Are you struggling to see good results with your Facebook Ads, not understanding why your efforts and money is failing? Let’s be honest, it can get a little confusing so understanding the basics behind Facebook advertising is both beneficial and crucial to the outcome and results.

• Many people give Facebook ads a go without really understanding the make up of how they work.
• A quick £5 or £10 here and there and they assume that they’re going to reach the world and are disappointed when they don’t

So, what makes a successful ad campaign?

What is going to make your Facebook ad stand out and produce results?

It all comes down to strategy.

Know your product

Do you have a clear understanding of what your product is and what problem it is going to fix?

Do you have a solution to a problem?

Is someone going to benefit from purchasing your product or service? How? Why?

These are the types of questions that form the basis of your ad campaign and all things that need to be thought about in detail in order to understand what you are selling or promoting and who you are reaching. Could you talk about your product with a friend? Do you know what it does, what benefits it has, why it’s important and what it has to offer? Get to know your product inside out, so thoroughly that when you’re writing copy to go on your advert, you know without a doubt what you’re talking about.

Research other similar products or competition, have a look at what other companies are doing and the angle that they are coming from. What problems are they trying to help through their advertising?

Know your audience

You may have a broad understanding of the type of people you want to reach or target, but how well do you know them? Can you stand in their shoes and say that you ‘get it’; you can feel their pain points, their problems, hear what they’re looking for, resonate with the outcomes that they want to receive?

Break down your audience (persona) so when you’re creating your target audience within a campaign, you know exactly who to target. And there may be more than one type of persona – this will require a different ad set with its own set of targets. You may not be able to bundle everyone into the same bucket for one advert – that’s ok, split them up and create separate ad sets.

Know your budget

Right from the outset, work out and set your budget – and stick to it! Know the limits that you can go to and work your campaign to that price. You should always have a buffer for give and take but ensure that you set that buffer to your highest price and make sure that your ads do not go over it.

It’s always best to scale an ad campaign through its lifetime if possible, start small and increase the budget in small increments of around 20%-30% at a time. Pushing too high too quickly will not help, your ad may go into ‘limited learning’ or fail to reach the results you need. Always increase gradually or create a duplicate campaign (be careful of your cross over audiences if you are going down this route).

Know the right offer

What offer or hook are you using for your ad campaign? This will be the entrance to people getting into your sales funnel. What incentive are you offering them to purchase from you? What are they going to get in return if they go with you? Having the right offer, or hook, is important. Just as knowing your product, know what hook will reel them in. Is it adding value, is it solving a problem, is it something that your audience actually needs?

Know your funnel

Your funnel is the process of your customer journey.

Top of funnel (TOF): People who are completely new to you and your product, a cold audience and who you’ve not had any contact with before. This is the awareness stage, where someone is in the first stages of looking, perhaps not even knowingly in search of a service or product

Middle of funnel (MOF): Consideration stage, where people have started to research and are considering different products available. A warm audience may consider an offer if it was going to help or meet their needs.

Bottom of funnel (BOF): Your hot audience, they are ready to purchase, actively looking for a result.

Work out your ad campaigns depending on where you want to hit your audience, not everyone is in the same part of the funnel and they need to be targeted correctly depending on what stage they are in.

Working with Facebook ads is a great way to boost your audience, sales and see business growth all round, but it’s important that you do your research and understand your audience and products well in order to see the results that you desire. It can become quite expensive throwing money at ‘boosted’ Facebook posts that are not targeted correctly. We always suggest using your Ad Manager to set up your adverts correctly and by using the targeting options available.

If you’re struggling to see the results you need, we’d love to sit down and talk with you, creating a strategy and plan to make Facebook Ads work for you. Want to know more? Get in touch and let’s talk.