3 Things to Know About Creating Successful Facebook Ads
In the world of social media, Facebook is still at the top.
As of 2018, the platform had 2.2 billion users, and advertising has continued to soar. According to MarTech, 2018 fourth quarter advertising revenue came in at $16.6 billion, up 30 percent compared to the previous year.
It’s more than safe to say that Facebook advertising is worth the investment.
But where should you start?
Here are 3 things to know about creating successful Facebook ads.
1. Start With Your Objective
It seems obvious, but in a system where you can choose almost a dozen different objectives (and sub-objectives!), determining your ultimate objective will simplify every subsequent decision. Choosing your campaign objective will start you off on the right foot, allowing Facebook to use its algorithms to your advantage. Here’s a sampling of the objectives:
Reach
Reach is the go-to objective for gaining foot traffic. Are you a church who is launching a campaign to extend a Sunday morning welcome? Choosing Reach allows you to tailor your audience within a certain radius of your business location.
Pro Tip: Don’t confuse the Reach objective with Brand Awareness, which also aims to generate buzz, but is more costly and best suited for mega-companies.
Video Views
This category is self-explanatory, but don’t be fooled. Consider the possibility of an audience that’s actually too broad, which might end up being costly for the amount of engagement you generate. Video Views is a great campaign objective if you have a strong video that represents your brand and product well, and you want to build awareness with untargeted audiences.
Understand more about Facebook marketing with The New Facebook Algorithm Demystified.
Engagement
One of the most powerful Facebook ad campaign objectives is Engagement, which ultimately gets more people to see your ad and take subsequent action. As explained by Josh Barney for Einstein Marketer:
“When this objective is selected, Facebook shows your ad to people who have a history of engaging (liking, sharing, commenting) with ads.
Ads that have high engagement do really well because they contain the power of Social Proof. This elusive and interest-peaking factor, encourages new users to spend more time on a post.”
Social proof comes in the form of likes and shares, and with videos, views are critical. Within the Engagement objective, you can set up your ad to include a “Page Like” option, which adds a thumb icon in the footer of your ad, to potentially increase social proof by showing the number of “likes.”
Lead Generation
Did you know that your lead generating can be done on Facebook? With this objective, Facebook displays your ad to viewers within your target audience who will provide their contact information in exchange for a Facebook pop-up form. Do you want to share valuable long-form content with your audience? This campaign type might work for you.
There are many more objectives, and it’s worth taking a peak around the Ads Help Center on Facebook to get more details on the subject.
2. Pick the Right Ad Format
Ads can be designed in a variety of creative formats.
Are you in an organization whose worthy and valuable product might not translate well through photos? Then use something like a Carousel Ad with beautiful images that tell a story about the lifestyle that your product will enhance.
Is your product beautiful and unique? Create a Photo Ad with minimal copy and a simple image.
Videos are becoming the standard in Facebook ads, and there are many varieties to choose from. Don’t be confused though: You can use video ads in any campaign, not just video view campaigns.
AdEspresso from Hootsuite researched Facebook ads and found that companies are having fun experimenting with ad formats, particularly video. In addition to finding that you only have a few seconds to communicate branding within a video (see more in the next section), they also recommend:
- Work in primary colors (red, blue, yellow).
- Incorporate scrolling text.
3. Create Wisely
There are best practices to follow when creating ads specific to Facebook, and here are the three most critical.
Keep It Short
When it comes to video ads, here are two important numbers: 3 and 6.
You have 3 seconds to make your brand clear. After a meta-analysis, 3 seconds resulted in the greatest brand recall among consumers.
Consumers’ attention spans are getting shorter every day, and even though Facebook recommends 5-15 second video ads, 6-second ads actually show “higher brand metrics across the board.”
Design your ad around these staggering numbers and you will make the most of your investment.
Create a Clear Call-To-Action (CTA)
Whether you’re creating a photo ad or a video ad, clear CTA is critical. It’s easy to forget that critical piece when you’re focused on ad visuals or video shares.
Go back to your objective. Why did you create your campaign in the first place? Give your audience only one job to do. Make the desired response clear.
Find keyword updates you can make to the pages of your website: How Should I Use Keywords?
Make Sure It’s Relevant
Facebook has made relevance testing easier. In the Ads Manager, you can add a relevance score tab to your reports, by which Facebook will display your ad’s relevance metric. The score is calculated on the feedback your ad is anticipated to receive, so you can make adjustments.
No one metric tells the whole story, and it’s possible that you can achieve great results even though Facebook’s relevance score was sub-par, but why not test it out?
Next time you’re on Facebook, take notice of the ads in your feed or in the margins. Every good ad will call attention using clear, engaging copy and high-quality visuals. How can you translate those best practices to your organization?
We’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below and share with us your best practice from Facebook advertising.