Increase Your Return On Investment From Your Facebook Advertising
Facebook is no longer the plaything of businesses looking to reach out for free.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you’ll no doubt have realised that reaching out to your fans, followers and potential customers on the social media platform is no longer a straightforward process.
Posts and status updates are limited to reach only a small proportion of your followers, meaning most miss out on what you have to say. Unless you’re willing to pay, that is.
As indicated in an earlier blog article, paid advertising is now a necessary evil when it comes to leveraging social media for business purposes. But that’s no longer a bad thing.
While advertising on Facebook used to be something of a crapshoot, today the network has improved its entire marketing setup to the degree that it now works well.
If you’re considering using Facebook Ads, you’ll want to make sure you’re getting the best return on your investment. Here are some tips to improving your ROI by optimising Facebook Ads.
Target the right audience
The best thing about Facebook Ads as they are today is that you have the ability to reach out to the exact audience you’re looking for.
Personalised targeting means you can base your audience of gender, age, location, education, interests, hobbies, and much more. You can aim your marketing campaign at those that have expressed an interest in your field of expertise, as well as friends of those same people.
Basically, through the Facebook Ad Manager you can pick and choose who you reach out to. That gives your ad a much better chance of appearing on the screen in front of someone that will be interested in it.
If you want to takes things to another level, Facebook also allows you to reach out to those customers and clients already in your address book, matching email addresses to Facebook profiles, meaning you can jog the memory of those that might have forgotten about you. You can even use the Facebook Power Editor to target a ‘lookalike’ audience based on your existing clients.
By targeting a suitable audience, click through rates, number of views and actions are all likely to improve.
Consider what it is you’re promoting
Facebook Ads offer you the chance to promote your latest product, an upcoming sale or your services in general. But you shouldn’t restrict your marketing to meet these categories.
Facebook Ads can also be optimised to recruit fans. You can place an ad as a method of increasing your Facebook fans, either by using a competition or offering a special discount. Alternatively, you can link it to a landing page that offers something worthwhile (an eBook, report, etc.) in exchange for an email address or Facebook like.
Why not try something different? Be brave.
Generate leads and sales
If you are looking to generate leads and sales, the much-improved Facebook Ads is as good a place to start as any.
With a custom audience targeted, your ads will reach the type of people that will be interested in the product or services you’re providing. Not everyone is going to click through but those that do are more likely to act afterwards.
Whether you’re advertising a sale or a method in which people can learn more about your company and what you offer, Facebook ad optimisation will – at some level – generate leads and sales. The trick is to ensure these sales exceed the resources (time and money) you’re putting into the campaign.
Analyse the impact
As with every other aspect of your social media campaign, it’s vital that you analyse the impact your ad campaign is having.
Use Facebook’s monitoring tools to check how many people have clicked through, how many unique visitors have arrived on the landing page, how many actions each visitor took, and anything else that might be useful.
At this stage you can adjust the payment method if necessary. Some companies opt for cost-per-click (CPC), which charges for every person that clicks through. Others opt for cost-per-like (CPL), which charges every time somebody likes your page. Others opt to pay per ‘x’ impressions. If you’re ad is generating clicks, you’ll want to opt for the cheaper option. If it’s not working, you’ll need to either amend it and try again or scrap it entirely.
As we’ve said so many times before, there are no hard and fast rules to Facebook and social media, so you’re going to have to try a few things to learn what really works for your company. Don’t be afraid to try something new or copy what has come before. Just make sure you keep an eye on what’s happen or your ROI could quickly take a plunge.