People love Facebook a lot. Who wouldn’t love a platform where you can connect with millions of other users? Facebook currently has an average of 1.09 billion active users – from businesses to CEOs and students. With stats like this, it is easy to see why people consider Facebook one of the best marketing platforms. However, the question remains- how can brands create Facebook ads that perform well? In this Facebook ad guide, we’ll walk you through everything on how to make the most out of your Facebook ads. 

What Are Facebook Ads and How Do They Work?

Everyone knows Facebook, but not everyone knows how business owners can leverage the platform’s advertising features. Facebook ads is a marketing feature that involves paying for your Facebook posts/messages to reach more people.

Anybody can post on Facebook as long as you have an account, but you can’t control who sees it. However,  you can target a specific audience, reach more people, and increase your views/engagement with Facebook advertisements. You have the option of creating different forms of ads, including pictures, slideshows, and videos. Also, your ads can appear in the feed, messenger, and other websites or platforms, depending on your preference.

Are Facebook Ads Worth It? 

Advertising on Facebook is becoming increasingly popular, with many brands running campaigns on the social platform. These ads also work effectively for brands who want to increase brand awareness and sales.  So the simple answer is ‘yes’. Yes, spending on ads is worth it as long as you know how to optimize Facebook ads for conversions. 

You may wonder-why spend money on ads when I can just make a Facebook post? The truth is, they are not the same thing, at least not anymore.

Before, you could make a Facebook post and get a massive organic reach. However, you may need more than organic reach to get your business out there with recent Facebook algorithm changes. 

Also, for reasons probably best known to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook users see less content from brands and companies. So, if you are waiting on organic reach to get more audience, you may just be waiting for a long time.

Facebook ads are a powerful way for brands to build awareness, attract new customers, increase conversion, and measure campaign goals. If these are what you want for your brand, then you need to learn how to optimize your ads.

How To Make The Most Out Of Facebook Ads

There is good news and bad news:

The good news is Facebook ads work.

The bad news is Facebook ads don’t work if you don’t do it the right way.

If you want to get the best results from your Facebook ads, it’s essential to do it correctly. Don’t worry; we’ve got you covered! Here are some tips and tricks on how to get the best out of Facebook ads:

Facebook Tip 1: Define Your Facebook Ads Goals 

One essential tip to improve your Facebook ad performance is to define your marketing goals. In other words, what do you want to achieve with your Facebook ads? The primary importance of creating goals is to help you measure your KPI and keep an eye on your ad performance. 

Goal: the result you hope to achieve with the ad.

KPI: a metric to let you know how well you are working towards the goal. 

Some common goals and KPIs that brands love are as follows:

Another reason you need to set ad goals is to help you pick the right ad objective when creating a sponsored post. Currently, Facebook has about 13 different ad objectives, and you need to select the option that best describes your goal. For example, if you want to reach more customers, you can pick the reach objective. If sales is what you want, then go for the conversion objective. 

A mistake you can make with your Facebook advertisement is picking an objective that doesn’t align with the result you want. You already know how to prevent this; by setting your goals from the start!  When you set goals from the start, it will be easy to know the best objective to get the results you want. 

Facebook Tip 2: Target Specific Audience To Boost Engagement 

Whether it’s Facebook ads, Instagram ads, or traditional advertising, the first rule is to know your audience. Therefore, before you begin creating a Facebook ad, you need to know who you are targeting.  Creating a general audience can be tricky, so it’s best to figure out the people who will most likely buy from you. Once you have figured this out, you can use sophisticated audience targeting to specify and control who sees your ads. 

Want to know the best part?

Facebook ad targeting is very detailed, so you get to be as specific as possible using different customisable characteristics like;

• Demographics (age and gender)
• Location
• Interests
• Language spoken
• Connections
• Relationship status
• Education
• Workplaces.

Every option above is useful when creating a sponsored post to reach your potential customers.  For example, you don’t have to target ‘working mothers’  when you can target ‘working mothers in the tech industry who love reading.’ 

Facebook Lookalike Audiences

Another interesting tool to reach your target audience is through the Lookalike Audience feature. Facebook gives brands the option to create an audience with similar characteristics to their current users. All you need to do is ask Facebook to find similar audiences using Facebook Pixel or custom audience data.

Facebook Tip #3: Choose the Right Facebook Ads Format

If you are looking to improve Facebook ads, you need to figure out the best ads for your brand. There are different Facebook ads types, and it may get overwhelming when trying to decide which to go for. Also, one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to Facebook ads, so you may need to experiment with different formats. Here are some Facebook ad formats you can consider:

• Video Ads

Some of the best Facebook ad examples are video content because they always outperform other forms of ads.  Video ads let you showcase your products or your team in action. Your video ads don’t have to be a long filmed video; you can create GIFs, stories, animations, carousels, and other forms of videos to get engagements. Go with video ads if you want to connect deeper with your audience and boost your engagement. 

• Image Ads

Images are great ads for Facebook, especially if you want to create an ad quickly. However, you need to try to use image ads the right way. For example, it’s best to have just a few texts on images for more engagement because social media users scan information quickly. 

Also, image sizes matter. For ads shown in Facebook News Feed, a good practice is to use an image resolution of at least 1080 x 1080.  Lastly, don’t make your image boring or use low-quality pictures. So say bye to stock photos and create interesting images instead.

• Carousel Ads

Facebook carousel ads are among the best formats to showcase eCommerce products. Carousel lets you showcase multiple images or videos (up to 10) for people to scroll through. So if you have a lot of product Images, you can leverage on carousel ads. Another interesting thing about them is that each image or video on your ad can have its link. 

• Story Ads

Stories ads work with Facebook stories, allowing users to see temporary images or photos.

Facebook Tip 4: Create Relevant and Interesting Facebook Ads

It’s easy to get consumed by how to run Facebook ads while forgetting one of the most important parts of marketing – offering something valuable. You know your audience, your goals, and you have a budget, but that’s not all. First, you need to make sure you sell a product that people will want. Second, create an ad to show people why they need your product. 

Also, to create relevant ads, you need to make sure your content is meaningful, concise, and not clickbait-y. A good tip on how to get the best out of your Facebook ads is to try out different ad hooks and copies to see which performs best. 

In addition, the quality of your ads matters. If you’re posting stock pictures, blurry videos, or long boring text, your audience will most likely skip through it. Therefore, try as much as possible to make your ad copy interesting.  Some tips include;

• Using emojis (don’t overdo it).
• Keeping it short.
• Writing an excellent copy that creates desire.
• Creating different ads for different people.
• Being as visual with your ads as possible.

Facebook Tip 5: Plan A Realistic Facebook Ad Budget

Every marketing strategy including Facebook ads needs a budget. As mentioned earlier, Facebook ads are not free, so you need to plan how much you want to spend. If your Facebook ad budget is too small or big, there is a problem. Spend too much, and you lose your marketing budget, spend too little, and miss conversions.

Meanwhile, running a successful Facebook ad is about maximising what you currently have. Even with a tight budget, you can use some low-budget Facebook ads strategy to optimise your campaigns. To calculate your ad budget, it’s best to determine your sales goals and then calculate your Facebook ad spend budget. Fortunately, this process is now simple with the multitude of free budget calculators available to brands. An ad budget calculator can help you accurately plan for a budget based on your sales goals and the number of sales conversions.

Tip: Facebook gives the option to set a bid cap if you are on a tight budget. If you have a small Facebook ad budget, you can set a bid cap on each ad placement to ensure you don’t spend more than you can afford.

Facebook Tip 6: Don’t Forget To Leave a Call To Action

The one tip people often leave out when talking about how to improve Facebook ads is the Call to Action (CTA).  Your call to action will motivate and guide your audience on what to do next to become a customer. Skipping CTA in your ad copy isn’t great because it’s a major key to grabbing attention and encouraging your audience to take the deal.

Therefore try adding CTA like:

• ‘Visit website for a 10% discount’, 
• ‘Offers Start Now,’ 
• ‘Click Here for more information.’
• Claim Your Free Ebook

Also, Facebook offers five call-to-action buttons to help specify the action you want your audience to tell. The options are Shop Now, Book Now, Learn More, Sign Up and Download. 

Facebook Tip 7: Monitor Your Performance and Ad Relevance Score

If you are unfamiliar with the Facebook ad relevance score, it is simply a metric that shows how well your ad is performing. The score ranges from 1 to 10, with ten being the highest. A good relevance score will display your ads more frequently to your target audience, which will increase your ROI. 

That’s not all;

A high Facebook relevance score also helps show your ad at a lower cost.

The Facebook score is usually determined by evaluating the quality of your posts and how your target audience is receiving it. This metric helps you see how relevant your ads are to your audience and how much you spend on Facebook advertisements. So why is it important to monitor your ad score? Because it lets you know how your ads are performing, making it easy to make changes accordingly.

Tip: If you want to track your conversion and performance, you can use Facebook Adsmanager to provide data on how people are interacting with your old and current ads. An ads manager lets you choose your ad campaign goal, and then the platform guides you on how to post ads while showing your current ads performance.

Keep Trying  Different Things

Now that you have the tips on how to get the most out of your Facebook ads, remember to try your hands on different things. Try carousel ads, GIFs, stories, images and other forms of Facebook ads until you find what gives the best results. Finally, try out the techniques in this post for an impressive performance on your Facebook ads.