Are you eager to know everything about Facebook Ads?
Plus, you are starting from scratch and need a thorough guide that will enable you to start your advertising campaign on Facebook?
Well, you are in the right place. Let’s take a guided tour together.
Technical requirements
To create and publish an ad using Facebook ads, you need to take care of every link in the ad chain. These links are:
- Ads account
- Ads manager
- Campaigns
- Ad sets
- Ads
In the next paragraphs, we will go through all the necessary details related to each of the links.
Ads account
Naturally, you need to be a Facebook user to undergo any Facebook advertising. If you already are one, you are just a click away from the next step, needed to start running your first ad. The reason for this is that, by default, each personal profile has an ads account. If you have not been a Facebook user, set up a personal Facebook account. It’s a simple and navigated procedure, and should not take you more than a couple of minutes.
Important notice: choose a clear photo of your smiling face for your profile picture. A lively appearance is always preferred in any type of marketing campaign.
Ads manager
Ads manager is tool that does everything for everyone when it comes to Facebook ads. Something like a Swiss army knife for online marketing. It has all its accessories and surprising gadgets. You can reach it by simply clicking on the Ads manager icon. This icon is located under the Explore dropdown menu on the left side of the Facebook home page of your personal Facebook account.
It may seem intimidating when you open it for the first time. Still, it is rather easy (practice makes perfect) to use once you get familiar with all the options it provides. The three major parts of Ads manager are Campaigns, Ad sets, and Ads. Each of them has a specific role in the creation of a Facebook ad, and each of them requires due attention for the ad you plan on publishing to be successful.
Campaigns
Just like the name says, this is the spot where your venture into Facebook advertising campaigns begins. First of all, this is the place where you determine the objective of your campaign. In other words, the campaign objective is your business goal, what people should do when they see your ad.
There are thirteen options to choose from, among other Reach, Post Engagement, and Store Traffic. These options are separated into three major objective categories, Awareness, Consideration, and Conversions, all pretty self-explanatory.
The Campaign level is also a place where you set your daily budget for that particular campaign. However, do note that this is an average amount you are willing to spend on a daily basis. Sometimes it will be less and sometimes more (not more than 25% over your daily budget) than what you set. This is all due to Facebook’s anticipation when it is better to spend more and when less, based on audience activity.
Ad sets
To begin with, at an ad set level you choose the conversion event location, that is, where your audience will converse, at your website, app, messenger, or WhatsApp. Next, Ad set is where you customize the target audience, one of the essential features for any Facebook advertising success.
Each audience category is equally important, their location, age, demographics, and languages. Also, there are three major audience types to choose from, Core, Custom, and Lookalike. Learning to distinguish and use them correctly in different campaigns you run will improve your Facebook ads’ success.
Important notice: you can save your targeted audience and use it in any of your future campaigns.
Finally, when it comes to the Placement option in the Ad Sets menu, you should choose automatic placement while you are at the beginner level. Once you get familiar with the environment, you can give a manual placement a try.
Ads
Once you took care of all the essential features at the Campaign and Ad sets levels, you can start being creative with your ads. It is your creative gift that will be the most crucial factor in preparing the right ad setup. The available choices of ad formats cover all marketing purposes.
However, do note that not all ad formats are available at all times. The palette depends on campaign objective. For example, suppose a campaign objective is video views. In that case, you won’t be able to use a carousel ad format, which is perfectly understandable.
Furthermore, the Ad level is where you form your ads. You choose the media, copy, and destination for your ad, as well as a call to action. All these sectors matter and deserve your undivided attention. This particularly goes for copy, a matter that most of beginners tend to neglect. Remember, flashy graphics and all visual effort you made will be in vain if the message is not adequately conveyed.
All ads can be previewed for all the placements you chose. This is particularly handy for beginners since they are not yet accustomed to ad appearances in different placements.
Important notice: Instagram ads are also a part of the placement choice. All you need to do is check the Instagram box in the Placement menu. It has been proven in practice that several campaigns, for example, website clicks and website conversions campaigns, bring better results when they run on both Facebook and Instagram than just on one of them.
Ready to go
All that is left to do to start your first Facebook ads campaign is to click the Publish button and wait for the first reports to start coming in. If you are not pleased with them, you can edit all the campaign parts to get better results. However, always allow at least three days before you change anything. That is the amount of time needed for a campaign to fully optimize and start displaying actual results.
All the data and advice may seem like a lot to grasp for a beginner. However, when in doubt, remember that every single Facebook Ads expert out there started from scratch. Give yourself time, study everything carefully, and give it a go. Monitor the results as they come in, make changes if needed, and you are on the road of success, for sure.
