A lot of times, I hear from small business owners that they’ve tried Facebook ads before. They’ve ran a couple of ads and thrown a hundred dollars into it. Their business got some likes and comments, but ended up not making sales off of these ads. Ultimately, they give up and they declare Facebook ads don’t work. Normally, that is because they ‘re not running the Facebook ad correctly.

Let’s Talk About The Right Way

First off, you’ll need a Facebook business page. If you already have a business page, you should be able to log into Facebook, click “Create” and then “Ad”. This will bring you into your Facebook ads manager. Now, it is important to note that you want to be running ads through this Ads manager instead of “boosting” a post. Through the Ads Manager, you have a lot more customization options and more tools for testing out your campaigns.
When you are in the ads manager, you will see on the side that there are three different main sections. If you haven’t set up your ad account before, you’ll see a fourth section that says Ads Manager. So, basically this is just a section where you’ll set simple things, like your time zone. Once you do this, you don’t have to do it again and you will only see the three main sections. The three main sections are Campaign, Ad set and Ads.

The Campaign section  is where you will begin your entire ad creation process. In this section, you’ll be prompted to choose an objective. This is very important because the objective will determine the ultimate goal of your ad. You can choose an awareness objective like brand awareness or reach, and these are meant to get lots of eyes on your brand, but not to directly make more sales or interactions.

You can also choose a “consideration” phase objective, which is likely where a lot of you will start. Under here you have the traffic objective, engagement, app installs, video views, lead gen and messages. The traffic objective will get you more traffic to your website or landing page. Again, this will not be meant directly to create sales. Facebook is going to put this ad in front of people who they feel will click and go to your page.

Next, we have engagement objective. This objective will get more likes and comments for your page. Then there is the app installs objective, which aims to get people to install the application you’re marketing. The video views objective will target people that are likely to watch your video and will also provide analytics of how people watched your video.

Another objective under consideration is lead generation. In lead generation, your ad will take the user to a form within Facebook. This is a great way to get leads quickly. However, sometimes the leads are not the best quality because Facebook autofills some information. My suggestion to you is to put a question in the form to make the user fill it manually. Then we have the messages objective. This objective will get people to send a message to your page on Facebook. You can also include the option to send automated replies, which may add a little extra flare to your page.

A lot of times, people will start with these objectives and they may be enough on their own. However, sometimes people will opt for one of the conversion objectives: conversions, catalog sales or store traffic.

Catalog Sales will require you to have a product catalog set up with Facebook, which visitors can then browse and shop. Store Traffic will get foot traffic to your physical store. Conversions, on the other hand, is used by experienced ad managers. A conversion can be anything you want it to be outside of Facebook.

Now just note: the conversion objective is a bit more complex. You’ll need to install the FB pixel on your website and you need to get a certain number of your “conversions” in a certain time frame, in order to have the ad work its best. If you’re using the conversions objective and you’re only getting one sale a day, it’s probably not going to perform  too well. Start with something like traffic or video views first and then, once you are getting results in, you can move to conversions.

Those are the objectives that are available to you. Spend some time really thinking about your goals, what you want, and what you need out of Facebook ads.

Now, once you’ve chosen your objective, you’ll move onto the ad set level. Here you will select an audience and budget. Make sure you don’t spend a ton at first but spend at least $5/day or you won’t see a lot of results. I’d recommend viewing the data and traction before spending large amounts of money. It’s all about testing and tweaking before finding the perfect result. In terms of the audience, start off simple. Do not limit Facebook’s Algorithm to find the correct audience for you. Over time Facebook will optimize your ad for the right people.

Here you will make the creative elements of your ad. First things first, make sure that you have an amazing offer. Less compelling offers can harm ad performance. Consider who your ideal audience is. Think: what exactly do they want? Come up with an offer that is perfect for them. You need to have good images and videos to grab attention, too. When writing the copy, make sure you’re right to the point and your headline is great. Then, publish!

Keep an eye on your ad, let it run for a bit and then start testing different ads and audiences to find the best combinations. If you are looking for someone to manage FB ads for you, we have gotten our clients some amazing results and would love to chat with you. View our ad management services to learn more!