As a business working hard to get visibility, improved traffic and more sales, after taking steps to set up a Facebook ad for your business, you deserve to have your ad deliver on your expected results.
But, sometimes it doesn’t. In fact, a large number of new businesses spend money creating ads that generates zero results. And oftentimes, this is not because the ad does not have the capacity to deliver but something wasn’t done right.
Naturally this shouldn’t be so. You should be able to set up your social media advertising and have it deliver marginally as expected but when it’s not done right; you might end up getting zero results.
After working with different brands to set up ads over the years, in this guide, I’ll be sharing with you, some of the key steps to set up a social media ad that actually delivers results for your business.
Identify your Goal
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Your first step to set up a Facebook Ad is to identify your Goal. Find out, what exactly do you want to achieve with this ad you’re about to set up?
Is it to drive new customers to your business, get you visibility or get you people to sign up for your upcoming products, services or whatever it is you’re promoting?
Getting your goals right from the onset helps you to align your ads accordingly in a way that it can ultimately deliver on your expected outcomes. It also gives you an idea on how to choose the right objective for your ad while you’re trying to set it up.
Now, keep in mind, the following are the key Facebook ad goals: Brand Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, Sales, App Promotion. Choosing your ad goals correctly gets you an idea on which of these goals you should be going for.
Depending on your preferences, these goals may also be broken down into others like: Get more website visitors, Get more calls, Get more visits, Get more page likes, Get more messages, Get more leads etc. and when your ad is all set up.
Facebook will mostly show it to people that are most likely going to be interested in taking actions that will lead to the fulfillment of either of these goals.
So, if your goal is to create brand awareness for your business for example, you can opt for the Brand Awareness option as your ad goals.
If your goal on the other hand is to gain engagement, make sales etc., you can also choose the ad objective that works with that.
As soon as your goals are all set, your ads will be aligned accordingly. If you’re opting for the smart ad, your preferred button will be chosen based on this goal and some parts of your ads will be automatically updated, to reflect this.
Set up a Facebook Page
It’s not possible to set up a Facebook ad without owning a Facebook page. So if you don’t have a Facebook page already, this is the next step you want to take; create a business page.
To do this effectively, you want to create a page with your brand and business name. After creating the page, add up all the necessary information like your bio, description etc.
In addition to that, are your profile pictures, branded images and every other necessary piece of content that will help your target audience to get an idea about your brand as soon as they land on the page.
The moment you have a Facebook page, you’ll automatically have the capacity to run an ad.
Create a Facebook Ad Manager Account
Now that your Facebook business page is already set up, it’s time to go ahead and create a Facebook ad manager account if you do not have one already.
So before you can set up a Facebook ad, login to your business page, on your left hand side, navigate to the Ads manager and then follow the prompts to create an ad account that can be linked to your profile.
As soon as this is all set, you can then take steps to fund the account either using your card or the alternative PayU payment option.
Keep in mind that whatever option you choose here is what you’re going to keep using in the long run. So, if you’re comfortable using your MasterCard or verve card, you can do just that otherwise you shouldn’t.
Choose Your Target Audience
Facebook gives you the option to define your target audience based on your campaign goals and what you specifically want to achieve with your ads.
Before you set up your audience, you want to head over back to your goals. Find out about the set of people that can actually get you to achieve those goals. What are their age and other demographics? This is the data you’ll need at this stage.
Setting up an audience for Facebook advertising can look very straightforward for a first timer but to get this done successfully, you need to have a very good understanding of your target audience.
If you’re using the smart ads, Facebook will automatically suggest a general audience for you but even with that, to get the most out of it, you can still go ahead to have your audience all set up by yourself.
Outside the general age and location demographics, you can go in deeper to define or choose your audience based on their interests etc. This will further increase your chances of getting in the right audience and traffic to your ads.
Set Ad Placement
To formally set up a facebook ad, you want to select a placement where you want your ads to be seen.
Facebook provides a handful of options for this including Newsfeed, sidebar, Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger.
In addition to that, Facebook also gives you the option to choose whether your ads will be shown on either of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or all the three platforms.
Depending on your goals, settings and preferences, you can get to choose the whole 3 platforms or just 1 or 2 out of all 3.
Usually, I prefer allowing your ads to show up in as many placements as possible. This will help in getting a wider visibility for your ads. But, depending on your Ads creative, placement in certain locations may not deliver the best results for your ads.
You want to review your ads display on all platforms and then choose only platforms that can get you both the best display and aligns with your set objectives.
Decide on your Ad Budget & Schedule
The next thing to do after setting up your audience is to decide on the budget for your ad as well as the duration you want it to be running for.
Keep in mind; while there is a basic minimum daily budget you can set for your Ads, for best results, you don’t want to keep your ads at the lowest possible rates. As much as possible, keep it at a decent budget that will deliver your expected outcomes.
While getting ready to set up a Facebook ad, you will find that Facebook gives you the options to set up a daily budget or lifetime budget for your ad. Usually, I advise clients to opt for the daily budget if it’s a first time or an ad for a small business as this gives you an idea on overall expenses you will incur and the possible results you can generate.
Create Your Facebook Ad Creative
Facebook gives you the options to use different ads creative including images, videos, carousels, slideshows etc.
The general consensus is that video ads are the best performing and rightfully so. So, most people will most likely opt for video ads but keep in mind that the fact that video ads are high performing does not necessarily mean it is the best option for you.
In fact, I’ve worked with clients whose image ads performed far better than their video ads. So, it’s not always a one-size-fits-all solution.
To get the best for your ads, study your industry, find the best delivering ads on that industry and then see how you can get something close to that. Even if that doesn’t work for you, you can also change it and keep trying out options till you find what works.
With this, you won’t have to decide offhand whether to use an image, a video, a slideshow or carousels. You would have been able to identify what works best based on real live situations.
That said, while creating your ad creative, pay attention to make it very compelling in a way that captures the attention of your target audience without too much effort, regardless of whether it is a video, image or carousel.
In addition to that, use captivating text content that will draw in your ad viewers to your ads easily. Do not use verbose or unnecessary industry jargons unless you’re targeting a very specific and well-targeted audience.
Add a Call-to-Action
Your call to action button (CTA) is what decides the next step a user will have to take after viewing your ads.
Oftentimes, your CTA button will be pre-set by Facebook, based on your preferred goals set at the onset but there are also situations where Facebook allows you to set or edit your call to action button from different options.
When you get to setup a Facebook ad, pay attention to using a call to action button that best captures the next step for your audience.
If the next best step is to signup for your training, tutorial etc. you can use the “Sign Up” button. If it’s to call you to get a better clarity, you can use the “Call Now” button. If on the other hand the next step you want your average viewer to take is to learn more about your ad, you can as well use the “Learn More” button.
This is also applicable to whatsoever CTA you would prefer for your target audience.
Review and Publish
After you’ve completely taken the above steps to set up a Facebook Ad, it’s now time to review and then publish your ads accordingly.
At this point, what you want to do is to ensure that your ad settings are exactly the way you want them to be. You want to review your ads to make sure that the creative elements are displaying correctly, the budgets are all set out as expected and that clickable links are actually leading to the right destinations.
Doing this ensures that everything is going to come out as expected. And you want to pay attention to this because as soon as you hit the publish button, it becomes impossible to edit some aspects of the ads.
Now, after the review, when you confirm that all aspects of the ad are set up to deliver as they should, you can now hit the publish button.
As soon as this is done, your ads will be sent to Facebook for review. And when the review is completed, the ads can either come on live, rejected or you’ll be asked to review some sections.
Final Words
Over the years, Facebook advertising has provided a great opportunity for brands to build their businesses, attract a wider audience and make more sales but to really get to benefit from Facebook ads, there are certain strategies and steps you have to take.
As you just learned today, whether you’re a beginner or not, using these steps can get you to effortlessly setup Facebook ads, and use them to grow your business.
But, beyond setting up your ads, you also want to take up measures to monitor your ads regularly, see how it performing and find ways to make it perform even better.
Furthermore, to get even better results, consider using A/B split testing to find out the best performing ads and use that over the others. Pay attention to use insights from data generated by your ads to make it even better. And of course, use data driven and custom optimization to get the most out of your ads.
I know setting up successful ads can be quite challenging for beginners but this guide can get you steps ahead. And of course you can reach out to our team right here to have get your ads set up and delivered for the best results.
Now it’s over to you. What are your biggest challenges when it comes to Facebook advertising? Drop your comments below.
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