Selling stuff with Facebook ads works. You just need to know how to do it.
Lucky for you, you’re in the right place!
In this blog post, we are sharing the six best Facebook advertising tips for beginners and also Facebook ads best practices. We’ll talk about Facebook ad targeting tips, types of Facebook ads, costs, and more.
Take less than 10 minutes of your time to read our best tips for Facebook ads and start on the right foot with Facebook advertising today! Trust us, follow these tips and you’ll succeed even if you’re a beginner.
Are Facebook ads worth it? Take a look at your feed.
It’s not 2016 anymore - the era of a relatively easy organic reach is long gone. There have been lots of updates on the Facebook algorithm during the last couple of years. Most important of them being the way posts appear in the feed.
Since 2018, Facebook users started seeing less content from brands and businesses.
The Facebook algorithm started favoring posts from families, friends, and groups in your feed to help people stay connected with their loved ones. As for the businesses, a report from 2018 revealed that an organic post now only reaches around 6.4% of the page’s total fans.
This change is not that great even for the people who can boast of millions of Page likes. But what if you’re just starting with building your following? What if your friends who accepted the invitation to like your Facebook page still make for the most significant portion of your fans? The chances of promoting your website organically in the first year are pretty much below zero. But don’t get too upset about it, there’s another way to reach your potential clients on Facebook!
This is where effective Facebook ads step in.
Because of the decrease in organic reach for businesses, in 2022 Facebook ads are more relevant than ever if you want to raise your brand awareness, attract new customers and convert interested users.
Most successful Facebook ads do wonders in helping you connect with people who may be interested in what you’re offering at the right time and in the right place. The only reasons why Facebook ads wouldn’t work are wrong targeting, low-quality content, and rushed budgeting. But you can easily avoid making these mistakes with our Facebook ads tips! Let’s dig in, shall we?
Facebook Ads Success Tip #1 Know your Facebook ad targeting
Here’s an honest Facebook ads tip - know your audience first. Before you get to all the fancy content creation and budgeting techniques, figure out who are the people that are the most likely to become your customers and drive your profit. It may take a little bit more time, but will guarantee you revenue.
Unlike with Google, on Facebook, people are not actively searching for things to buy, so you cannot target them with specific keywords. However, on Facebook, you can use sophisticated audience targeting options - you have lots of control over who sees your ads. There are lots of hacks you can use!
So, where does your business success on Facebook begin?
Facebook offers three audience selection tools for smart ad targeting:
A. Core Audiences
B. Custom Audiences
C. Lookalike Audiences
Let’s see how these audiences can help you.
A. Core Audiences: use it for attracting new customers
Core Audiences are great for reaching potential customers who don’t know you exist yet. This targeting option lets you define audiences based on your preferable:
Location (cities, communities, countries).
Demographics (age, gender, education, job title, and more).
Interests (anything you can imagine).
Behavior (prior purchases and device usage).
Connections (people who have engaged with your Facebook page).
Visit your Audience Insights to get started with Core Audiences.
B. Custom Audiences: great for engaging with already interested users (Facebook Retargeting)
By using custom audiences, you can make stronger connections with people who have already visited your website or shown any other interest in your online business. Here are three main groups of such people:
- Contact lists (customers and contacts uploaded from your CRM system or email lists). Learn how to create contact lists here.
- Site visitors (users who visited your website, took specific actions there; used for Facebook retargeting ads).
Learn how to use the Facebook pixel to create an audience of site visitors.
App users (driving users to take in-app actions such as making a purchase).
Learn how to use app data for this custom audience here.
These audiences are likely to convert, take good care of them!
C. Lookalike Audiences: works for reaching people who are similar to your clients
Lookalike audiences are favorites among many advertising professionals because they can help you to reach and connect with people who are likely to be interested in your offers. You just need to create an audience of your existing (potential) clients, and Facebook will make sure that you show your ads to people who have similar interests.
Learn how to create Lookalike Audiences here. It’s explained very simply!
#2 Choose the right type of Facebook ad
There are quite a few Facebook ads types so that you wouldn’t feel overwhelmed, below we gathered the most effective ones you should start with.
Image ads
Image ads are great for showcasing your products to your potential clients. They are relatively quick to create, too - all you need is a good quality visual and a catchy share message.
Here are the character counts for image ads to keep in mind:
- Headline: 25 characters
- Link description: 30 characters
- Body text: 125 characters
The trickiest thing, though, is being up-to-date with Facebook image ads sizes. Facebook tends to tweak the existing dimensions and add new formats pretty often, so make sure you’re aware of the latest Facebook creative specs and technical requirements for ads before cropping your image.
Bonus tip: if you want to add a text overlay on an image itself, make sure it doesn’t take more than 20% of the picture. If you don’t follow this rule, your ad will be shown to fewer people or may not run at all, and this is something you don’t want to happen. Use the Facebook Text Overlay tool to double-check the percentage of text on your creative.
Video ads
Video ads are great for showing your products in action - think demo video. You can run them both in News Feed and Stories, or use them as in-stream ads in Facebook videos that are long enough.
Here are the character counts for video ads to keep in mind:
- Headline: 25 characters
- Link description: 30 characters
- Body text: 125 characters
Video poll ads
Video poll ads are one of the newest additions to paid Facebook advertising, and they’ve already shown promising results in increasing brand awareness. They’re great because they encourage a playful; experience between you and your potential clients - it’s something we definitely recommend trying in your 2022 paid Facebook advertising - your audience will love the opportunity to engage with you!
Video poll ads are one of the newest additions to paid Facebook advertising, and they’ve already shown promising results in increasing brand awareness. They’re great because they encourage a playful; experience between you and your potential clients - it’s something we definitely recommend trying in your 2022 paid Facebook advertising - your audience will love the opportunity to engage with you!
Carousel ads
Carousel ads are usually one of the best-performing ones - especially if you want to show different benefits or uses of the same product or to display many different products. You can add up to 10 images or videos in a carousel ad.
Here are the character counts for video ads to keep in mind:
- Headline: 25 characters
- Link description: 20 characters
- Body text: 125 characters
Dynamic Facebook ads
Dynamic Facebook ads automatically get products in front of people who have shown interest in them. For this, you’ll need to have a Business Manager account and install the Facebook pixel. Once it’s done, you only need to upload your product catalog and set up your campaign - everything else is up to Facebook automation (up-to-date pricing, availability).
What’s even better, if you use Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce, you don’t even need to upload your product catalog!
#3 Use Automatic Placements
Where your carefully made ads should appear? Facebook or Instagram? Messenger or News Feed? It’s a tough decision if you’re just starting with Facebook advertising and don’t have enough experience with testing different placements with your target audience.
That’s why we recommend choosing Automatic Placements. Simply tick this option, and Facebook will do its magic by showing your ads across those placements where your ads are most likely to succeed. You just sit back with a cocktail in hand and count your conversions. You can find more about automatic placements if you check out our Shopify Facebook Ads analysis.
#4 Ask the right questions before planning your Facebook ad budget
You may be thinking now: How much should I budget for Facebook ads? Well, that’s the right question to ask but not the one to start with. You need to begin with defining your goals instead and track the right metrics.
Do you want to grow Facebook fans?
Do you want to get new email subscribers? How many?
Do you want product sales? If yes, what’s your revenue target? The average revenue per sale?
You need to answer all these questions to be able to estimate the number of sales needed to hit revenue targets. Only then will you be able to calculate the Facebook Ad spend required to reach your goals and make your Facebook ads profitable.
Let’s take an example. If you want to make 1 sale and your average conversion rate (CR) is 1%, you’ll need at least 100 visitors. If your CR is lower, say, 0.5%, you’ll need 200 visitors. This logic applies to each product you want to test.
If you’re feeling uneasy by this point, don’t worry - there are quite a few ad calculator tools to help you optimize your Facebook ad spend. You can calculate your budget in a quick way, you just need to set your goals first.
Bonus Facebook ads tip: How to reduce cost per click on Facebook?
Here are a few tricks to help you reduce the cost per click on Facebook and be more profitable:
A. Set an ad schedule so your ads would be shown at the right time of the week and day to maximize results and reduce costs.
B. Customize your ad creative for different placements.
C. Test different bidding strategies to see which one works for you best. You can choose between two different bid strategies: lowest cap and target cost.
Lowest cost bid strategy is automatic bidding that will get you the lowest cost for purchase. Facebook does all the work for you.
Target cost bid strategy helps you maintain more stable results at a consistent cost. This strategy is useful when your spend increases.
Take your custom or lookalike audiences and refine them with your saved audience criteria - this way, you will reach people who will bring you the most profit. If you want tips on CPM, read our guide to reducing Facebook CPM.
#5 Create great ads which lead to an even greater website
You know your audience. You know effective Facebook ad types to choose from. You even have a rough idea for budgeting. But that’s not all there is. No matter how well you target your well-calculated ads, if your creative is a generic stock photo with a messaging that took 5 minutes to write, you’ll be wasting your precious ad money.
So, at the very least, make sure the photos you use have the right colors, are appropriately cropped and, god forbid, not blurry or pixelated. That’s really not that much work and the results are worth it!
4 tips to get you started with Facebook image ads:
- Keep it simple
Don’t use a photo with too many points of interest - if you want to showcase a product, highlight a single benefit.
- Use interesting layouts
For example, photograph a group of products from above.
- Experiment with perspective
Play with a higher or lower angle. Draw the eye to the corner of the image. Try something different!
- Create a focal point
Put a subject in the foreground.
As for the messaging, customize each ad text for a different audience - take into account their demographics, place in their buyer’s journey, awareness of your product. Be human - speak their language.
Most importantly, sell appealingly by thinking about your potential clients first. What do they want? Not what YOU want from them, but what do THEY want?
Find a creative way to show how your products or services will help your prospects reach their goals, and you will achieve yours.
Check out these 30 great Facebook ad examples for inspiration.
Finally, if you’ve already arrived at this point and you have created a great ad - make sure it leads to a great website. Make sure your landing page lives up to the expectations set up in your ad. Think about UX, copywriting, product display, mobile version of your site. Otherwise, you will have plenty of traffic that will result in zero sales. Talking sky-high bounce rates here.
#6 Test Everything. EVERYTHING.
Last but not least - test everything. There are lots of great tips and best practices to start with, but some of them will work better for you than others. In some cases, videos will perform better, in others - carousel ads.
Test different variants of a creative (photo vs video, different photos, different messaging) to the same audience and see which Facebook ads give better results and scale them for a maximum result with the lowest cost.
That’s it for now. May the gods of Facebook be on your side. If you’re reading the very end of this blog post, you got this, really!
Facebook Ads Tips & Tactics: sum up
Nailing Facebook advertising from the start is no easy task. But with a little bit of research and testing - all is possible. Follow these tips and the trial and error phase will be over sooner than you think. In no time, you’ll be the pro giving out Facebook ads tips.
After all, if you think Facebook advertising is too expensive for you or just not right for your business, check out these great Facebook advertising alternatives.
FAQ
How much do Facebook ads cost?
Facebook ads cost mostly depends on chosen ad type, targeting, and ad objective. But an average Facebook CPC is $1.72 and CPA $18.68.
How does Facebook advertising work?
Facebook ads target Facebook users based on demographic data, such as age and gender, location, interests, and any information provided on their profile. Ads like these are much more successful than traditional means of advertising because they’re more relevant.
How to create a successful Facebook ad?
Running successful ads on Facebook is quite a lengthy and complicated process. First, you create campaigns, then ad sets, and finally, ads. During the campaign creation process, you choose your campaign objective, then you move on to your ad set. There you choose your budget and schedule, targeting, and ad placements, and move on to ad creation. There you choose ad format and creative, write text, and review your ad. This is the final stage of creating a Facebook ad. You then wait for the ad to be reviewed by Facebook and approved. Once that’s been done, you can analyze your data and adjust your ad to reach better results.
Do Facebook ads work?
It depends on what you want to achieve with digital advertising and where your target audience hangs out. If your target audience aligns with that of Facebook and you want to increase brand awareness, website traffic, generate more leads or sales, then you should definitely try out Facebook ads. If not, then check out these great Facebook advertising alternatives.