3 Tips for Successful Facebook Ads

Facebook paid ads have become a necessity to many small businesses as organic reach has dwindled. There are millions of active business pages on Facebook, along with massive amounts of content being published.

But because of Facebook algorithms, even if someone ?likes? a business page, they won?t necessarily see that content. The average estimated organic reach of Facebook pages with less than 50,000 likes hovers around 10-20%. If only 15% of your followers are seeing the great content you?re posting to your Facebook page, how can you reach your customers?

Faceook has emerged as an indispensible tool in todays marketing toolbox. From ads to boosted posts, what makes Facebook ads so effective is its laser focused targeting capabilities; able to zero in on a demographic in a specific city or blanket an audience based on interests across a region, province or even country.

Facebook ads are best suited for creating brand awareness and harnessing leads. It?s important to understand where your business or product fits into the purchasing funnel; is your intent to promote awareness, generate interest, create desire, or call to action?

Facebook can help you whether you’re organizing a craft cider festival for 21-to-34-year-old Mumford and Sons fans on Vancouver Island, or hosting a neighbourhood block party for 26-to-54-year-olds in Kelowna

With traditional media on the decline or fragmented, companies are increasingly jumping ship from advertising on TV, in newspapers and radio, and are instead focusing their marketing budgets on social media like Facebook. However, with?Facebook gaining in popularity, it also makes for a crowded marketing channel and companies need to plan their campaigns effectively to make sure they?re reaching the right customers to get the best results.

Having a social media campaign strategy is key. Optimizing your ads across different platforms is also important. Knowing the what LinkedIn users and Instagram users find useful or engaging is important and will save you time and energy before kicking off your campaign

We have identified three trends in top performing Facebook ads. Following these steps can help businesses get more bang for their buck:

1. Use photos.

Just look at the success of Pinterest and Instagram as proof that people like pictures over words. High quality, beautiful, engaging photos make products look appealing, grab consumers attention as they are scrolling through their newsfeeds, and make it easier to recognize your company or brand name.

The most successful ads ? with click-through rates ranging between 20 to 36% ? shared one thing in common: They all included multiple photos. Considering the average click-through rate of a?Facebook?ad can be as low as 1 percent?for other styles of ads, this finding is huge.

Whether you are selling carpets or coffee, using images is a great way to stand out from the crowd and get more eyeballs on your ad.

When choosing a photo, it?s essential to consider that a large percentage of users will be seeing your their?smartphone?or mobile device, so stick with bright, simple and eye-catching images and avoid images with small details (photos with text may not be approved anyways).

2. Use emojis.

Those juvenile, annoying emoticons just aren?t for tweens anymore. Entrepreneur magazine combed through more than 3,000 ads and analyzed the top 10 highest performing campaigns. 90% of the most?successful?campaigns used emojis as part of their ads.

Why are smiley faces, food symbols and everyday objects so popular with consumers? Emojis often express feelings better than text. Emojis can be intrinsic to conveying your message?quickly if you need to convey the value of a product online in just a few short words.

The use of emojis tends to substantially increase traction and improve the click through rate of Facebook ads.

3. Choose the right target audience.

So, you?ve found the right images and even settled on an emoji or two ??all done? Not quite. Your Facebook ad success also relies on being seen by the right group of people.

Bigger is almost always better when choosing your target audience. Having a large Facebook audience increases the target spectrum and also directly dictates the ROI of your advertisement. Successful campaigns often target an audiences of more than 60,000?people, with a realistic reach of between 5,000 and 20,000 consumers.

You can then fine tune your audience with all kinds of demographics and interests that Facebook provides. Facebook?s audience insights?tool can help you plan the best way to reach the most people, efficiently. You can create target persona profiles using audience insights which use specific interest data, purchase behaviour and other behaviours.

Lastly, make sure to try several variations of your ad to see which gets the most clicks, and use those analytics to better understand your Facebook ad audience. Using these insights and tips can help you avoid costly mistakes.

If you’re ready to start advertising on Facebook, contact us and we can help with your campaign strategy and creative.