An Introduction to Facebook Ads

You’ve probably heard about running advertisements on Facebook and wondered how the process works. Before we get into the specifics of how to setup an ad on Facebook, let’s go over the “why?” question.

Why Run a Facebook Ad?

According to a recent study, in the first quarter of 2018, there were over 6 million active advertisers on Facebook. Not only does this number give you an idea of how successful it must be, but also demonstrates how Facebook alone can help you to build a loyal audience.

People spend A LOT of time on Facebook.

Let’s take a look over some data regarding the possible audience your business could reach with Facebook ads:

• In the third quarter of 2018, Facebook alone had over 2.27 billion monthly users. Imagine if only 5% of these monthly users saw your ad? That would be approximately be over 123 million users.
• The average Facebook user spends over 35 minutes a day on the social platform. Now this may not seem like a lot of time, but if the estimated 2 billion daily users, went back to back with an average time (35 minutes), that would be over 133 thousand years. That’s around 1,662 generations (with the average person living 80 years) from now! Okay, enough huge numbers. People spend A LOT of time on Facebook.
• When running business advertisements on Facebook, you can target a specific audience. Target by your audience’s age group, interests, or location.

Facebook Ad Types

Facebook ads don’t just have a single objective, but rather 10 different ad variations. Let’s go over each of these variations to help you decide which one will be best for your business.

Boost post – The goal of boosting a post is to promote a specific post that you have already posted. The focus with this objective is specifically to gain likes and attention to this post alone. You can create a post to boost immediately as well.

Promote page – As you can guess from the name, the purpose of promoting your page is to gain followers and page likes. Generally this type of ad will focus on the company as a whole. Some organizations will also focus on a specific issue in the ad, promoting their company as the solution. On these types of ads, it’s best to limit the amount of text in the image. Rather, focus on a compelling image that tells a story without words. Check your image using a tool designed by Facebook to see if you have too much text.

Promote website – Similar to promoting your page, the objective of promoting your website in an ad is to push new traffic to visit your home on the web. Setting up this type of ad is very simple. Include a small image, the URL, and a bit of text about your website.

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Promote specific website page – As you may have guessed, this ad type allows you to promote a specific page on your website. The objective is to increase the conversions on your website.

Install your app – Did you know that you have Facebook apps? Much like the Apple App Store, Facebook has an app store area where apps can be listed and installed. A lot of these types of apps would be used to connect a platform to Facebook or other social media platforms. Running an ad can help increase your app installs.

Local business – Sometimes you don’t have to target people on the other side of the world in order to get business. Local targeting is a great way to build a loyal audience right in the same area of your business. Drive your local audience to call, like, learn more, or even send a message. Targeting local Facebook users is a great way to build a sense of community.

Event RSVP – Do you have an event coming up? With running a Facebook ad, you can help increase the attendees by creating an event that Facebook users can easily RSVP and let you know if they’re interested. Similar to local business ads, events are a great way to build a loyal audience as you can meet them face-to-face and build trust.

Promote an offer – When you have an offer that you want to promote, it’s as simple as running a Facebook ad where your targeted audience can easily take advantage. This type of ad is a great way to gain new clients.

Video views – When you post a video on Facebook, you want it to get views. One of the best ways to get views is running the post as an ad. Not only does this increase your view count, but can help videos to go viral.

These ten ad variations are excellent ways to increase traffic to your Facebook page, website, and specific posts. Launch your first ad campaign with Facebook to see truly how easy it is.