Here are the numbers:
As of March 2019, Facebook had 2.38 billion monthly active users on average.
42% of marketers report that Facebook is a crucial platform/element to their business’s performance.
52% of participants of a marketing research said they’d discovered a new retail product they were interested in buying on Facebook.
Having been a social media platform and now also being a nest for uncountable amounts of merchants, Facebook can empower you to target your potential buyers precisely. In this article, we will go over everything you need to know about selling on Facebook — Facebook Ads vs boosted post, how to set up Facebook Advertising, and how to evaluate the results of your Facebook ads.
#1: Know the Difference Between Facebook Ads and Boosted Posts
If you’re selling with SHOPLINE then you might already have a Facebook fan page account for your brand and be familiar with its functions. If you are not familiar with Facebook ads, the quickest way to promote your organic post is to “boost” your post.
Boosted Post
A Boosted Post is a subtype of the Facebook Ad; it is simply a Facebook post that has been amplified in order to reach a larger audience. When “boosted,” it becomes a paid, “sponsored,” Facebook post that will appear higher on the News Feed of your target audience. By doing this, traffic to your page/website is expected to increase.
This is the simplest way to advertise on Facebook. However, Boosted posts differ from Facebook ads as they are not created in Ads Manager, therefore lack customization features and have limited targeting options.
“Then what is the best way to gain exposure on Facebook?” The answer is simple. Create an ad with Facebook’s Ads Manager instead.
[Source: https://crowdmedia.com/blog/2018/5/27/facebook-ad-campaigns-vs-post-boosting]
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads offers a greater number of options for businesses advertising on Facebook than Boosted Posts does. Some of its key advantages include: setting multiple objectives, ability to build custom audience profiles, adding a “call-to-action” to your posts, additional targeting and placement options, as well as comprehensive reporting.
These added advantages will not only help you narrow your audience down to your ideal customers, present your business in a manner that resonates with your customers but will also determine the ROI of your ad campaigns.
[Source: lovelymobile.news]
#2: Setting up Facebook Ads
In this section, we will teach you, step by step, how to set up your first Facebook ads, and guide you through some terms that you might not be familiar with.
Step 1: Log into your Business Manager Account and click on Ads Manager + Create
Step 2: Choose your Advertising Objective
Facebook breaks objective up into three categories – Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion – with various options under each.
Awareness is aimed to generate interest in what you have to offer.
Consideration is used to reach people who may have some interest in what you have to offer and are likely to want to engage or discover more information.
Conversion should be used when you want more people to register, download, purchase, or visit your site. Choosing conversion as an objective is most common among online merchants.
There’s no right and wrong answer when it comes to choosing your ad objective. Select the one that best aligns with the goals you have for your campaign.
Note: Before choosing your advertising objective, make sure you know what Facebook Pixel is, and have it installed on your website for conversion tracking, retargeting, and data collecting. Here’s a detailed guide on how to install and use it.
Step 3: Create a Custom Audience
Now that you can put your ad out there to be seen by thousands of people, start with setting up your desired audience’s profile based on demographic and geographic qualities.
Facebook ads could be a money pit if you’re not spending wisely on your target audience, and the worst case scenario would be throwing money on customers who aren’t interested in your products; it is advised that you also build and target your desired audience’s profile based on special interests such as wine tasting, board games, etc. Step 4: Decide Where to Run Your Ad
The place where you run your ad is called “placement”. Placements help you reach more of the people you care about. Besides Facebook, your ads can also appear on Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger.
Step 5: Set Ad Budget and Select a Bidding Strategy
Setting the right budget is critical to your success and Facebook gives you two budgeting options for your ad: Daily budget allows Facebook to auto-optimize your ad delivery throughout the day. While Lifetime budget divides the total campaign budget, more or less, evenly across the campaign dates.
You’ll be competing with tons of advertisers on Facebook; Facebook ad bidding works on an auction basis and offers two bidding strategies.
Lowest Cost vs. Target Cost Bidding
With the Lowest Cost bid strategy, Facebook will try to get you the lowest possible cost per optimized, and you can set a bid to control how much Facebook will spend. The Target Cost bid strategy is only available for the following objectives: app installations, conversions, lead generation, catalog sales. Facebook recommends using this bid strategy to achieve more stable results as your spending increases.
Step 6: Create enticing Ad Content and Publish
The last step is to create an ad image and copy for your ad. Visuals are extremely important to catch the user’s attention. No matter what type of ad you create, your images must be visually appealing. Moreover, your copy should be relevant to your target audience and has a clear “call-to-action” to encourage people to click on your ad.
Now that you’ve set up all your campaign elements such as the campaign objective, budgets, ad creatives, ad copy, URLs, etc. you’re ready to click on the “Continue” button and publish your Facebook campaign.
#3: How to Evaluate Facebook Ad Performance
In general, for an ad that’s objective is to increase traffic, the metrics we usually look into are CTR and CPC; if the ad’s objective is to drive conversion, then we should look into conversion rate and CPA. However, it’s also important to check other metrics, adjust different attributes, and do A/B testing to continually optimize your Facebook ads.
Here are the metrics you’ll see when analyzing your Facebook ads:
- Results – The number of actions as a result of your ad. The results you see here are based on your objective (applicable to recently created ads only).
- Cost Per – The average you paid for each action according to your objective.
- Ad Reach – The number of people who saw this ad.
- Frequency – The average number of times each person saw your ad.
- Clicks – The total number of clicks this ad received. This can also include Page likes, event joins and app installs that came from your ad.
- CTR – The percentage of times your ad was clicked when it was shown.
- Avg. Price – The average price you paid for each action, each click or each time the ad was shown 1,000 times.
- Total Spent – The total you’ve spent on this campaign during the dates selected.
Make an effort to examine the metrics available for each of your ad types and compare the performance of the different ad copies, images, targeting, and draw conclusions from the data. Also, try breaking down your data in new ways for additional levels of detail. Lastly, explore the different metric columns and read their tooltips to get familiar with what they reveal. Once you have a clear picture of how your ads are performing, new and different possibilities will become attainable.
