How to advertise on Facebook 100% effective? step by step guide

It is no secret to anyone that Facebook is one of the social networks with the largest number of users worldwide.. Since, at the beginning of the year 2019, the number of active people on this platform exceeded 2,271 million and that, without a doubt, means that it is a social network with great coverage.

In this sense, Facebook can also be considered as a key marketing platform and completely effective for the promotion of any type of business. Since, the social platform allows you to create campaigns and take advantage of its full potential to retain a significant number of customers and thus obtain a greater number of income with complete success.

In this post, we want to detail what Facebook advertising is about, also known as “facebook ads” and what are its most important advantages and disadvantages. Also, how you can create one of these campaigns and the main types that exist.

What are “Facebook Ads” or FB ads?

Certainly, Facebook Ads refers to the advertising system of the renowned social network Facebookwhich allows you to promote your page there, whether it is related to a company, an online store or even an event or an application.

In this way, it is about advertisements that are sponsored by this social platform and that, in recent years, has become a very effective, valuable and important online marketing tool for business worldwide.

In this sense, with Facebook Ads you can create advertising campaigns to your liking. Whether making text ads, with images or even with videos and whatever it is, the same FB promotes it in the feed (the main news column) or in the main right column of the home part which is also known as “side bar”. Taking into account that both places provide great visibility.

For its part, it is valuable to note that since this social network was created, that is to say in the year 2004already had an online advertising platform known as “the flyers”. However, over the last three to four years, Facebook ads have taken a bigger hit, thanks to the great success that they guarantee to businesses that make use of this.

In this way, it is necessary to highlight which are the most important advantages of advertising on Facebook and in the same way, know the main cons that exist in this regard, which we will indicate below.

Advantage

Because it is a social platform with so many users, it of course reveals different benefits that are worth considering when deciding to advertise on Facebook.

For this reason, below, we inform you of the advantages that FB ads ensure for any type of business:

• Guarantees an absolute viralization of the advertising of your company or brand: Due to the great coverage of Facebook, this social network allows your ads to expand significantly among the friends of your followers and, without a doubt, it is a great point in favor. Since, a recommendation has much more power when it is given by a third party, that is, by someone outside the company.
• You can carefully segment and adjust your ads to your ideal customer: This is another of the strongest points, since Facebook Ads offers you the ease of reaching the sociodemographic profile of the users who match your ideal client, through the advertisement. That way, you can get closer to your target audience.
• It is a very cheap and accessible alternative.: As you only pay for the clicks obtained, advertising on Facebook is not expensive at all. Therefore, if you manage to do an adequate segmentation and show your ads to people who are truly interested in them, you will get a greater benefit.
• It allows you to measure the results obtained: Since FB provides detailed reports around your ads, you can measure the results and also further optimize the campaign.
• You have the brilliant possibility of interacting day by day with your customers: Whether through raffles, contests, games or simple finds with options, you can interact with the users who follow you and, likewise, know their tastes and interests to use them in favor of your business.
• These announcements provide a remarkable integration: Another advantage is that Facebook advertising appears integrated into the rest of the content and therefore can be seen as posts made by the friends that each user has in their account. That way, there are ample chances that your ads will be seen.

Disadvantages

Even though there are such good advantages of advertising on Facebook, there are also some negative aspects that you need to take into account when promoting your products or services on this famous social network.

In that way, here we present the biggest disadvantages that Facebook Ads reveals:

• There is still user resistance towards advertising: Unfortunately, user acceptance of advertising on FB is still very low. Since, in general, it is a platform used exclusively for social interaction.
• Can sometimes generate lower quality leads: Another of its unfavorable points lies in the low conversion rate offered by these ads. Because, it is not the same to receive a visit from a user who is looking for your product or service in the search engine, for example; Than receiving this visit from someone who is interacting with their friends on Facebook and sees your ad by chance.
• Ads on Facebook take a lot of effort: Given that there may be a direct dialogue on Facebook with the client, this will surely generate more effort and, in effect, content must be made more relevant and constantly updated. Thus, companies that present an absence of structures are not in a position to issue said effort.
• It can be classified as a fad: It is no secret to anyone that the social network market is considered an emerging sector and therefore houses a large number of companies day after day. In this way, it is very possible that other competitors could overshadow FB in the future.
• There is some loss of control by the advertiser: If you carry out an advertising campaign on Facebook, it is necessary to understand that you will have little power over it. Because, you cannot control this platform for its launch and ultimately, FB is the only one that is in charge of exhibiting your products or services in its own way.

How to create an effective advertising campaign on Facebook and step by step?

Before starting the creation of an advertising campaign on this social network, it is mandatory that have your advertising accountthat is, the place from where you will create and manage your campaigns and advertisements.

To do so, you simply have to access the Facebook Ads platform or “Facebook for business”, and then click the “Create an ad”, which is located in the upper right. Afterwards, just log in with your personal FB account details and in addition, you must provide your personal and billing information. That’s it.

Now, once the above is done, we can start with the steps to follow to achieve create an advertising campaign on Facebook that is truly successful. Best of all, it is very simple to do it and here we indicate the step by step to carry out.

Select your advertising objective on Facebook

Without a doubt, this step is the most relevant when starting a completely effective campaign. Since, if you choose your target correctly, Surely Facebook will give you the most diffusion and in this way, you will be able to meet your expectations, quickly. Otherwise, the advertising campaign will most likely not bear positive fruit.

For this, it is worth noting that There are three main types of marketing objectives., through which you can point out different results and of course, they must be adapted to your business strategy. These are based on:

Recognition

This section is perfect for those who have done a branding strategy. In this way, they have two options to choose from and they are:

• Brand recognition: By selecting this option that is located in the first position, you are working towards increasing the notoriety of your brand. With which, Facebook guarantees you a high probability of reaching users who really notice your ads and not only on this social platform but also on Instagram.
• Scope: It is the second option you have in the “Recognition” and as its name indicates, with this you can increase the reach and visibility of your ads, in order to have a wide audience.

Consideration

This is the second objective that you can use, depending on your marketing strategy. It is valuable to take into account that, mostly, it is used in those strategies that want to generate better traffic and a large number of leads.

For this reason, it is the section that offers more options, which are:

• Traffic: This is the first option offered by the section “Consideration” and is based on directing traffic to a specific destination. Which can be within the platform or outside of FB (your blog, for example).
• Interaction: By selecting it you can increase the interaction with your publications (text, images or videos) or with your page, in general.
• App downloads: In case your company has a mobile application, you can promote it with this selection and increase the number of downloads it receives.
• video views: If you want to increase the diffusion of a video and, with this, a large number of people watch it, this is the best option.
• Generation of leads: With this section you have all the ability to capture data from potential customers through a form. This form is automatically filled with the data that the person has on FB.
• Messages: Mostly, it is used to increase conversions on Facebook Messenger, of course with users interested in what you offer. In that way, it is an excellent way to implement customer service.

Conversion

It is the third objective that FB offers you so that you can have an advertising campaign with guaranteed success. In most cases, this section is used by companies whose strategy is based on converting to sales, as well as generating qualified leads.

The options offered by “Conversion” are the following:

• conversions: It is chosen to have the possibility of obtaining qualified leads on the website of your business.
• catalog sales: This option is used in order to create advertisements so that the products of your catalog are displayed automatically.
• business visits: If you want users to visit your physical business, this selection will help you find people who are located near it.

Proceed to define your target audience

To start configuring this step, you need to start by naming your ad set. In this sense, it is valuable that always name your campaigns and ad set differently. Since, only then, you can quickly locate each section when you are in the main management panel.

Once you have specified the above, you have to define the audience you want to direct your ads to. Logically, this step is extremely important and completely vital to achieving an effective advertising campaign. Because if you don’t segment correctly, it’s very likely that advertising is shown to users who are not interested in what you offer and surely, the result will be negative.

Subsequently, it goes to select the geographical site to which you want to direct the ad. Like, determine the age of potential customers, their sex and also the language of your target audience.

Apart from it, you will see that there is a section identified as “Detailed segmentation” and there, you have the option to add or exclude absolutely specific segmentations, either around demographic information, the behavior of your users and also their tastes and/or interests.

Now choose where your ads will appear

In this section, you can select the locations where you want your ads to appear. Thus, it is a segmentation that allows you to analyze the result of each ad group in detail. Especially if you try multiple placements and see which one works best for you, depending on your strategy.

Now, first of all, you have the option “automatic locations” and when selecting this, basically the social network will be the one who will decide the places where it will display your ads, with the specific objective that they have a better performance.

On the other hand, you can make use of the selection “Edit” and from it, you will be the one who selects the locations that truly interest you.

That way, you can choose the following:

• Devices type: (Mobile, computer or both)
• The platform: (Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger or Marketplace)
• You can also choose the position: (News section, right column, instant articles, suggested videos, in-stream videos and stories).

Thus, it is worth noting that it is recommended create an ad set for each of the locations and devices, in order to achieve better results and greater control of advertising campaigns.

It is time to specify the budget and the period of circulation of your ads on FB

This is also a very important point to define during the creation of your advertising campaign, since it is based on set the budget you are going to spend on your ads, in order to make this accessible to the business. In addition, you can and should determine the precise time during which you want them to remain in circulation.

Once you are in the budget section, you will see that you have two options:

• daily budget: This is the maximum amount that you can spend during each day that your advertisement lasts on the social network. If you select this option, Facebook will correctly manage your ads throughout the day, with the aim of ensuring that your budget does not run out quickly. We recommend using this option to have a better and more control.
• Total budget: When choosing this, you must set a global budget and specify a start and end date for the campaign to be executed. If you choose this section, you have the possibility to select specific time slots so that your ads are shown when you want. Therefore, it is likely that the budget will run out quickly and not even meet the time range you set.

Customize your bid strategy in this section

In reference to the cost of advertising on Facebook, it is worth noting that it is not fixed. Unlike other social platforms that offer advertising for a single price, but this happens because there is no possibility of placing bids for a lower amount.

However, on Facebook, the price you will pay for the advertising campaign you decide to undertake, it will depend on several factors because this will be the total of each action that is done on your ads.

Among these factorsthe date on which you decide to launch the campaign, the score you get from the social network (if the ad is relevant or not) and above all, by the public to which you are addressing. That is to say that, basically, it is you who is going to set and control what you can and want to spend on advertising on FB.

To get started with this, you can define the bid strategy in the budget and schedule section. Which means, this is customizable, unless you have chosen brand recognition and because of this, the social network will take care of optimize the bid for the delivery of each ad.

Now, among other options, there are the following:

• lower cost: It is an option with which Facebook takes care of automatically optimizing the bid, in order to achieve a large number of interactions at the lowest price. Which, by default, is activated.
• manual bidding: As its name indicates, you define a limit for the bid yourself, manually. This being the maximum price that you will be willing to pay for each action that is carried out on your ads. Which means that if you make use of this alternative, you can have more control over your business budget.
• target cost: This is an option that makes it easy for you to bid for the average cost you want to achieve for each conversion. This is enabled in the initial objectives, either to generate leads or conversions.

Finally, select the type of ad format

Among the advantages of Facebook Ads, it also stands out its variety in reference to the types of ads it offers. Which are shown depending on the initial objective that each business has selected. In addition to this, it is worth noting that the choice of each of these must be adjusted to the way in which you want the message to reach your potential customers.

Here are the main types of ads that FB contains:

• The carousel ad: It makes use of two images in slider format that, in general, must be 1080 x 1080 pixels.
• single image: Only use an image with a size of 1200 x 628 pixels.
• unique video: It is a video that has a duration of 15 seconds, only.
• Presentation: Allows you to create a video with three images (minimum) and a maximum of 10 images.
• Collection: Gives you the option to highlight an entire collection of articles.

What types of advertising campaigns can you do on Facebook Ads and what are their objectives?

Fortunately, there are several types of advertising campaigns that you can do on Facebook Ads and thanks to the great variety, these are adjusted to all the tastes and requirements of businesses that want to access to carry out these types of campaigns on FB.

In this sense, we present what each of them is about:

image ads

Although it is true, they are the most basic ads that Facebook offers and therefore, they stand out as the easiest and most common way to start using advertising on the social network. Thus, the objective of this type of ad is based on promote an existing post that features a photograph with the ability to engage an audience.

video ads

These types of ads are a little more advanced than the type detailed above and have a very clear objective: show the product or service (through your work team) in action. Through video ads, it is possible to increase the perception of the brand and/or company and also break the routine by arousing the curiosity of users who browse Facebook.

Slideshow Ads

From these, it is possible to create short ads in video format and thus make a collection of existing photos or video clips. In addition, these presentations you can add text and music, so it is estimated as a very striking format. By making use of these ads, you can arouse the customer’s interest notably and above all, display what you offer detailed and fast at the same time.

Ads in sequence

Its main characteristic is the innovation it offers to carry out advertising campaigns. Since, with this type of ads, it is possible to add up to a total of 10 images or videos in order to show your potential customers what products or services you mainly offer. In addition to this, they allow you highlight the benefits of what you are selling, either for a specific product or even for several products simultaneously. In addition, you can create a panoramic photo with a series of images.

instant experiences

They feature a full-screen format that luckily loads much faster than any other non-Facebook website. In this sense, it is worth noting that they are also ads known as “Canvas” and have the main objective of allowing businesses, measuring interactions with customers and thus, be able to fully track each ad.

ads in collection

They are only available for mobile devices and are mixed with instant experiences in order to allow customers to buy the products in two for three and even without the need to leave FB. Thanks to this, it reveals the great advantage of facilitating online purchases and allowing users to discover and buy your products and/or services automatically (just by clicking on the ad).

Messenger Ads

The vast majority of ads that we have indicated can also appear on Messenger and through this channel, achieve greater visibility. Since, this location gives you access to more than 1,300 million people during each month. Which means that the main objective of this type of advertisement is generate more customers.

dynamic ads

Basically, they are some types of Facebook ads that are intended to promote your products to customers who may have a greater interest in buying them. In other words, if, for example, a user of the social network entered your page or even placed a certain product in the shopping cart, but did not specify this, dynamic ads make that product appear again on the initial page of FB for the user to access the.

Ads for business prospects

Finally, we point out these ads available on mobile devices that allow people to quickly fill out a form with their information and are ideal for collect subscriptions to your newsletter. They even serve to register a user to test your product or so that the same people request more information about it, that is, they are interested.

How much does it cost to do good advertising on Facebook? It’s free?

Effectively, It is not free to make a good publicity on Facebook. Therefore, you will have to pay for it in order to achieve the business strategy you want and fortunately, there are options for all scopes.

Basically, this will depend on your experience making advertisements and also the country where you are. Since, if you are in the United States or Europe, the average cost of a campaign on FB can be between the dollar or the euro and if you live in some Latin American countries, it can be just cents.

However, this will depend on different factors Well, there is the advantage of maintaining control so that you set your budget yourself and what you are willing to spend when creating advertising campaigns with Facebook Ads (as we indicate in the steps to follow to create a campaign on this platform) .

These factors are based on the following:

• The audience you are targeting: You must perfectly set your buyer persona and with this, segment your Facebook Ads campaigns well. Which, without a doubt, generates less expenses.
• The professional experience of the work team: If you and your work team show a remarkable experience, you can save a lot of money and waste of time. You can ensure this based on the number of campaigns you have carried out and the changes they are capable of making to improve the rate of investment in advertising.
• Bids on ads: As the social network allows you to set a maximum bid for your ads or leave it automatic, you can take advantage of it. So, to begin with, you can define what you are willing to pay for each lead and with it, adjust the campaign to your economic possibilities.
• The date of your advertising campaigns: It is recommended to carry out campaigns before or just after the festive season (Christmas, for example), to have better results and in addition to this, conversions are usually more accessible.
• The success of your ad, no matter what type it is: If you are able to create good texts, design excellent images and completely eye-catching videos, you can highlight your calls to action well and achieve what you want in your strategy. Which translates into less expenses for the company. Which consists of optimizing the CTR (number of clicks you receive divided by the number of ad impressions) and also the Relevance Score (a relevance score that FB gives you).

In short, although they are not free advertising campaigns, you can make use of different marketing strategies and also your own experience, in order to ensure that the ads you publish with the help of Facebook Ads, be as cheap as possible and to that same extent, they can be completely satisfactory and successful.