Facebook Ads – The Foundations You All Need To Know

Facebook Ads.  Some love them.  Some hate them.  Where do you sit?

Advertising for business used to be reserved for people that were advertising executives or sales reps for radio, newspapers, TV.  When social media advertising came about it opened up the floodgates for anybody with a Facebook business page to be able to press the ‘submit’ button and send a paid Ad out into the wide world of social media.

When done right in the initial glory days of Facebook Ads people were putting $10 behind a post and it was going mental.  Now the platform is flooded with Ads.  Advertising execs have had to re-skill to be able to offer this service to clients, small businesses have had to get skilled to be able to use this platform for their own business, and because of this people feel that unless you PAY you can’t be a player on Facebook.

Now there is some truth to this, the landscape of Facebook is changing rapidly at the moment.  Facebook Groups are being given more attention, showing they will be a major player in the growth of your business on Facebook moving forward. (Read more on my Facebook Groups blog HERE)  For product-based businesses, the ability to source influencers and use paid Ads effectively is crucial to being competitive in the market.  For a service-based business using Ads to generate leads can mean the difference between a business feast or business famine.

This does not mean that Facebook business pages and organic growth is dead.  In fact, far from it, you can still grow an engaged audience organically.  You need a solid, consistently executed content marketing plan.  Utilising the free platform means you need to up the ante to be heard, it can be done BUT…. and I am just being honest… wishy washy antics will get you nowhere.  You may as well not even bother.  Truth bomb right there!

But back to Facebook Ads.  I have said before and I believe this to my core.  Using Facebook Ads without creating valuable organic content is a waste of time.  You will just spend more and more money and do nothing with the audience you are growing with your investment.  Thus losing the potential winnings of the free platform.  So NEVER embark on Facebook Ads without having a content marketing strategy to back it up.

Also, never embark on Ads without some how-to about the platform and what works.  Just because the platform allows you to advertise doesn’t mean you should waste your hard-earned time and money trying to be a marketing expert if that is not in your capabilities.  It’s not hard to learn, you just need to invest in the learning.

The Three Key Areas You Need To Know Before You Start With Facebook Ads

A Facebook Ad strategy can be split into 3 components to make it super easy.   The offer to market, The creative and The tech.

The tech, in my opinion, is the easy part, if you can learn to drive you can learn to use the Ads platform.  Simple as that.

It is the offer to market and the creative where most people come undone.  This is where Facebook has raked in millions in people thinking that pressing ‘submit’ meant their business would explode.  Ah no Sally no it does not.

These 2 areas are where you need to focus most of your time, IMO.

Let’s delve into all three of them now.

Offer To Market

Where most people start with Ads is they want to hit a targeted audience that doesn’t know them (AKA not existing followers or web traffic) with a large sales offer.

Where this strategy goes wrong is that you are selling to people who have zero relationship with you.  It would be like walking up to someone in the street and saying ‘Hey you, here is my $3000 service, want to buy it?’

Not everyone on Facebook or Instagram are engaged shoppers, most are on there to be social and for entertainment.  As opposed to Google where people are searching for an answer or wanting to find someone or something.  So you have to kind of butter up the social media audience with some business foreplay so to speak.

This is where creating a sales funnel comes in.  You need an offer for your cold market, your warm market and you need to keep loving on those that have already bought from you as they are the easiest place to get fast and quick upsells.

Cold market is where you need to lead with something that will entice them to do business with you.  So we are talking lead magnets, freebies, opt ins, low cost offers, discounts etc.  You want to give away some value away, you want to show some leg and have them take notice.  They don’t know you and you need to build a relationship with them.  This is taught in both the 5 Steps To Facebook Ads Fame Mini Course & The Facebook Ads Bombshells Bootcamp in greater detail.

Warm market are people who are getting to know you, so we are talking web traffic, email lists, Facebook/Instagram page engagement.

Your trick with these people is to get them to take that ‘Next Step’ to want to do business with you or make a purchase.  Now depending on where they sit in this group depends on the outcome.  If they have been following you for a while, maybe had a chat over email, been on your site a few times they could be ready to purchase now.  If they have just met you it may still take some time.  But the idea is to re-market to these people with MEGA value & great offers.   

HINT HINT: If you have not set up your Facebook pixel or started collecting email addresses then you need to do it now! Even if you don’t do anything with your email list or your pixel data right now you NEED the data.  See the instructions to set up your Pixel HERE.

Existing clients.  You need to manage people who already have done business with you.  A VIP Facebook group, an email list, private emails, phone calls, birthday cards.  Whatever you do, you need to LOVE ON THEM!  It is far easier to convert and upsell someone who already sees your value than someone who hasn’t.

Once you have your offer ready for the right market you can move on to your creative.

The Ads Creative

Your Ad needs to be creatively as strong as a fortress.  If it is boring then you will tank.  You need to have 3 things to have a great creative.

A snappy headline, a strong and engaging caption copy and imagery or video that is high res and stands out.

Your headline needs to state exactly what it is that your Ad offers so that people will want to stop scrolling and read more.  Your headline is what sits underneath your image/video and it is the first text that people will read.  Unless you are using video with captions and then they may read your captions first so make sure the first few lines of your video are the same.  Clear, snappy and engaging.

Your caption copy is what sits above the image/video.  What you will notice is that after a few lines your audience needs to click on the Ad to read more.  If you cannot say all you need to in that few lines (product based can achieve this well, not so easy for service based) then you need to make sure those lines count.

A structured sales post copy is what works well here, particularly for service based business.  If you have never done sales before then this will more than likely not mean much to you, but there is a specific way to lead a sales copy that gets your audience to want to know more.  This is taught in both the 5 Steps To Facebook Ads Fame Mini Course & The Facebook Ads Bombshells Bootcamp in greater detail.

Your image or video is the queen of your creative.  Without this your Ad will not speak to your audience on a different dimension.  Images and videos ad colour, life, vibrancy, they set a tone, a feel and if you use video then you add in the sense of sound.  Making your content even more engaging.

This means that any image or video you use in an Ad needs to be high quality.  So high resolution images are essential.  SUPER TIP:  If you do not have any or cannot find one on a stock image site, you can use Shutterstock images for free in the Facebook Ads manager and they are optimised for the dimensions of the Ad already.

What needs to really shine through in your Ads is your clear BRAND.  You want people to start to recognise you across all your channels.  So the colours you use, the words you use, the offers you create it all needs to be congruent with who you are in business every day.  If your Ads do not do this then the conversion will be difficult once you get to re-marketing to your warm market.

The Tech

This is where most people start but it is always where I finish.  Once you have done the first 2 steps this is the easy part.  Trust me.  But I am going to give a quick rundown on what the setup options in the Ads Manager mean.

The Objective – This is where you decide what you want your ad to achieve.  EG.  Engagement (comments, tags and shares), Conversion, Traffic to your site, Brand Awareness.

You can choose here to do split ads which is where you create a number of Ads under one test and Facebook delivers you a winning Ad Set.  Particularly good for testing different audiences to see which works or creatives to see which works.  Read more about that in this blog I have in my vault!

Audience and Targeting – WHO you are targeting.  So are you remarketing to your warm market or are you creating a targeted audience of your cold market?

If you are remarketing you will need to set up custom audiences from your web traffic, page engagement or client list data that you connect to Facebook.

If you are using target audiences you can set up saved audiences from data Facebook knows about people.  So demographics like age, marital status, where they work, if they have travelled, what university degree they are doing, their anniversary or birthday.  Or Interests based on what content they engage with and pages they follow, so yoga, online marketing, swimming, motherhood, working from home etc.

You can also target people who follow other pages available to target, engaged online shoppers, what email platform they use.  The targeting is VERY specific and you need to use this to your advantage.

Placements – This is where on the Facebook Group of platforms your Ad will be placed.  You want to really think about where your target audience is on these platforms and choose wisely.

Facebook will set it to automatic placements which means they will choose where and when your Ad is shown across these.  But I would err on the side of choosing your own based on your expert knowledge of your audience.  EG. If they are mainly on Facebook then don’t use Instagram and vice versa.  If they are not desktop users optimise for mobile.  Are they on Instagram Stories, use Messenger or Facebook Marketplace?

And be aware that Audience Network means your Ad is being sent out to third party apps and sites off Facebook.  If you read Facebooks suite of info about this they liken it to a Phoenix rising in the land of social advertising, but for those with a small budget I would not recommend using this option as it will dilute your reach ON the platform.

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So did that all make sense?  If you are at an advanced level with Facebook Ads then I would assume it did, which is fantastic!  It means you are on your way to mastering Facebook Ads.

If it didn’t all make sense then never fear!  That is NORMAL especially for business owners who have not done alot of marketing training.  Which is MOST small business owners.  The good news is that it is not hard to conquer this!  If you need more help with your mastery of Facebook Ads book in a FREE Client Discovery Call and we help figure out what is going to be the best way to get your Facebook Ads flourishing in no time!

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About The Author

Hey!  I am Stacey, your resident social media nerd.  Aside from spending my days writing about, coaching, learning and breathing socials, I am a mum, wife, cat owner and champagne enthusiast.

I have been known to enjoy a karaoke session or two and I am turning 40 this year!

I have been a sales coach for over 10 years and more recently transferred this expertise into teaching business owners how to use social media like a pro.  My mission is to help people attract, grow and convert a wildly loyal audience into raving fan clients.

If you want to know more about how I can help you book a FREE Client Discovery Call TODAY and let’s get your socials shining!

5 FUN FACTS ABOUT ME

• My favourite TV Show EVER is The Vampire Diaries.  I am totally in love with Damon Salvatore.  I have watched the entire series through entirely twice and will go for a third soon.  This now also shares an equal first spot with Outlander, for all the Outlander fans that are currently in Droutlander waiting for Season 5 I feel you!
• I don’t know my left from my right.  My kids legit have to yell at me cause I go the wrong way ALL the time.
• I am most comfortable in a pub with denim shorts, a singlet, thongs and listening to live music than wearing heels in a fancy bar.
• My favourite food is pasta.  I swear I should have been Italian.  However, carbs are not always my friend!
• My favourite place I have travelled to is Paris.  I LOVED Paris. The next BIG holiday I want to go on is an Alaskan/Canadian cruise.