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The Beginners Guide to Running a Successful Facebook Ad

Facebook Ads for Beginners and business start ups

Everyone is talking about Facebook Ads right now!

With the decline of organic reach of your posts, Facebook ads, if done correctly, can be an asset to your business.

You have no doubt heard of the recent changes happening within Facebook and how many people will see your posts and ads.  The Facebook ‘algorithm’ is constantly being altered and updated to encourage us to spend more money on Facebook Ads.

When discussing Facebook ads in my training sessions I hear quite often “they don’t work and I am not wasting any more money”.
Facebook ads can be very successful and profitable if they are set up correctly and understood.
Knowing who you are targeting and being really specific about this will attract the correct clientele.

Recently a client who is in the holistic industry rang me in a panic as a gentleman had written on her Facebook ad post “Another load of bullshit”.
I asked her, who did she target within her ad?
Her reply was “Queensland and NSW, men and women from 18 to 65”, so that is exactly who she attracted!! The majority who weren’t interested in what she had to offer.

Just so you know, we deleted the gentleman’s lovely comment and banned him from making any further negative comments.

Before you even start to create a Facebook Ad you need to know certain information so I suggest either grabbing a piece of paper or downloading my Facebook Ad Information Worksheet and take notes by following the steps below which will make creating your Facebook ad much easier once you open Facebook Ads Manager.


Step One:  Outcome
Firstly determine what the outcome is you want to achieve from your FB ad.  It could be building your likes on your Facebook page, click through to your shop on your website, sign up for an Ebook, newsletter or webinar or take up an offer   Know what you want from the ad.  If you don’t know this then hold off on running an ad until you do.

Step Two: Who to target
You can target your ad to your current likers if you aren’t building a following or you can target new likers.  If you are going to target new likers then think about the perfect client that you would like to have or work with.

Now make a list of everything you know about them.  The list should entail gender, age, demographics, working/not working, income, married/single, where they live, any interests or hobbies they may have, kids/no kids and so on. You get my drift.  The more you know about that perfect client the better.

Step Three: What location
Targeting a location is another vital step of the process when creating an ad.  For example: If you are a shop front or location based business situated on the Gold Coast, then clicking Gold Coast isn’t going to cut it.  Just imagine you are a Personal Trainer in situated in Ashmore, people in Coolangatta aren’t going to drive all that way to attend a class, unless you are super special or someone famous. Target Ashmore and the surrounding suburbs.

Step Four: Budget
It’s time to set your budget and I advise my clients to start Facebook Ads with a low budget. I recommend $5 a day for 7 days. If you can’t afford that much then do $1 a day or the minimum spend that Facebook allows for the type of ad you are running.  You aren’t going to get your ad perfect the first time. It may take a few tweaks to get it right. Then when you have cracked the code, up the budget.

Step Five: Ad Information

HEADLINE:

  • Your ad needs a Headline, Text and Image/s. Before you open your Facebook Ads Manager you need to know what information you are going to put in your ad.
  • The headline is located under the image in your ad. Think of a headline that is short and sweet, approximately 25 Characters in length and that is straight to the point. Ensure it is not misleading in any way as this is a no no.
  • In most ads you can add 2 lots of text, one under the headline called the “News Feed Link Description” and one above the image in the ad which is called “Text”.

NEWS FEED LINK:

  • The News Feed Link Description text is one sentence statement approximately 90 Characters stating facts about the ad. EG Free shipping with orders over $50, Exclusive Deals Starts Today, Join me for a Live Q & A on how to create a Facebook Ad or maybe Download today your Free Ebook

TEXT:

  • The Text section is recommend to be approximately 250 characters long and is the guts of your ad where you will explain what the ad is about touching on their paint points, benefits, social proof, links to website, landing page, Ebook etc.

IMAGE:

  • Your image should capture what the ad is about. Use minimal text on the image as the reach will be greater than with lots of text.
  • Image size is 1200 x 628 pixels.  Programs like Canva have the Facebook Ads template set up ready for you to create your image.

Now you have the above information it’s time to create your ad within Facebook.

To create an ad visit https://www.facebook.com/ads/manager/creation

If you are starting out and want to create a Facebook ad and not confident to go it alone, click Help Please and lets see if I can be of assistance.

Claire