The Maine SEO Blog

Trying and Succeeding

So, my friend Megan and I had lunch together today. She was telling me all about her new Facebook Ad Campaigns that she is running for her Facebook Business Pages. She’s had a lot of success lately so we were comparing notes on some of our processes and tricks. Below is a compilation of some of her tips and some of my own…

1. Have a goal: If you are going to start a Facebook Ad campaign you better know what you are trying to accomplish. Is it more likes? Brand awareness? Event registrations? Sales? What is your goal for the ad? This answer is going to determine what type of Facebook Ad Campaign you are going to run. For instance if it’s to get more likes or to build awareness you might want to just use the traditional marketplace ad, however if it’s an event you may want to promote you could do a sponsored story and promote a page post highlighting it.  Having a goal also gives you the ability to measure your success later on.

2. Testing: Many people create one version of an ad, pick one target, select their bid and just run the ad continuously. This is not best practice for running a successful Facebook ad campaign and can end up costing you quite a bit of money while providing mediocre results. Here are a few testing tips:

• Images: Test different images on the same ad and see if one gets more action than the others
• Verbiage: Once you’ve seen what image performs best, test out the language you use in your ad
• Target: Test the different targets using the same ads how are these working
• Ad Type Choice: Test the different types of ads offered by Facebook (standard market place ads, sponsored story ads, like ads, post ads, check in ads etc.)
• Targeting Your Audience: Create different ads for your different audiences, don’t lump all into one, sometimes a bigger audience isn’t better when it comes to Facebook ads

3. Landing Pages: Create landing pages that make sense. If you are advertising a coupon, bring your audience to a coupon page, if you are trying to get people to like your page bring them to your welcome page, if you are advertising an event bring them to an event page or landing page that promotes it. You get the picture; just make sure that your target makes sense for the person clicking on the ad.

4. Update Your Wall: Make sure that you are still consistently engaging your audience on your page, asking questions, posting video, posting photos, bringing in your blog posts, and offering valuable content. This makes the page look lived in, interesting and inviting for the newbie arriving on your wall.

5. Ad Copy: Don’t feel compelled to use all 135 characters available to you. Sometimes a short sentence does a better job of generating interest and attracting an audience.

6. Photos: We mentioned selecting different photos above for testing, but it’s important to state again, a great image can change the whole look, feel and meaning of your ad. Make sure that your image is attracting the audience that you want.

7. Play In Their Sandbox: Don’t create Facebook Ads that take your audience off of Facebook. Now I know that there is some differing opinions on this, but in my experience, when you lead someone off Facebook you risk the chance of that user becoming cranky. People who are on Facebook want to stay on Facebook. So, lead them to a landing page on Facebook talking about your product or service, have an ecommerce page on Facebook, offer them a downloadable coupon on Facebook, or have them like your page. Not only does this keep them in the place they want to be it also allows you the opportunity to gain the like, which means you now have the ability to market to them in the future, not just that one ad click.

8. Know Your Audience: Facebook has some amazing targeting abilities but it’s up to you first to know who your audience is. What they are interested in? Where they are located? What age range they are? etc.

9. Create Audience Specific Ads: Once you know whom your audience is you should segment them out. For instance, you may have one product that you sell to a wide range of demographics. Say you are selling an anti-aging skin care product, your message to a 25 year old woman is going to be much different than the message you would deliver to a 65 year old woman. And, how you sell a weight loss or fitness program to members of the opposite sex will be much different. Create demographic specific ads, and test different ads within that space as well.

10. Measure. This is the most important part. This is how you see if your Facebook Ad Campaign is successful or not. This is how you see which ad is performing better than the other. This is how you know if your targeting is correct, and so on. This may take some time and effort on your part, but it’s worth it in order to create more successful ads campaigns.

BONUS Tip: A recent study by Neilson said that Facebook ads get stale faster than traditional ads. Your audience is sick of the same ad after 2 – 5 days, so keep a close eye on how your ads are performing so they don’t get stale.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Fan of Facebook Advertising

Image By: AnnieGreenSprings

I love Facebook Ads, in fact I think that they offer amazing opportunities for those with smaller budgets to get in front of the right audience.  With that said, if you are going to create an ad, you should take the time to make sure it’s going to be an effective one.

Take for instance this ad I saw yesterday on my wall for a pillow.

I loved the pillows so I actually clicked on the ad.  However, it takes me to a web page off Facebook.  Which is fine, because I expected that from the ad showing the url, however, it doesn’t bring me to the pillows at all.  It brings me to a pop up window that asks me to sing up for membership.

Now, because it didn’t lead me to what I wanted and I didn’t want to sign up for membership, I left the site immediately.  Which means, the advertiser was charged for my click, but I didn’t not make a purchase or become a member, which were probably two of their goals for the ad. DON’T run an ad like this!

Next ad… And this one is much better I admit, because it actually brings you to the image of what they are advertising for and a very quick form to fill out to purchase the item.

However, rather than bringing me off page to their website, they should have an ability to purchase from their Facebook page, keeping me where I want to be and possibly gaining a “Like” from me, so I see more of their updates for FREE!

And, the last Ad is a great example of what to do with your Facebook Ads. 

This ad keeps me on Facebook, asks me to “Like” the page which encourages further interaction/engagement down the road, tells me a friend of mine likes it and lets me know what I can expect to get from liking the Facebook page.

Now, not all Facebook ads HAVE to point back to a Facebook page.  However, in my experience the ones that do see better results.

So, how should you set up your Facebook ad?

- Don’t point them to external pages off of Facebook (keep your audience where they want to be)
- Don’t mislead if you are showing them an image that you are selling, lead them to that page
- Do ask for a like (you want your dollar to go further than that one click)
- Do have an eCommerce landing page on your Facebook page
- Do tell them what they will receive or can expect for becoming a fan
- Keep it social, people are more likely to “Like” a page a fan likes

So, get out there and create GOOD ads.  Good Luck!

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Facebook Advertiser

Can you answer “Yes” to any one of these questions?

• Do you have a presence on Facebook already, but want more “likes” on your page?
• Do you have a presence on Facebook already, but want to drive more traffic to your website?
• Do you have a new fan page that needs to build up fans (or “likes”)?

Then Facebook ads are right for you. Facebook ads are inexpensive, intuitive, and, when done the right way, have the ability to drive a ton of traffic.

In the past week, I’ve gone step-by-step through creating Facebook ads. They’re all linked here…so get ‘em while they’re hot.

1. Create ad: Create and Target
2. Create ad: Bidding and Review
3. Measuring and Reporting
4. Measuring Conversions
5. Making sense of the data

Nicki Hicks
Like flyte on Facebook