Facebook has a powerful advertising platform known as Facebook Ads. Low click-through rates,
sophisticated targeting options, and easy integration with applications and Pages make it an interesting
tool for marketers. Facebook Ads can be especially helpful for kick-starting your Facebook presence,
and some of the most powerful social targeting features become useful when you have a large number
of Page members or users. This chapter introduces the platform and walks you through creating and
launching an ad.
Where to Send Users
Remember why people use Facebook: it’s not to view your ads and then go to your website. They’re
on Facebook to use Facebook itself. Use the Facebook Ads platform to send people to applications or
Pages on Facebook itself, not external websites. Make sure to provide a seamless user experience as
well. To create an ad that sends traffic to your Page or application, click the “I want to advertise something
I have on Facebook” link (found at http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/) and select the destination from the drop-down menu.
If you really want to send people to another site, you can enter a destination URL. Remember to include
tracking tokens so you can accurately track traffic from your ads. Chapter 12 goes into more detail on this.
Creative Content Design
When you’re creating your Facebook ads, remember that you’re talking to a mainstream audience that
is interested in socializing with friends. The creative elements—images and copy—that make up your ads should reflect this as well.
Images
Facebook ads are composed of a title limited to 25 characters, a body of 135 or fewer characters, and an image under 110 pixels wide and 80 tall. The most important part is the image; it will draw the user’s eye first.
There are big differences between images for Facebook ads and those for print and web ads.
Professional-looking ads aren’t best on the social network. Facebook users don’t click on a lot of ads
while there; they’re not trying to be marketed to and they won’t be impressed by high production values.
Facebook users are looking at user-generated content, so your ads should reflect that. Stay away from
highly polished stock photography. They’re also looking at mostly pictures of people, so you’ll do well to
use images of real people in your ads. Remember the visual context surrounding your ad. Facebook is
mostly white and blue, so experiment with photographs in contrasting warm colors. Sometimes, louder
tactics such as three-dimensional-looking buttons, bright red borders, and lens flares can work, but use
these sparingly and test frequently.
Copy
The written part of your ad will be a short title and a body. If you’ve ever written pay-per-click (PPC) ads,
you should feel fairly at home with the microcopy format. These character-limited ads need to get to the
point quickly in a very small space, while making good use of keywords for targeting. However, they also
need to sound natural. Committee-crafted or jargony sales pitches will be alien on Facebook. Speak simply and plainly with very little flowery language. Don’t use too many adjectives or adverbs, and don’t
use SAT vocabulary words.
You are writing for a mainstream audience. Be as direct and specific as possible. Include very clear calls
to action that tell the user exactly what you want him to do, and indicate that the action can be completed
quickly and easily. Use words like “now” and “today” to tell users that they can get started right away. If users can expect to get results from your ad, use specific digits to let them know.
If you’re going to charge them a price, tell them the exact amount.
Targeting
The most powerful feature of Facebook Ads is the incredible targeting it allows you to do. Because
users provide mounds of data about themselves, you can identify very tight groups of people to advertise
to. Take advantage of this as much as possible; your campaigns should include lots of highly targeted ads being shown to small subsets of people. Facebook will guide you through different target criteria as you create your campaign.
Location
Geography is the first dimension Facebook allows you to target with. Facebook Ads are very useful for local businesses—even global or national brands that have some local connections.
Select the smallest local area you possibly can. Create specific ads for different cities and talk to readers
in the local parlance. The more you know about the place you’re advertising to, the better.
Demographics
Facebook will also allow you to choose age and gender specifications. Again, try writing separate ads to
appeal to people of different sexes and ages. Men and women use Facebook differently, as do people
in various age groups. While researching your exact audience, you’ll uncover specific preferences, but
you can start with hints from the ads you see on television and from the covers of magazines aimed at
different groups. Also keep in mind that older users may be more conscious of privacy issues, so don’t
ask them for a lot of personal information.
Likes and Interests
When a user fills out his Profile, he adds information about his interests, activities, favorite books,
movies, television shows, and more. Using the Facebook Ads platform, you can specify keywords to target users who have used the same words in their Profiles. Search engine marketing will provide a great list of keywords to start with, but you might have to go a step further for your Facebook ads. Think about interests that may not be directly related to your business but indicate that a user may be interested in your brand.
Relationship and Interested In
If you’re offering a dating or relationships-based product or service, use the Relationship and Interested
In fields liberally. In fact, depending on what you’re selling, you may be required by Facebook’s Terms of
Service to use them. For most businesses, however, these fields will be of little use.
Workplaces
If you’re doing business-to-business (B2B) marketing, especially to large companies, the Workplaces
field can be a gold mine. Target ads to specific enterprises to which you’d like to sell your product or
services.
Connections and Friends of Connections
If your application or Page already has a sizable fan base, you can use the Connected To field to nurture
users who are already familiar with your brand, persuading them to become even more engaged or
moving them along the sales process. Ask users if they’d like to talk to a live representative
or offer them special fan-only discounts. You can use the Not Connected To field to show ads only
to users who aren’t connected to your presence on Facebook. It can be useful to show less directresponse,
introductory ads to these users. Using the Friends of Connections field (one of our favorites), you can target people who are friends with Page members or application users. Not only does this allow you to target social groups who are likely to be interested in your brand (if their friend is, they’re likely to be as well), but when a user sees an ad for a Page or application a friend is connected to, it shows a “John Doe likes this” line underneath. This is an incredibly powerful example of social proof: a user is much more likely to pay attention to an ad if someone she trusts is essentially recommending it.
Budget
The first time you create an ad, Facebook Ads requires you to create a new campaign to put your ad
into as well as a daily budget. The daily budget is the dollar amount you’re willing to pay every day to run your ads; once you hit this limit, Facebook stops running your ads for the rest of the day.
When you’re starting out, assume you’re going to spend this budget every day and select an amount
you’re comfortable spending. It’s a good idea to start low until you get a good idea of the amount of return
you will see from your ads. Check out Chapter 12 to learn how to measure the value you’re getting.
Bidding
The bottom of Facebook Ads’ creation Page presents you with two options for ad pricing:
• Pay for Clicks (CPC)
• Pay for Impressions (CPM)
Because the click-through rate on Facebook ads tends to be very low, you’ll probably want to use a CPC model, meaning you pay only when someone actually clicks your ad. Under this model, you’ll get thousands of impressions without paying for thousands of clicks, and it is generally the cheapest way
to pay. By default, Facebook suggests a bidding model and price in what it calls Simple Mode. For most purposes, this suggestion works fine. Let your ad run for a few days or weeks. If you’re
hitting your budget every day, experiment with lowering your bid gradually. You may be able to squeeze
a few more clicks out of your investment this way.
Ad Stats
Clicking Submit sends your ad to Facebook for an editorial review. The ad must be approved before it
starts to run. The decision is typically made pretty quickly. Once your ad starts to run, Facebook provides
some simple statistics about it, which you can view on the campaign management Page (http:// www.facebook.com/ads/manage/campaigns.php). The page displays graphs of impressions and clicks
over time as well as bidding and budgeting information. This data is great for keeping an eye on how much you’re spending and for spotting opportunities to lower your bids. If you’re sending traffic to a Page or application, check out the insights Facebook gives you about the people using those. If you’re sending people to a different site, look into your own analytics packages. Again, be sure to read Chapter 12 to learn more about analytics and return on your investment.
Summary
Ads can help you jump-start your Facebook marketing campaigns. Take advantage of their highly targeted
nature and be sure to measure and monitor their performance.
Because viewers aren’t looking for ads when they’re on Facebook, you’ll need to be creative when you’re designing the images and writing the copy for your ads to attract attention. Many current Facebook ad campaigns are riddled with typos and bad grammar, so take care when crafting copy.
Plenty of brands look for an easy solution and get sloppy with their promotions. Don’t be one of them.
Invest a little extra time to create a good ad and an efficient bidding plan—you’ll reach your goals faster
in the end.
