Facebook Ads have emerged as a popular and cost-effective way to promote a small business online. According to recent research from MerchantCircle, 22% of small businesses have used Facebook Ads, and 65% say they would use Facebook Ads again, citing ease and flexibility as the top reasons to run another campaign.

1. September 14, 2011
batteryfast.co.uk
5 Tips for Success with Facebook Ads
5 Tips for Success with Facebook Ads 1. Set Goals and Plan Your
Approach Accordingly
Facebook Ads have emerged as a popular and cost-
effective way to promote a small business online. The first step is understanding what you want to
According to recent research from MerchantCircle, achieve with your ad. Are you looking to building
22% of small businesses have used Facebook Ads, awareness for your company, drive traffic to your
and 65% say they would use Facebook Ads again, web site, promote a specific event or generate sales?
citing ease and flexibility as the top reasons to run
another campaign. But not everyone enjoys suc- Facebook offers a number of different ad options
cess with Facebook Ads — among the one-third of that work to achieve different objectives. If you’re
users who say they wouldn’t run another campaign, looking to build awareness and grow your fan base,
nearly 70% say that it didn’t work to acquire new you might want to start with standard marketplace
customers. ads. These ads point to your Facebook Page and allow
users to “like” your page directly within the ad unit.
With this in mind, here are five tips to ensure you’re If you already have a sizable fan base, you might
set up for success with Facebook Ads: also try a “Page Like” sponsored story, in which the
ad shows friends who have liked your Page.
“Targeting with Facebook Ads allows you to adver-
tise to the right people based on their real interests.
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You can even target people who are friends with
people who already “like” your Page. This social
context will show up around the ad,” says Grady
Burnett, VP of global marketing solutions at Face-
Printed with
book. “A study from Nielsen shows that on average,
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2. September 14, 2011
batteryfast.co.uk
5 Tips for Success with Facebook Ads
people are 68% more likely to remember seeing an See Also:
ad with social context than without, twice as likely
to remember the ad’s message and four times as 2. Get Creative with Targeting
likely to purchase.”
When you want to promote a particular post from
your page, such as a special offer or important news,
you can also use “Page Post” sponsored stories to
convert your post into a News Feed item.
But this approach isn’t limited to your own posts;
Burnett also notes that “you can use Sponsored
Stories — Facebook’s newest marketing tool — to
help surface the word-of-mouth recommendations
about your business that are already happening
in the News Feed. For example, you can sponsor
stories about people checking in to your business
or “liking” your Page.”
Whatever your goals and approach, make sure
that you are set up to measure success. While click-
through rate (CTR) is an important metric to track,
it’s not the only one, and according to Webtrends, The Facebook ad interface makes it very easy to
the average CTR for Facebook ads is only about select the demographic profile of an audience you
0.05%, which is half the industry standard of 0.1%. want to target, including age, sex, location, education
Clint Fralick, VP of client services at social media level and interests, but it is also unique in its ability
agency Pandemic Labs, recommends that you aim to micro-target very specific audiences.
instead for increases in comments, Likes, impres-
sions and active users. Sheila Hibbard, founder of small business marke-
ting firm The Marketing Bit, notes that while most
“If you pick up 500 new fans, but all those other advertisers come to Facebook with the traditional
numbers stay the same, you haven’t gotten them advertising mindset that says “more is better,” that
engaged — and you probably won’t make any mo- isn’t the case with Facebook.
ney off them,” says Fralick.
“It’s better to have a couple thousand very targeted
people than tens of thousands of disinterested folks,”
says Hibbard. She suggests that you zero in on a
very specific target audience with your ads, even
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if it means reducing the size of your audience. For
example, if you’re using Facebook Ads to promote
an event or a seasonal sale, you might want to only
target your existing fans, who may be more likely
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to respond to an immediate offer.
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3. September 14, 2011
batteryfast.co.uk
5 Tips for Success with Facebook Ads
When targeting local audiences, Fralick also recom- sure to highlight any special offers or unique fea-
mends that you look beyond self-reported location tures that differentiate you from the competition. If
and “use every possible angle to find those locals,” your goal is brand and company name recognition,
since not everyone lists their city in their profiles. Facebook also suggests using your company name
“Put the names of popular local businesses, colleges in the ad title or somewhere in the body of the ad.
and clubs into the ad manager to find the people
that city and zip code doesn’t,” Fralick says. While your ad can include up to 135 characters, Ben
Nesvig of Fuzed Marketing cautions businesses “not
Another creative idea is to develop and target bir- to feel like you have to fill the entire ad. Sometimes
thday ads, says Anthony Nitz, founder of Facebook a simple line does the trick.” For example, some
marketing firm Pageon Facebook.com. experts recommend asking a question or making
a bold statement rather than touting your features.
“One of the most fun targeting methods is sending
an ad that shows up the week before your fan’s Either way, remember to include a call-to-action that
birthday,” says Nitz. “I tell business owners to create encourages users to click on your ad and explains to
an ad that links to video of them wearing a birthday the user exactly what you expect them to do when
hat or throwing confetti while delivering a birthday they reach your landing page.
message, or their staff singing ‘Happy Birthday’ that
ends with a special offer and a link to where they The pictures you choose for your ad are also critical,
can download their special birthday-only coupon. since this is what will catch people’s eye, and you
I can assure you that when someone sees an ad in should think beyond your logo.
their sidebar that says ‘Happy Birthday,’ and they
click on it and the guy from the local deli is singing “Typically the best photos for conversion are close
Happy Birthday to them, it gets huge mileage.” face shots of people — smiling women tend to ge-
nerate a high click rate,” says Harley Rivet of Deep
Dish Digital. Rivet recommends that you avoid ty-
pical stock photos and instead try use more natural
3. Choose Text and Images That photos with colors that contrast with the blue color
Pop scheme of Facebook, such as red, yellow and orange.
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When designing your ad, Facebook recommends that
you write clear, targeted ads with concise text that
Printed with
speaks directly to the audience you will reach. Be
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4. September 14, 2011
batteryfast.co.uk
5 Tips for Success with Facebook Ads
4. Create and Test Multiple Ads In fact, Fralick urges clients to think of a click as
the beginning of the campaign, not the end. “When
“One of the biggest mistakes I see business owners someone likes your page, they’re giving you per-
making is creating and running only one ad within mission to talk to them over and over again,” says
each campaign,” says Caroline Melberg, founder Fralick. “That’s just as valuable as an outright sale.”
of Small Business Mavericks. “Even the smallest
change in the words you choose or the graphic you
use can have a large impact on the click-through rate
for your ad, so it’s best to create multiple versions CloudTag: Facebook , Ads , Success , Dell 6400 bat-
of your ad and test them to see which ad gets the teries , Dell d830 batteries ,Toshiba pa3535u-1brs
best response.” batteries , dell vostro 1510 batteries
Facebook makes this process easy: Once an ad has
been created, you have the option to “Create a Si-
milar Ad” and simply swap in a new picture or text. Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a com-
ment below and continue the conversation, or
Melberg suggests creating four different ads for subscribe to my feed and get articles like this de-
the same campaign, running them for a day or so livered automatically to your feed reader.
and then viewing your ad statistics on Facebook
to discover which ad performed the best. You can
then create a new ad that is similar to your best-
performing ad, but tweak it just a bit to see if you
can beat the previous performance.
And, don’t forget to swap out ads after a short period
to reduce fatigue. According to WebTrends, social
ads have a very short shelf life, with interest waning
after three to five days.
5. Be Ready To Capitalize on the
Traffic
According to Nesvig, a common mistake small bu-
sinesses make with Facebook Ads is focusing on
their ad while neglecting fresh content on their
Facebook Page. “They might spend a $100 on ads,
but the last update on their fan page was a month
ago,” says Nesvig.
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Fralick agrees. “Your ads are only as good as your
Wall. Remember that most people don’t click through
to your Facebook page; they click ‘like’ right in the
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ad. Have status updates or special offers planned
that follow up on the messages in your ads, and get
people to connect more than once.”
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