With 1.94 billion monthly active users, Facebook continues to be the dominate social media platform. No matter your target demographic, you can find them posting, sharing and commenting on Facebook, so it makes sense that you should be spending at least some of your advertising dollars there.
In this series, we'll teach you how to use Facebook Ads Manager, the platform's advertising portal, and provide tips and advice for how to navigate this new marketing landscape.
When you take out a print, television or radio ad, the main goal is to inform your audience. But what if you could go beyond just spreading information and actually move people to action?
That's the great thing about Facebook's Ads Manager: Its ads make it easy for viewers to act without having to do virtually any work. The platform offers a number of different ad types to help you simplify your campaign objectives and reach them in the most successful way possible.
Keep reading to learn more about the different types of ads Facebook has and how they can help you.
Last Time
In our last post, we broke down the three different objectives Ads Manager offers:
- Awareness: If you don't have a lot of followers, it might be best to start with awareness. This encourages Facebook users to start interacting with your brand by liking your page. Best for companies that want to expand their reach to neighboring cities.
- Consideration: You have a lot of followers, but they're not engaging with your brand. The consideration option offers different ways to get people to interact with your brand either by visiting your website, claiming an offer or liking your posts.
- Conversion: To really get people moving through the sales funnel, the conversion option offer actionable ads to move customers to view your catalog or visit your store.
In theory, the goal is to build your way up. If your brand is new to social media or just new in general, you want to create awareness about your brand. Once you have a strong following, you can encourage more engagement with your brand whether that means visits to your website or likes on your Facebook posts. Finally, the conversion objective moves customers through the sales funnel.
You can use these ads no matter what your following is like on Facebook, but if you have low awareness on Facebook (less than 1,000 followers), then Consideration and Conversion ads might not be as effective.
Facebook Ad Types
To make your life easier, Facebook offers several different ad types. These templates make it easy for you to add your information and create a professional-looking ad in no time at all. They all have different goals, so not all ads will achieve every objective.
Let's break these ad types down:
App Engagement
Have a new feature you want to publicize on your app? The App Engagement ad highlights a specific feature of your app and delivers a call-to-action to get people to interact with your app. It can also double as an App Installs ad (see below) to get new users to download your app.
Best Objective Category: Consideration.
App Installs
If you build it, they won't come until you tell them about it. The App Installs ad asks users to install your app, usually by promoting its core feature ("Shop lighting on the new app").
Best Objective Category: Consideration.
Brand Awareness
The beginning really is a very good place to start. The Brand Awareness ad doesn't have a specific call-to-action template, and it can be too general unless you have a unique call-to-action of your own. For example, if you have virtual showroom walkthroughs on your site, you might ask views to "take a tour" of your showroom with this ad.
Best Objective Category: Awareness, Consideration.
Clicks to Website
New blog post out? Just finished a website renovation? The Clicks to Website ad gets people clicking to your website and builds traffic. This ad increases awareness, but it's not meant to drive specific actions (see Website Conversions).
Best Objective Category: Awareness, Consideration.
Event
The Event ad spreads the word about your cool event to people outside (and even inside if you prefer) your following. Use this ad to target people in your local area. If you're already posting the event to Facebook, this campaign is a great add-on.
Best Objective Category: Consideration.
Lead Generation
When you want to collect more customer information and move them through the sales funnel, the Lead Generation ad collects user data without taking the user away from Facebook to a separate site.
Let's say your showroom wants to target interior designers specifically and encourage them to sign up for newsletters from you. When you set up the ad, you create your own form using Facebook's platform, which might include name, city, phone number and title. Now when a designer clicks the ad, the form you create pops up. Some information such as name and city will autofill, and the designer will add the rest and submit the form without leaving Facebook.
Best Objective Category: Conversion.
Local Awareness
Have a new showroom or event opening? The Local Awareness ad targets people in your preferred geographical location and reminds them of your store or office. This is a great way to target new potential followers in your area who are going through major life events, such as engagements and house buying. We'll talk more about ad audiences in upcoming articles.
Best Objective Category: Awareness.
Offer Claims
Running a promotion on a certain brand of lighting or furniture? The Offer Claims ad sends viewers directly to a page on your site where they can access the offer. This does not have to be a discount. If you're offering a seminar free to the first 50 people that sign up, then you can use this ad.
Best Objective Category: Consideration.
Page Likes
For any page just starting out, building your page likes is key. This ad encourages viewers to like your page.
Best Objective Category: Awareness.
Post Engagement
If you blog regularly, the Post Engagement ad will help you reach a wider audience and get more post likes and clicks to your page. You can also add a "Like this Page" button to this ad to encourage more people to like your page.
Best Objective Category: Consideration.
Store Visits
For businesses with a strong audience in concentrated areas, the Store Visits ad can target people in certain geographical locations and encourage them to visit your store. You can also narrow you audience by targeting followers in the middle of certain life events, such as buying a home.
Best Objective Category: Conversion.
Website Conversions
The Website Conversion ads focus on the short-term goal of getting customers to your website to complete an action — not just read a blog post. If you want to get people to sign up for events, newsletters or free trials, then you use the Website Conversions ad.
Best Objective Category: Conversion.
Remember, you don't have to choose just one ad type and stick with it. The best campaigns use a blend of ads to drive results. Once you choose your objective, you can use several ad types to meet your goals.
Next week, we'll walk you through the steps to set up a basic campaign.
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