Facebook Guide for Beginners

Most marketers call Facebook the most lucrative and profitable marketing platform. Because of the popularity and the amount of time people spend scrolling through their Facebook feed, more and more brands seem to be aggressively marketing their products or services on it.
With Facebook, come Facebook Ads manager. It is an inbuilt tool that allows marketers to promote their products on the Facebook platform.
There are a million ways to use Facebook Ads Manager but few people use it effectively and harness its true potential.
Let us take you through some tried and tested tactics that will help you run ads more effectively and in turn maximize your ROI.

1. Targeting the right audience

The key is not to reach all the people but to reach the right people. When it comes to targeting the correct audience you need to build a buyer persona and understand:
• Who they are
• How they communicate
• How they think
• What platforms they use
• Their characteristics, likes, dislikes, interests, behaviors etc.
These answers will not only help you reach your audience but will also help you communicate with them effectively by using messaging and communication that will resonate loud and clear.

2. Knowing what metrics to track

You need to have a clear picture of your Facebook Ads objective. What is it that you’re trying to achieve while running these ads on Facebook?
Some people wish to increase sales while some may want to generate leads and others might simply want brand awareness.
Knowing your objective, and then creating an ad in sync it, will help you optimize and modify your ad in a way that will help you achieve your goals.

3. Monitor, then adjust

Thanks to the continuously evolving marketing platforms and tools, digital marketers are now able to monitor and measure the performance of an ad from the moment it goes live.

Monitoring your ad as it runs allows you to understand what is and isn’t working, and prompts you to make adjustments such as:

• If the reach is too low, you can broaden your audience parameters on the basis of age, gender, location, professions, behaviors, interests and more.
• If the engagement is not as good as you expected it to be, you can modify the creative and make the ad copy more in line with what your audience expects.
• If the clicks are lower than desired, you could try experimenting with more relevant call to actions.
A combination of the above would result in an effective optimization strategy.

4. Using the right type of Ad Format

Facebook gives your audience the option of using different ad formats for different objectives and goals. It is important to know which ad format will work best for you so that you can use the platform to your best advantage. Let’s very briefly explore some of them:

• Image Ads – Crisp and to-the-point, these are the most relevant ways of showcasing your product and service.
• Video Ads – These are known to have a huge impact on viewers and can be most informative.
• Slideshow Ads – Made by combining multiple images, videos, text, and sound, these can be a great format to tell your brand or product story.
• Carousel Ads – The best way to display multiple products to interested buyers. Carousel Ads are also great for telling a story where every image is connected with the next one, thus prompting the user to view the entire Ad.
• Collection Ads – Showcase multiple images alongside the main creative with Collection Ads. These are a great way to showcase your product catalog.
• Instant Experiences – These are used for high-resolution ads that cover the viewed entire screen and grab one’s attention by giving your product/service great visibility.

5. Ad Placement

Most brands undermine the power of ad placements on Facebook and Instagram. If used correctly, placements can really reach the correct people effectively.
Facebook ad placements are the places where your ads will be shown to your audience. Listed below are the options that Facebook gives an advertiser to place their ads:
• Feeds – Your ads will be placed in the desktop newsfeed.
• Right Column – Your ads appear in the right-side column across Facebook. This is only applicable in the desktop view.
• Instant Articles – Your ads appear in Instant Articles within the Facebook mobile app
• Messenger – Your ads will appear to those who have downloaded Facebook messenger.
• In-stream Video – Your ads appear as short videos in both Live video and Video on Demand on Facebook
• Marketplace – Your ads appear in the Marketplace home page or when someone browses Marketplace in the Facebook
• Instagram Feed – Your ads appear on your audience’s Instagram feed.
• Instagram Stories – Your ads appear in your audiences’ stories on Instagram
• Fb Inbox – Your ads appear in the Home tab of Messenger.
• Fb Stories – Your ads appear in audiences stories in Messenger.
• Banner and Interstitial – Your ads appear on apps and websites in the Audience Network. Audience Network supports banner ads, interstitial ads and native ads.

If used well, you can do wonders on Facebook with growing your brand and making every penny spent on marketing worth it!
Don’t believe us? Ask our clients.
Get in in touch with us and let us help you increase your brand presence and sales with a structured Facebook strategy that will take your business to new heights.