Facebook Advertising is a powerful way to reach your potential customers although you can also waste LOTS of money!
Today, I want to share with you 3 things you MUST do before you start Facebook Advertising. Doing these three things will ensure you get the most out of your advertising spend.
First up, know your target audience.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people just randomly boosting posts and wonder why it doesn’t result in more sales. You are far better doing a targeted Facebook advertising campaign and including a detailed target audience than simply boosting a post.
Facebook has the power to target specific individuals who see your ad but to do that, YOU NEED TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS.
Who is your ideal client, what do they like, their interests, behaviours, what other pages do they like, age and basic demographics.
The more you know about your ideal customer the more targeted your ad will be. If you don’t do this, you’re simply wasting lots of money on showing ads to people who are not interested!!
Secondly, be clear on your objective. This is a lesson I learnt the hard way.
When I started my advertising 12 years ago I’d put an ad out there and expect people to buy.
I’d get frustrated when I’d spent a fortune on advertising for it only to result in more website visits. I wanted SALES, not website visits.
So, big lesson!
In marketing there is something known as the Customer Journey. You’ll find different variations, but a basic overview is:
Awareness – What is this all about, Is it relevant to me? (most advertising is done here)
Consider – How is this product any different to what I have/all the others? (this is when we need to re-target with information on why we are different/better etc)
Decide – Is this product the one for me? (re-target things that would help your audience decide, money back guarantee, special offer, free shipping etc)
Buy – How do I buy it? Is it an easy process? (re-target with information on the buying process, how easy it is, benefits of purchasing with you)
Use – Is it working for me, do I like the experience, is this company helpful?
Loyalty – Do I like this company/product, do a I feel rewarded and valued as a customer?
Advocate – Can I be bothered to recommend this to anyone else if they ask?
Generally, many ads are simply targeting the awareness phase.
You put an ad out there and it goes to what is known as a ‘cold’ audience.
They haven’t heard of you, so you are simply creating awareness that your business exists. At this stage of the Customer Journey it is unlikely they will buy. This is why you need to re-target these visitors, and this can be done by our third step.
Install your Facebook Pixel on your website
Your Facebook Business page has it’s own pixel. It’s a piece of code that allows you to track visitors’ actions on your sites and landing pages. This allows you to capture useful information you can use to send out what is known as re-targeting ads.
How it works is, we might start by putting out an ad to create awareness that our business exists. This might result in more traffic to our website which is great, but it doesn’t necessarily result in sales.
The next step is to start helping these visitors consider buying from you. They need to know why you are the best, why you are different and why they should choose you. This can be done through re-targeting ads.
Once they have had an initial visit to your website their data is picked up by the Facebook Pixel. When you go to set-up your re-targeting ads you use all visitors to specific webpages as an audience and target them with a specific ad.
You would have experienced it yourself. You visit a website and next minute your seeing their stuff everywhere you look. It’s popping up on Facebook and Google searches and you wonder how they tracked you.
It’s the Facebook Pixel.
I’m not going to get into too much detail about Custom Audiences today and how to set up an advertising campaign as it’s a whole other blog or 10!
Today, I simply wanted to make sure if you are going to spend any money on Facebook Advertising you do the following 3 things:
Know your Target Audience
Be clear on your Ad Objective
Install the Facebook Pixel
If you want to install your Facebook Pixel here are some instructions from Facebook
Once you have your code you need to install it on your website. If you have a Wordpress site it’s pretty simple. You can install a plugin like Insert Headers and Footers, Official Facebook Pixel etc.
Just make sure the plugin you choose is compatible with your version of Wordpress. If this is all too much simply ask your webhost/developer if they can do it for you.
Facebook Advertising can be powerful but spending some time thinking about what ads you will use at different phases of the Customer Journey can make a HUGE difference to your return on advertising spend.
If you want a hand with ideas simply book in for a FREE Strategy Session.
Cheers,
Hilde
