Getting Started with Facebook Ads: 2019

“I get a 100% email open rate,’ said nobody ever. All the more reason to place Facebook ads targeting your own email list.” – Regenald Chimhanda, Social Media Speaker, Consultant, and Facebook Marketing Expert

With more the 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the most effective advertising channels on the web. Which is exactly why the social network raked in $9.16 billion in ad revenue in the second quarter of 2017.

Every day, businesses turn to Facebook to boost their awareness, downloads, sales, and other vital metrics.

For beginners, however, the company’s advertising platform can seem a bit complicated and daunting.

It’s time to demystify Facebook advertising for novice users and discuss the fundamentals of creating a campaign.

If you’re ready to learn how to use Facebook advertising to reach new audiences, here are 6 steps for creating an ad campaign on Facebook.

1. Establish Your Goals

Before you dive into ad creation mode, you must first consider why you are creating the ads to begin with.

By establishing the goal(s) of the adverts, you have a definitive intention in mind; after all, if you don’t know what your target is, you’re sure to miss it.

Moreover, when we get to the next step of the process, you will need to select a marketing objective; it’s best to know this ahead of time.

Some appropriate examples of advertising goals might be:

  • Generate sales
  • Increase website traffic
  • Acquire new leads
  • Boost event attendees

Once you establish why you’re advertising, you can move on to the next step.

2. Access Facebook Ads Manager and Choose an Objective

All Facebook ad campaigns will be conducted and overseen through the site’s Ad Manager tool. This can be accessed simply by clicking “Create Ads” in your account dropdown menu.

Once you’ve accessed the Ad Manager, you can manage your progress on the left side of the screen.

To get your first campaign started, we’ll need to select a marketing objective.

Here you will find a variety of potential options, broken down into 3 categories:

Awareness

Awareness goals are designed to reach individuals who are likely to be interested in your product, service, or brand. These objectives include:

  • Boost your posts
  • Promote your page
  • Reach people near your business
  • Increase brand awareness
  • Increase your reach

Consideration

These are used to compel users to find out more about your brand and what it offers. Consideration objectives include:

  • Traffic
  • Engagement
  • App installs
  • Video views
  • Lead generation
  • Messages

Additionally, the Facebook Ad Manger gives more info about each of these categories.

Conversion

This category contains goals aimed at driving sales or converting users in another way. Objectives include:

  • Increase conversions on your website
  • Increase engagement in your app
  • Get people to claim your offer
  • Promote a product or catalogue
  • Get people to visit your shops

After selecting your objective, name the campaign and move on to the next step.

3. Determine the Audience

Selecting the right audience characteristics is vital to the success of your campaign. These folks can be customized using the following features:

  • Location – This is a user’s location, down to a mile radius.
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Languages
  • Interests – This includes an individual’s interests, activities, hobbies, and so forth.
  • Behaviors – This includes device usage, buying habits, and similar information.
  • Connections – This determines who the ad will be shown to, based on their Facebook page, app, and event connections, or lack thereof.

Additionally, you can elect to exclude folks based on the same information found in the “Interests” section. These work the same as negative keywords in AdWords.

For the best results, try to get as specific as possible with your audience selections.

4. Choose Your Ad’s Placement

Here is where you will select where your advert shows up for your audience. Facebook suggests Automatic Placements which, “. . . will automatically be shown to your audience in the places they’re likely to perform best. For this objective, placements may include Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger.”

Choosing this option allows Facebook to optimize the placement of your ads for the best results, at the lowest cost. This is the best choice for new advertisers