FaceBook Advertising:

Facebook Advertising Overview: 

       Social media has become one of the biggest powerhouses in our lives and Facebook realizes that. Facebook ads are a great tool to get your business in front of the right audience, as long as you know what that is. Before you create an ad on Facebook you first need to decide what your goal is. Say I was working for a distillery and I wanted to create some ads on Facebook, our main goal for these ads would be to get people liking and commenting so that they are aware of our products. After you chose a goal, you need to decide who your target audience is. Below is an ad from my timeline that is a paid sponsorship. You can recognize this as a paid ad by the word “sponsored” below the company name. (Adams, 2019) 

           When you do choose to advertise on Facebook, it allows you to choose different campaigns that have different objectives. Facebook does a great job in outlining the ad types, the purpose and in the end what they are going to look like. When you decide that you want to create a new campaign with Facebook it will first ask you to select from three objectives, to help configure the perfect ad for your company. The three categories are;

· Awareness- Generate interest 

· Consideration- Get the people to start thinking 

  · Conversion- Encourage people to purchase 

How Facebook Ads Work: 

        We are almost ready to start creating ads for your business. Before that can happen, you need to link up a credit card or another form of payment. To find this section, you will head to the ad’s manager, found in the same section as we previously talked about. Don’t worry, you can always change your ad amount if you are not satisfied with it. 

           I think one thing that people don’t understand with Facebook ads is that they are organized into three levels which are campaigns, ad sets, and ads themselves. Campaigns are the objectives you set for your ad. Inside campaign is ad sets. This is where you decide your target audience and placement. Going back to the distillery example, I would probably want to only target the areas that my product sells in. Lastly, the ad itself. Within Facebook, you can use multiple pictures for different target audiences and can see which one performs better.

           The last thing that needs to be done before creating your ad, is to select an ad based on your objectives. Remember in the second picture there were three different columns to choose from. This is where you will select one and start creating your ad. As we talked about previously for the distillery, I wanted to create an ad that had lots of engagement. I have selected that column. Following this step, we are almost ready to have an ad posted on Facebook. (Adams, 2019)

How to Create Facebook Ads:

               We are getting so close to having our first ad on Facebook, but we now need to select our target audience. This is a very important step as these are the people that are going to interact with our ads. On Facebook, we can select everything from location, age, and language. Detailed targeting is another great tool to narrow down your target audience. While working in this detailed targeting block, we can select options that people may be interested in. If we were choosing a detailed targeting list for the distillery, we would go with people who like to drink and enjoy distilled beverages. 

The next step following your target audience is making sure that you know what your budget will be. Optimization for Ad Delivery will help look at each ad objective specifically and set a budget. In the video, Megan Adams talks about the most important part of being how much you are going to spend. You can either create a daily budget or a lifetime budget. (Adams, 2019) 

It is finally time now for the creative part of ads. Creating your ad! The first step is an ad name. You will want to choose something that is going to draw the reader’s attention. With this step you can choose photos, video’s or any media that you want to set with your ad. If you ever find yourself stuck, a great tip is to always look at what your competitors are doing. But remember, always make it eye-grabbing to your customers. 

View Your Advertising Data:

        The Facebook ads dashboard is a great location to keep in the back of your mind. This is where you will find all the information about the current ads you have running. When you open it, you will see four different sections. All with a lot of different information. 

You will see in the above screenshot that is what your ads dashboard will look like. Since I am not running an end everything is blank, but this is where all the important information would be found on the progress of your ads. 

Understanding the success metrics is key to be able to adjust your ads so that they are appealing to more people. In this report, you are going to be able to see how many clicks your ad got, cost per click and the cost per result. Each ad is different, and some metrics won’t apply to your ad, so you must figure out which ones mean the most to your ad campaign. 

Lastly, viewing your billing summary. It’s important to continually look at your spending so that you know if the money you are spending isn’t being wasted. You can tell which charges occurred and to what campaign they attributed to. Being up to date with what you are spending is crucial.

Implement Best Practices:

           Lastly, we are going to discuss some tips for writing a great ad. The first tip is that you need to have a clear objective. This will allow your customers to know exactly what you want from them. Secondly, you will want to have clear and eye-catching images. For the distillery example, if we are using a boring image, people aren’t going to even glance at the ad because it doesn’t draw them in. Creating a life experience in an ad will draw the customer in and make them believe in it. 

           One tip to keep in mind while you are selecting an image is to make sure you are not choosing images that your competitors are using. If you do, this could cause a huge setback for your company, as you could get called out for copying. (Adams, 2019) 

One last thing to keep in the back of your mind before we wrap this all up is that you need to remember the different policies that Facebook has with posting images. You will not be allowed to post anything with more than 20% text on them. The less text on them, the higher the quality of the advertisement. Another policy is that if you are targeting alcohol, you have to target the audience that is old enough to purchase it. 

Conclusion: 

We have just covered a lot of material all about how to get the best ad onto Facebook for your campaign. Facebook is one of the greatest and simplest tools to get an ad campaign out to the public and be able to narrow down your target audience. If I were going to set up an ad campaign through Facebook for the distillery we have been talking about, I would first go through my objectives, then target audience, followed by setting up my campaign itself. 

References:

Adomas Baltagalvis. (2018, February 2). A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Ads: A Simple Step-by-Step Tutorial. Retrieved January 31, 2020, from Oberlo website: https://www.oberlo.com/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-facebook-advertising

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 (2020). Retrieved January 31, 2020, from Linkedin.com website: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/advertising-on-facebook-2/next-steps?u=2109516

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Stock Photo. (2020). exciting or boring go for thrilling adventure and not for dull.. Retrieved January 31, 2020, from 123RF website: https://www.123rf.com/photo_66008029_exciting-or-boring-go-for-thrilling-adventure-and-not-for-dull-routine.html