Facebook Ads are one of the best ways to get your message out to a broad audience. Why? Because 85% of Australians are on social media and Facebook is by far the most popular.
But it’s not about how many people are on social, it’s about targeting the right people. These are the people who are most likely to engage with your brand and buy from you.
There are a few important things you need to know to get the most out of Facebook Ads.
Here’s a step by step guide on how you can get started with Facebook Ads today – without needing to know any complicated techy stuff!
How it works
Your Facebook ad needs three parts to run:
- Campaign
- Ad set
- Ad
All of these parts make up what’s called the campaign structure. Knowing how they work together will help your ads run the way you want, and reach the right people.
You set the advertising objective at the campaign level. Here you decide the end goal for your ads, such as driving more likes to your Page.
At the ad set level, you define your targeting strategy by setting up parameters such as targeting, budget and schedule.
Finally, your ads are creative visuals, such as pictures and text, that drive the audience to what you are trying to promote.
These are all set up as you go through the set-up process.
Let’s get started on Facebook Ads
If you haven’t already, sign up for a Facebook Business page and a Facebook Advertising account. You can do this in the top right menu.
Facebook ad campaigns are run using Facebook Ads Manager. I recommend you save the Ads Manager link to your browser favourites.
Once you’re in Ads Manager, you can switch between your personal account and your business account, using the drop down menu.
As a small business owner, you will need to set up who has control of the account (it might just be you!) and a credit card.
Step 1: Select a goal
Your advertising activity must have a goal i.e. what are you trying to achieve with your ads. This is set at the campaign level. It is the first thing you must do to set up your ads.
Facebook gives you a list of goals that you can choose from. It will then deliver your ad to audiences in a way that best maximises your chances of meeting your selected goal.
As a small business owner, these are the goals most relevant to you.
- Reach: Show your ads to the maximum number of people.
- Traffic: Send people to a website or Facebook event
- Conversions: Show your ads to the people who are most likely to take action, such as buying something or calling you.
If you are unsure, Traffic is a good option, that you can use to send people to your website.
Step 2: Name your ad campaign
This isn’t anything fancy like “Have A Break, Have A Kit Kat“. Naming your campaign is just a simple to to keep track of your campaigns. It also helps you report on them to find out how they’ve gone.
Some things you might want to include:
- Your business name e.g. Jim’s Butcher
- Your audience e.g. Seniors
- A short description e.g. Lamb Sales
- The date e.g. YY-MM-DD: 22-05-01
You can combine these as well, so you may end up with something like:
- Jim’s Butcher – Seniors – Lamb Sale – 22-05-01
By having a consistent system, you’ll find it easier to find campaigns later down the line.You will also need to set a title for the Ad Set and Ad level. This can be the same as your campaign title, but may include additional information. e.g.
- Jim’s Butcher – Seniors – Lamb Sale – 22-05-01 – Photo
- Jim’s Butcher – Seniors – Lamb Sale – 22-05-01 – Video
- Jim’s Butcher – Seniors – Lamb Sale – 22-05-01 – City of Adelaide Area
Step 3: Set your optimisations
This step is about how much control you are giving to Facebook to experiment. They are set at the campaign level.While it’s good to be cautious, some of these are worthwhile. They are:
- A/B test: To test the quality of your ads.
- Budget optimisation: To get the most value out of delivering your ads.
An A/B test lets you run two versions of your ads (say, with different images or text) to see which one resonates best with your audience. You can then switch off the worser performing ad. These are a great thing to try after you’ve built a few campaigns, and have gotten used to Facebook advertising.
Budget optimisation is most useful when you are targeting different audiences at once, with different ad sets. If you just have one audience, don’t worry about this stage. Likewise if you would prefer to set all your budgets manually.
Step 4: Set your campaign budget
This is one of the most important steps. It’s critical that you know how much money your promotion is going to cost. Your budget is set at the ad set level. There are a few things you need to set:
- Your budget method: Whether it will be per day (daily) or for the whole campaign (lifetime)
- Your budget total: How much you are willing to spend
- This is broken down into daily or lifetime
- e.g. Spend $20/daily for 5 days OR $100 for the whole campaign (over 5 days)
- Start and end dates: The time you want your ad to run for.
For a small business, you can start to see results from as little as $10 a day.You can always change your budget as you go. It’s better to start conservatively and then add as you go, than blow everything at once and see no results.
Step 5: Set up your target audience
The best reason to use Facebook Ads is because of how you can use it to reach your audience. These audiences can be new or existing. Facebook (in the ad set level) presents you two choices:
- Create a new Facebook target audience: to target new customers.
- Use a Saved Audience: to target audiences you have the details of.
When you select new audience, you can choose how to target them. You can do this based on:
- Interests
- Geographic location
- Age
- Gender
You should aim to target the most relevant audience. You can use combinations to narrow down your target e.g. Over 65 and interested in Star Wars. As you select your audience, Facebook will tell you roughly how many people you will reach.If you plan on using this audience for multiple promotions, you can save the audience.
Step 6: Set up your placements
This is where you choose where your ads are going to go. This is at the ad set level.You can choose your placements (manual) or you can let Facebook do it for you (automatic). Facebook is very good at choosing placements, and unless you have a specific goal in mind, automatic placements are a safe bet for you promotion.Some of the key placement options include:
- Facebook News Feed
- Facebook Right Column
- Instagram Feed
- Messenger Inbox
- Stories
- In Videos
You can test your ads by doing A/B tests of placements. That will let you know which areas are working best.
Step 7: Set up your ad
The final step! This is where you create the content that goes in your ad. This is set at the ad level.Here’s a few quick steps to get started.
- Under “Creative Source” select “Manual” and upload an image for your ad.
- Under “Primary text” write the text that you want to go in your ad.
- Under “Headline” write a few words that are the most important idea of your ad
- Under “Description” write two sentences that summarise your promo offer.
If you selected Traffic, you will need to direct people to a Facebook Event or your website. Add your site or event under “Destination”.
You can also select the Call to Action button you want to use. “Learn More” is a safe option.
An example Facebook Ad for a small arts business
- Primary Text: Apply now for Bundanon’s Artist in Residence program. If you’re an artist or musician, get space to work on your next big piece. Applications close next Monday 6 June.
- Headline: Bundanon’s 2023 Artist in Residence program | APPLY NOW
- Description: Bundanon supports new work, research and collaborations by artists and researchers from around the world. Join us.
Once you’re done, hit Publish. Facebook will then approve your ad. That’s it — you’ve made your first ad campaign on Facebook!
