Facebook Advertising Tips – 2021
Getting More Out of Your Facebook Advertising In 2021
I have found that Facebook Advertising is cost-effective means of advertising, it is cheaper than Google Ads, reaches more people and is easier to create custom ads for a specific target market. I am not saying to forgo Google Ads, but use them both to create an effective marketing campaign. We have compiled these articles to help you in creating an effective Facebook Advertising Campaign.
[1]Facebook advertising is an important way to connect with your audience on the world’s largest social network. How large? 2.80 billion monthly active users are large, to be precise.
Sure, that’s an impressive number. But Facebook ads are all about getting your message in front of exactly the right segment of those people. The people who are most likely actually to want your products or services.
To get the best results, it’s important to understand the different Facebook ad types and targeting options before you dive in.
In this Facebook ads guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know, from planning your first ad to developing advanced campaign strategies.
Are Facebook ads worth it? Take a look at your feed.
It’s not 2016 anymore – the era of a relatively easy organic reach is long gone. However, there have been lots of updates on the Facebook algorithm during the last couple of years. Most important of them being the way posts appear in the feed.
Since 2018, Facebook users have started seeing less content from brands and businesses.
The Facebook algorithm started favouring posts from families, friends, and groups in your feed to help people stay connected with their loved ones. As for the businesses, a report from 2018 revealed that an organic post now only reaches around 6.4% of the page’s total fans.
This change is not that great even for the people who can boast of millions of Page likes. But what if you’re starting with building your following? What if your friends who accepted the invitation to like your Facebook page still make for the most significant portion of your fans? The chances of promoting your website organically in the first year are pretty much below zero. But don’t get too upset about it. There’s another way to reach your potential clients on Facebook!
This is where effective Facebook ads step in.
Because of the decrease in organic reach for businesses, in 2021, Facebook ads are more relevant than ever if you want to raise your brand awareness, attract new customers and convert interested users.
Effective Facebook ads do wonders in helping you connect with people who may be interested in what you’re offering at the right time and in the right place. The only reasons why Facebook ads wouldn’t work are wrong targeting, low-quality content, and rushed budgeting. But you can easily avoid making these mistakes with our Facebook ads tips! So let’s dig in, shall we?
[2]1. Know your Facebook ad targeting
Here’s an honest Facebook ads tip – know your audience first. Before you get to all the fancy content creation and budgeting techniques, figure out who are the people that are the most likely to become your customers and drive your profit. It may take a little bit more time but will guarantee you revenue.
Unlike with Google, on Facebook, people are not actively searching for things to buy, so you cannot target them with specific keywords. However, on Facebook, you can use sophisticated audience targeting options – you have lots of control over who sees your ads. There are lots of hacks you can use!
So, where does your business success on Facebook begin?
Facebook offers three audience selection tools for smart ad targeting:
A. Core Audiences
B. Custom Audiences
C. Lookalike Audiences
Let’s see how these audiences can help you.
A. Core Audiences: use it for attracting new customers
Core Audiences are great for reaching potential customers who don’t know you exist yet. This targeting option lets you define audiences based on your preferable:
Location (cities, communities, countries).
Demographics (age, gender, education, job title, and more).
Interests (anything you can imagine).
Behaviour (prior purchases and device usage).
Connections (people who have engaged with your Facebook page).
Visit your Audience Insights to get started with Core Audiences.
B. Custom Audiences: great for engaging with already interested users (Facebook Retargeting)
By using custom audiences, you can make stronger connections with people who have already visited your website or shown any other interest in your online business. Here are three main groups of such people:
- Contact lists (customers and contacts uploaded from your CRM system or email lists). Learn how to create contact lists here.
- Site visitors (users who visited your website, took specific actions there; used for Facebook retargeting ads).
Learn how to use the Facebook pixel to create an audience of site visitors.
App users (driving users to take in-app actions such as making a purchase).
Learn how to use app data for this custom audience here.
These audiences are likely to convert. So take good care of them!
C. Lookalike Audiences: works for reaching people who are similar to your clients
Lookalike audiences are favourites among many advertising professionals because they can help you reach and connect with people who are likely to be interested in your offers. You need to create an audience of your existing (potential) clients, and Facebook will make sure that you show your ads to people with similar interests.
2. [3]Vary the types of content you post
55% of marketers say that content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. However, it’s easy to get stuck in a holding pattern. Many marketers continuously use whatever techniques have worked in the past, even though this leaves little room for growth.
To keep your content marketing dynamic, the first of our Facebook marketing tips is to consider adopting the 70-20-10 approach:
- Publish original material 70 percent of the time.
- Share existing content that’s relevant to your audience’s interests 20 percent of the time.
- Create self-promotional content 10 percent of the time.
In addition, you’ll want to make sure that you include lots of different kinds of posts. Try using images, videos, GIFs, polls, and text in your Facebook material – and consider posting User-Generated Content (UGC) when possible too. The most successful brands typically publish 4–5 posts per day, including various content and media types.
Studies have also shown that engagement rates drop significantly if a brand post just once per day. Fortunately, using a social media management tool such as Revive Old Posts can help you automate your posting schedule and share your blog content to Facebook easily.
3. Update your business page template
To get the most out of your Facebook page, you must be operating from the right kind of business profile. It’s no longer enough to create a business account and start posting. You’ll also want to optimize your account properly.
Facebook actually offers a variety of templates for business pages. These templates include various features designed to help marketers showcase content in a way that aligns with their business goals. They will also automatically prioritize the most important information about your business.
For example, a charity page might focus heavily on a ‘donate’ button or a link to an external fundraiser. In addition, there are numerous templates available for businesses, e-commerce stores, nonprofits, politicians, services, restaurants, venues, and more.
To take advantage of this option, visit the Page Settings tab of your Facebook business profile. There, you’ll be able to select the template that best fits your business’ needs – and fully customize it as well.
4. Create more video content – but keep it short
Video content is viral among online consumers. For example, 75 million people in the U.S. watch online videos every day, and merely mentioning the word ‘video’ in an email’s subject line can improve its Click-Through Rate (CTR) by 13%.
So it’s no surprise that digital marketers are frequently prioritizing video content. However, to get the best results, it’s important to keep this content short and snappy. For example, on Facebook, videos that run for less than 21 seconds are more likely to be completed. What’s more, nearly 50% of all videos are watched on mobile devices.
This suggests that people watch them while casually scrolling through their feeds during meals and breaks. As a result, they don’t have time to watch lengthy content, favouring shorter videos. Plus, studies suggest that videos under 2 minutes long get the most engagement, so that’s a good guideline to aim for. No matter how long your video is, however, one of the best Facebook marketing tips is to place the most important information at the start.
In addition, remember to include captions in your marketing videos. Research carried out by Facebook found that adding subtitles increases view times by 12% on average. This has a lot to do with the fact that most Facebook videos are watched without sound. Therefore, your videos should be able to communicate your message without the need for audio.
5. Include Facebook Messenger in your strategy
Facebook Messenger can be a compelling feature, yet it is often under-utilized by businesses. However, this communication tool has a lot to offer – especially when combined with chatbot technology.
Chatbots are virtual assistants designed to communicate with your audience in a natural, conversational way. They can be programmed with information about your entire product catalogue and are a handy way to ramp up your customer service efforts.
6. Take advantage of the new augmented reality tools
Facebook has recently implemented Augmented Reality (AR) tools for advertisers in Facebook News Feed ads. Users can now try on wearable products, such as glasses and makeup, within the ads in their news feeds. What’s more, they can do this without having to launch a separate application.
This isn’t just a useful option for fashion brands. For example, Kia enabled users to customize and personalize its KIA Stinger car within Facebook Messenger. In addition, there are numerous ways AR can be used to drive a creative, successful marketing campaign.
Crafting AR technology can be tricky, of course, so you may wish to source outside help. However, the benefits can far outweigh your initial investment. For instance, one ISACA survey found that 66% of shoppers believe the use of AR adds value to their shopping experience.
Using AR can even help you build a deeper connection with your audience, as you’re actively encouraging their participation. Users love to feel as though they’re involved with a brand and may be more likely to convert as a result. Therefore, AR is a particularly viable strategy to demonstrate how a product can fit into and improve your customers’ everyday lives.
7. [4]Rake in Leads with Facebook Lead Ads
Like Canvas ads, Facebook lead ads are a mobile-only solution, and they were created so advertisers could forgo sending prospects to cumbersome mobile landing pages. Lead forms are great for accruing names and job titles, phone numbers, addresses, demographics—pretty much any information that can be used to market or remarket your products. And because your lead form opens right within the Facebook app, your prospects need not head to your website to provide that information.
8. Don’t Sweat a Small Budget
Running a successful Facebook campaign is less about having a huge budget than about maximizing the one at your disposal. With small budgets, optimization becomes ever more important. And to fully optimize your new and existing campaigns, you’re going to have to be pretty savvy with Google Analytics.
Brett McHale gives a terrific exploration of small-budget Facebook advertising in his post How to Create Killer Facebook Ad Campaigns with Your Existing Assets. You’ll learn how to set up UTM parameters and custom conversion tracking, how to identify your strongest on-site offer, and how to attribute results and data back to specific ads.
