Winning Campaigns on Facebook

Facebook is one of the three largest advertising platforms in the country, along with Google and Amazon. The American Marketing Association says that Facebook is ranked by marketers as the most important platform to their businesses, with 62% reporting this, compared to second place LinkedIn with 16%. While LinkedIn is arguably the primary network for firms like BIG to advertise on, a huge number of companies still rely on Facebook for reaching consumers.

Any business that wants to reach traditional consumers ought to have a Facebook page if digital marketing in any way figures into their strategy. BIG is exclusively B2B consulting sales and we even have a Facebook page. So it’s no surprise that Facebook will be an important part of a lot of companies marketing campaigns. While some argue – right or wrong – that Facebook is losing relevance as younger consumers go to trendier platforms, for the foreseeable future Facebook will be important.

Just like writing about LinkedIn last week, there is certainly no shortage of explainers on Facebook ads out there. Instead, we will focus on a few tips and tricks that can help you take your Facebook ads game to the next level.

Taking everything in the context of a campaign – a unified message to a specific audience over a set period of time across multiple channels – Facebook ads provide a whole lot of data to mine. Facebook allows you to really dig into your audience based on about every conceivable demographic that you can think of. Not only this, but it provides layers and layers of analysis on how many impressions your posts are making, when they’re making them, and how.

 

Insights on “Insights”

Consider the “Insights” tab on your company business page. There are fourteen separate breakdowns you can find here, each allowing you to sort relevant data by time periods, mobile vs desktop, and other data specific metrics. This is especially helpful for running growing your page, whether organically or not, because you can see the best times to post specifically to your audience, the types of content your audience finds most engaging, how your audience is reaching you, and a lot more. While you can find general information about this online, having this level of personalization is quite powerful.

Speaking of running ads, Facebook allows you to create your own audience. When you start poking around the “Ad Center” Facebook prompts you to define your target audience. This allows you to cover the standard demographic data that most social media platforms allow, including gender, age, and location. However, it goes beyond this, allowing you to touch on individuals’ interests and behaviors. For instance, if you’re offering an international voice calling service, you might target expats on Facebook, knowing that they will be in contact with their families stateside.

 

Step Up Your Game

Another benefit of advertising on Facebook – the innovative ad formats. Some marketers are scared to dive into more technical ads formats, but the payoff is worth it. Being scared to move beyond the standard sponsored post ad can prevent brands from seeing the returns they need to. Facebook offers marketers a few different types of ads beyond the standard formats most networks have:

Canvas ads – These ads are really a combination of several types of ads all in one. The user clicks into the ad and can scroll through it. Brands can place text, videos, product links, and pictures to create the immersive experience they want for prospects. While this only works on mobile, it is a great tool for getting brand information out in front of users in an easily digestible format and can find you some great prospects.

Facebook also offers carousel ads that are embedded in the users’ regular stream. You can place up to ten different images or videos showing off your products or services that users can swipe through. Each ad is allowed to have its own landing page and call to action, so the ads can be rather specific to each product.

Facebook has a number of other ad formats as well, some marketers are probably familiar with from other networks, some – such as gif ads – are not as common. It is worth it to explore different ad options. There is no shortage of advice and explainers out there about each ad type, but it is important to remember that different audiences reach better to different ad formats, and some are better suited to some products than others.

 

Where to Next?

Having defined what a marketing campaign is, discussed how to set goals for them, and then run through two critical component parts of any campaign, we now set our sights on the actual management of such a campaign. There is a lot that goes into this. There are many moving parts and most small businesses and marketers struggle to keep track of everything. Organization will be key, as will integrated all the things we’ve previously talked about.

Next week’s post on this will be this month’s wrap up, so don’t miss it!

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