There’s an old saying: “You have to spend money, to make money”. That’s as true in social media advertising as anything else. Facebook ads are a great way to reach out to potential customers, market to existing ones, and raise your brand awareness. However, you might find yourself spending money on Facebook marketing, seeing no results, and not understanding why.
Here are three ideas, provided by taktical.co, to keep in mind when designing your Facebook ad strategy that will give you a bigger bang for your buck. These tips will help you understand if an ad is working, and help you achieve those sales conversions you crave.
1. Know Your Value Proposition
A value proposition is what you have to offer that customers will find attractive. This may seem as simple as giving a great discount, having a good product image, or offering a solid product. Those things are only part of the deal. Your value proposition also includes a “why” element: Why you? Why your brand?
People want to make the decision to buy, not be told to. So, you have to think creatively about what your customers value and how to tap into that.
One of the best approaches to take is to gain a deeper understanding of the psychology behind purchasing decisions. There are plenty of resources available on the topic, particularly when it comes to the psychology behind a good Facebook ad. Once you have the knowledge base behind you, you can begin crafting ads that resonate with customers by providing them with the value they inherently wish to see.
2. Understand When Facebook Ad Metrics Have Meaning
Facebook clicks, likes, shares – we hear about them all the time. The more, the better is supposedly the game. Well, yes…and, no.
If no engagement or sales are coming from those metrics, it does not matter how high the numbers are (unless your goal is simply raising brand awareness). Remember, on Facebook, those clicks and shares can cost you money, so you need to understand whether they’re actually buying you anything in return.
Keep track of the clicks, how much they cost, and how many leads to actual sales. If you’re getting lots of clicks but unsatisfactory sales conversions, your campaign needs work. Is it your text? Your landing page? The lack of ease to make a purchase? Anyone of those things and more could be the problem. A/B test by changing just one feature of the ad and try again until you notice positive changes in your data.
3. Do Your Market Research
To be successful on Facebook, you need to position your product in your key demographic. In order to do so, you need to understand who your customer is, then target your ad at that type of individual.
If you’re a local pizza place, why advertise to the entire Facebook user base when all of your customers are within 10 miles of your shop? If you sell women’s dresses, your primary client is going to be female. Make sure to adjust your Facebook ad campaign appropriately to target only those who will be most interested in your brand and the most motivated to make a purchase.
Fortunately, the Facebook ad platform lets you tailor your demographics in incredibly detailed ways. You can select ad placement by geography, age, interests, or target behaviors, like whether has clicked an ad of yours before or has recently made a similar purchase.
You can then use your targeting to enhance your audience research. For example, run the same ad with different targeting categories to see which one does better. You can then eliminate audiences that are not performing well, and get even more specific within those that. Additionally, you can take advantage of Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences, which are a group of people that resemble your current customers but have yet to be targeted.
4. Facebook for Remarketing
Remarketing is one of the best ways to increase the return you get from Facebook marketing. With this strategy, you are targeting users who have already had some type of interaction with your website. These customers already have some familiarity with your brand, and Facebook makes it super easy to target them.
You will need to have the Facebook pixel installed on your website to execute this strategy, but it offers a lot of benefits once you have it set up. Beyond being able to create custom audiences based on website activity, you will also be able to see more data about the effectiveness of your Facebook ads.
Using the Facebook pixel, you will be able to target different audiences based on the interactions they have had with your website. As an example, you could take a group that has visited a specific product page but did not complete the purchase. You could then target this group with new that could move them closer to completing the purchase. This audience has a lot of value because they have already shown interest in the product. For many of them, all it will take is a small push to get them to follow through.
5. Focus on the Visuals
Text can be compelling in its own way, but humans are visual creatures. A good image has a way of getting in the mind and staying there. If you want to increase the effectiveness of Facebook advertising, you should start to pay more attention to creating great visuals that will grab the attention of consumers.
Try to create a consistent theme for the images you use. What colors work well for your business? Which types of images appeal to your ideal customer? What kind of messaging can you develop with an image?
If you are creating an ad for a product, make sure the product is in the ad. It can be good to have a picture of a person using and enjoying the product if possible. If you have a landing page for the ad, you should try to make sure the feel and the message are consistent from the ad to the landing page.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
Facebook has been around long enough to hone the tools for gathering a deep understanding about its users and to prove that advertising on their platform is the path to success. Therefore, let Facebook be your guide. The website’s tools offer marketers the abilities to gain key insights on consumers, create increasingly successful ads, and get to know their market better.
