Facebook offers invaluable ways to organically expand your brand reach. The platform boasts over 2.6 billion users every month and nearly 1.7 billion users per day. HubSpot’s 2021 State of Marketing report named Facebook the best social media platform for ROI for both B2B and B2C companies.
Facebook advertisements can:
- Target specific users
- Retarget users
- Provide useful analytics
- Be customized
- Support video advertisements
- Be easily set up
- Reach a wide audience
- Support your organic strategy
As a marketer, don’t overlook Facebook advertising. Here’s how to take full advantage of this marketing superpower.
How Do Facebook Ads Work?
There are a wide variety of Facebook advertisements available, including:
- Poll ads
- Slideshow ads
- Lead ads
- Dynamic ads
- Messenger ads
- Augmented reality ads
- And more
These advertisements use a variety of formats – images, videos, carousels, instant experiences and collections – so you can do just about anything your heart desires.
Facebook ads are targeted to users based on their location, demographic, interests and profile information. You can create custom or lookalike audiences to target users that resemble your customers, or you can use retargeting ads to connect with those who’ve interacted with your page.
After building your audience, Facebook will deliver the ads (either via standard or accelerated timing) through their auction process. Does the highest bidder usually win the auction? Not always. Because Facebook tries to foster a valuable user experience, the ads most often selected are those that balance their advertising value with their ability to create a positive experience for users.
Here are some technical details to keep in mind when creating your Facebook ads:
- Either JPG or PNG file formats
- A ratio of 1:91:1 or 1:1
- At least 1080 x 1080 pixels resolution
- 30MB maximum file size
- 600 pixels minimum width
- 600 pixels minimum height
- 3% aspect ratio tolerance
- 125 characters of primary text (recommended)
- A 27-character headline (recommended)
- A 27-character description (recommended)
How much do Facebook ads cost?
The cost of Facebook advertising depends on your industry, campaign objective and bidding model. On average, you can expect ads to cost $0.97 per click and $7.19 per thousand impressions.
One of the great things about the Facebook platform is that you set your own advertising budget with either a daily or lifetime cap. So, if you only want to spend $5 per day, you can set that cap.
When building your ad, you can either use automatic bidding or manually set a customized bid. The bid is pulled from your ad budget to compete in Facebook’s auction system, and the advertisement will close when the budget is spent.
How to measure Facebook ads ROI
It can be difficult to measure your Facebook ad’s return on investment (ROI) if you don’t have the right resources on hand. Here’s how to measure it:
- Use a Facebook pixel on your website. This will let you link and track users that come from Facebook.
- After installing the pixel, set up the conversion tracking feature.
- Create a custom reporting column within Facebook Ads Manager so you can view insights directly on the platform.
While a positive ROI is one of the best indicators of a successful advertising campaign, Facebook offers additional advertising metrics (click-through rate, cost per click, and return on ad spend) that can help you measure success.
How Facebook ads benefit communities
Need another reason to try Facebook ads? Advertising on this platform is a great way to bolster your brand’s social communities. By hosting events, streaming Facebook lives, and producing informative guides, social communities can boost engagement and consumer loyalty.
So, how do you find users to join your brand’s social community? Facebook ads.
Combining Facebook’s organic reach offerings with targeted advertising is the best way to reach and connect with your target audience.
The best Facebook advertising campaigns
Need some inspiration for your ads? Here are a few of the best Facebook advertising campaigns from this past year:
Walmart
When COVID-19 caused a surge in online shopping, Walmart ran augmented reality ads on Facebook that allowed customers to virtually explore and engage with its products.
The results? Shoppers spent 10x more time engaging with its advertisements. There was a 2.2% lift in website traffic from augmented reality ads with a 3D view.
Adore Me
Adore Me ran a campaign that tested whether ads that click to Messenger would drive stronger results than its business-as-usual video campaign. The ads were delivered to women aged 18 or older, and they used automatic placements.
When the campaign ended, Adore Me found that the click-to-Messenger ads had 11% higher reach compared to the business-as-usual campaign.
Miller Lite
Miller Lite ran dynamic ads tailored to people based on their expressed online interest in Miller Lite branded merchandise and similar products. The ads targeted people who were interested in beer and aged 21. All ads in this campaign featured a “Shop Now” button that linked directly to the merchandise shop.
At the end of the campaign, the company saw a 65% increase in incremental sales of branded merchandise and an 87% increase in purchase conversions.
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