is no less important than your website, and we can’t imagine our lives without it. In our previous blog post about social media marketing trends 2017 we talked a lot about Facebook’s company changes regarding their products, and also mentioned paid social ads as a trend. So, today we are going to speak in detail about effective advertising campaigns on Facebook. What should your FB ad look like? When, where, and for whom should you place it to make it serve your business goals? Let’s find answers.
Tips for Facebook Ads optimization:
Facebook, Instagram & Audience Networks
Currently, Facebook offers 3 platforms for your ads. They are the Facebook network, Instagram and also third-party websites and apps. You can choose where your ad will be shown. Which one you pick should be based on your ad purpose, specifics, and performance. Find out where it’s viewed the most and receives the most feedback, then direct your efforts there.
Visual and textual content
The visual part of your ad is the most important. Use eye-catching, even surprising, intriguing, and, of course, high-quality pictures. Surveys show that images of smiling people, especially kids, as well as furry animals and flowers cause pleasant emotions in the majority of people. Thus, they are widely used for advertising. You may also attach images of your particular product, like delicious food to stimulate appetite, depending on your business specialization. Contrasting bright colors work well, while blacken white may be too wishy-washy to attract people. Use your creativity to interest viewers. Keep in mind, also, that your ad will look differently at different screen sizes, so choose appropriate image sizes, ratios, and video formats.
There are different forms of presenting ad content. With the help of Facebook Ad, you can create a single image, a single video, a carousel (up to ten scrollable images or videos), a slideshow (looping video with up to ten images), or a canvas. This last one comprises a combination of all the other types.
Your image or video should grab the attention of users, making them stop scrolling through their newsfeed for a while and read. As to the textual part of your ad, it shouldn’t be too spacious and in-depth. There are limitations to its length in Ad Manager. However, don’t use the maximum number of words possible. We recommend no more than 90 characters for the main text, 25-45 for the headline, and 30 for the link description. When users see a lot of text, they are more likely to not read it until the end, especially when they aren’t interested from the very first words. Select essential information you want to convey and formulate it in as compact a way as possible. You may also use hashtag signs before keywords, or smiles, but be careful not to abuse these.
Call to action
Every advertisement is aimed at encouraging people to take some actions according to business objectives. Let your customers know exactly what you want them to do next after viewing your ad. Use short and clear phrases, or even one word. It could be “Sign Up,” “Contact Us,” “Shop Now,” “Book Now,” “Watch Video,” “Play Game,” “Use App,” “Learn More,” “Download,” etc. Facebook empowered the creation of CTA buttons on both Power Editor and Ads Manager to enable users to take an action directly from your ad.
Facebook Pixel for tracking
FB company had announced that the conversion tracking pixel will be disabled and removed from ad tools completely this month. But don’t be sad! It’ll be moved to the Facebook pixel, together with the Custom Audience pixel. So if you were previously using it, all you need to do is just upgrade. The FB pixel is a piece of code. When you implement it on your site, you’ll be able to track and measure conversions, create custom and lookalike audiences, get rich insights about visitors’ on-site behavior, and more. If you want your FB ads to perform well, then you should constantly monitor them and be aware of how your advertisements are doing.
Custom & Lookalike Audiences
Custom Audiences from your site comprise people who have already shown some interest in your business and existing clients. You can choose their types, based on your clients’ contacts (e-mails, tel. numbers, IDs), on-site traffic, or mobile app activity and match this data with existing Facebook accounts to show your ads to their owners. This option is useful to re-target people who have visited your website. What is more, in order not to spend extra money on advertising for those who are already loyal to your business, it’s possible to exclude some audiences or certain parameters.
Based on custom audiences, you can create Lookalike Audiences, consisting of people who are similar to your current clients who already care about you. This allows you to find new people who are likely to convert.
To get the right settings, click first on “Tools” and then on “Audiences.” Here you’ll see “Custom Audiences,” “Lookalike Audiences” and “Saved Audiences.” The last one is for frequently used targeting options, so you can easily reuse them. Choose the audience you need. Set parameters (demographics, interests, behaviors) and give them a name. After clicking “Create Audience” you'll need to install the Facebook pixel, described above, across your external web resource to get this working. If you advertise a post from an FB page, you don’t need a pixel, because you’ll automatically get all the statistics in Ad Manager.
Ad Scheduling for reaching optimal time
It’s not useful to pay to constantly running your ads, because your target audience is not likely to see them during certain days of the week and at certain hours of the day. So first you should find out the most favorable time for your campaign, without investing much at the investigating phase. Soon you can increase the budget for your ads rotation at the most auspicious time. Find “ Ad Scheduling’ in ‘ad set” and then select “Run ads on a schedule.” Remember about time zones when running an international campaign. If you divide your target audience into different groups, your ad can be shown at a particular time for each group specially. To sum up, scheduling the advertisements allows you to effectively allocate a budget and get maximum conversions.
We have described the main aspects you should focus your attention on. We hope this was useful for you and your advertising campaigns will help your business success. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us us and we’ll help you achieve your marketing goals.