If you're just getting started with digital marketing, you probably already know that you should be advertising on Facebook. After starting off as a social network for close friends and family, it's now a platform that has changed how we perceive media, marketing, and technology.
More and more businesses, no matter the size, rely on advertising on Facebook - whether it's their only form of marketing or a fraction of their marketing operations.
Interestingly enough, even after all the scandals that Facebook has gone through over the years, the users haven't changed their behavior and continue using the platform as they did before.
So, it still pays off to advertise on Facebook, but let's take a look at what exactly makes it a great platform to advertise.
During the first quarter of 2022, Facebook reported having 1.96 billion daily active users. Being one of the largest social media networks, it has changed the way businesses get to advertise. In fact, in the US alone, 51% of total advertising spend was used on digital ads (which includes Facebook, among other things).
In addition to this, since acquiring Instagram back in 2012, your Facebook adverts get to be seen by an even larger scope of users, reaching a different set of demographics. Especially with the latest Instagram updates, which focus on Instagram's shop tabs, the combination of the two platforms allows your brand to be seen by countless users.
So if you're being iffy regarding if you should invest in Facebook ads, trust the marketers that continue investing in Facebook advertising.
We already mentioned the huge amounts of Facebook users that you can reach, but it gets better: when creating Facebook PPC ads, just like in Google Ads, you get to create custom audiences for each Facebook advertising campaign you create. Therefore, it's one of the most important customer acquisition channels for many companies.
These targeting options are super customizable, meaning you can reach custom audiences based on their age, location, hobbies, interests, etc., which makes reaching your potential buyers even easier.
Facebook Ads features offer great flexibility to the different types of ads you can create. Since Facebook ads are also shown on Instagram and Facebook's display network, you have much more range and flexibility in creating ads that reflect your business.
The customizability of Facebook Ads makes it easier to try out different ad formats and placements. This allows you to find out the most effective combinations that resonate with your target audience.
You can, for example, test between video and still images or see if your target audience is more likely to convert through different placements, such as Facebook's newsfeed or Instagram Stories. The scale of alternatives is wide, and finding out what works for your business takes a bit of time but is definitely worth the effort.
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While Facebook's Business Manager tool takes a bit of practice to have it up and running and reach its full potential, the initial set-up and getting your first ad published is easy.
In addition to the easy setup, the large reach of active users and flexible ads provide fast results. In a study, it was found that 57% of consumers say that social media influences their shopping. Out of that 57%, 44% said that Facebook of all social media platforms was most influential.
In fact, Wordstream released a study where it showed that the average conversion rate for Facebook ads across all industries is 9.21%. See the chart below for all industries and their conversion rates.
Compared to more traditional advertising channels, advertising on Facebook is considerably cheaper. Imagine advertising on the radio, billboards, newsletters, or even TV - you'll easily end up spending thousands of dollars in the hopes of reaching any potential customers. The thing is, you're not in control of who ends up seeing your ad and whether they're potential customers or not (not even talking about the fact that you can't measure the results of your campaigns).
With Facebook, on the other hand, you can get away with a $10 dollar budget and reach 1,000 people on the same day of launching your campaign. Again, the best part is that you get to define the specific audience you want to reach. So even if you have a small business, with Facebook ad campaigns, you can reach your potential customers immediately without having to break the bank.
According to a report by Ad Roll, adding CTAs to your Facebook page and ads can increase your click-through rate by up to 285%. A CTA (call-to-action) button gives direct instructions and encourages your potential customers to take the action that you want them to take, whether it would be signing up, booking, buying, or watching a video.
Since clear and visible call-to-actions make a huge difference in the performance of your ads, Facebook made sure to include a variety of different CTAs, which include the following:
Other CTAs:
Any marketer's fundamental question is, how much value do I get for my money? One of the biggest advantages of advertising on Facebook and its network is the ease of tracking and measuring the results. Tracking of your Facebook Ads performance happens by installing Facebook pixel to your website.
Facebook pixel is a short piece of code that is used to measure and optimize your ad campaigns. A huge benefit of installing a Facebook pixel to your website is that it allows you to create audiences based on the user profiles of your website visitors.
When a user visits your website, it launches the Pixel. Once your Pixel is installed, you can create custom events to track if your website visitors perform valuable actions for your business, like placing orders or visiting a specific landing page.
It is also possible to recognize users who visit your product pages but never place an order and use this information to retarget specific ads for this group of people.
In general, you are tracking your website visitors, their behavior on your website, and, eventually, website conversion events.
When it comes to measuring your ad campaign performance, it really depends on your marketing goals and what metrics to measure.
If you are running a brand awareness campaign, the metrics that you probably care about are the number of people who have seen your ad and the number of times your ads were shown, known as reach and impressions.
When the goal is to drive as much website traffic to your site as possible, you want to pay more attention to metrics like cost-per-click (CPC) and click-through rate (CTR). These metrics tell how well your ads resonate with the selected audience.
When you are only interested in what's the bang for your buck, in other words, how much direct sales your Facebook ads generate, metrics like cost-per-result and conversion rate, and return on ad spend (ROAS) become relevant.
Running Facebook ad campaigns does not only boost your website traffic and lead generation efforts. They actually indirectly influence the number of followers of your Facebook page.
The bigger the follower base you have on Facebook, the more visibility you will get for your organic posts. In addition to the paid campaigns, you can utilize organic Facebook marketing to your benefit.
In addition to the other benefits of Facebook advertising, Facebook remarketing is an extremely powerful way to drive more conversions. It's a common fact that most of your buyers won't convert during the first visit
Facebook Ads Manager makes it super easy to retarget your website visitors and your business page followers, and it even allows you to create lookalike audiences based on their demographics.
To start retargeting these users on Facebook, you have to have the pixel installed.
Facebook and Instagram are more or less content-driven media where people spend the lion's share of their free time (good or bad) communicating with their friends and looking for inspiration. It is what makes these channels so lucrative for marketing B2C businesses and driving business growth.
Rental businesses are enablers of unforgettable experiences. Whether it is the ski set making the perfect curves possible in the Alps, the surfboard helping someone to catch her first wave or the DSLR camera that captures someone's special moments.
No matter the industry, your business has a story to tell that can bring positive energy and inspiration into people's lives. Through Facebook's advertising platform, your story will no doubt reach an interested audience.