In this weeks live hangout we are continuing with our talk on Facebook. We have already covered Facebook tracking and ideas for generating sales and leads using different funnel examples.
This week are are going to dive a bit more in-depth on the different targeting options you have and talk more in-depth on writing the perfect ad copy for your Facebook ad
Here is the live hangout video in case you just want to sit back and watch. We hold live Hangouts every Wednesday at 2PM CST so be sure to sign-up to the newsletter or the private Facebook group to get an invite.
Let’s take more of a look at your ad targeting options
- Custom audiences – allows you to target existing customers or leads and remarketing / retargeting
- Age – Target the Exact Age Range that meets your customer avatar.
- Location – allows you to target by location (city, state, country)
- Gender – allows you to target by gender (male or female)
- Education Level – Target those with a high school degree or those with more advanced education
- Languages – Target the Language you want to reach such as just English or Just Spanish Speaking Individuals
- Interests – allows you to target by interest (such as fitness, entrepreneurship, fashion, literature)
- Relationship Status – Target Single or married individuals as well as several other options
- Behaviors – allows you to target by past behavior, such as someone visiting your website
- Political Views – Personally I’m a little sad this is an option.
- Connections – allows you to target by people who already like your page, or who have connections that do
Here is a link from Wordstream that has all the Facebook targeting options all laid out for you
http://www.wordstream.com/images/facebook-ad-targeting-options-infographic-wordstream-large.jpg
Ad Types
Facebook has two main ad types you can use. They are news feed posts that you see in the center of your facebook page along with your other feeds and then the right hand column ads that are on the right hand side
Placements
Facebook now automatically recommends you use Automatic Placements. This to me is not a win for most small businesses. When you use this option your ad will not only show up on Facebook but also on Instagram and on the Audience Network which is partner sites and apps.
Generally I recommend you just start out with Facebook only till you have some traction. This will help cut down on ad spend and really let you focus on succeeding on 1 platform first before having to worry about other platforms and different optimization tactics.
Getting the Perfect Image
Images are at least 80% of what makes a great ad for Facebook. Facebook allows you to have a nice big image so be sure to put thought into your image.
Ideally you want your image to be extremely specific to the group you are targeting. It needs to be eye catching, include a value proposition such as a benefit or represent a pain point. Have a clear call to action (CTA) and represent your target market and their interests.
Here is an image I used to get app installs to an app called local ledge that focused on metal detectors as an interest group.
You can see I had a clear CTA on the image but that was not really needed as I could of used the Call to Action from Facebook. Still the main point is I have someone who is metal detecting and they found something. This speaks specifically to the audience I was targeting and my click through rates on this ad was just fantastic
Here is one of the images I split tested against that did not perform as well.
Images with people in them performing a desired action or expressing an emotion work great. If worse comes to worse you can use the funniest image you have that has nothing related to your offer and get people to take notice. Remember, people come to Facebook to be entertained not to be sold too.
Uncovering the perfect Image
Create Customer Avatars: Really it’s all a matter of testing and segmenting out your groups by interests, age, and any other factors you can think of. You need to uncover and create multiple customer Avatars. From there you will be able to select images that closely align with the target group.
Split Test Images: Generally I split test 3 different images with the same ad copy and if I have an image ad that performs well I will then take that image and create 3 new ad sets to test out the ad copy. If I’m not happy with the initial results I’ll wither switch up my targets a little or use different images.
In last weeks episode we covered the different ad types you have on Facebook in article – http://marketingplaybook.co/hangouts/generating-lead-sales-facebook-small-businesses/ . I copied them below
Facebook Advertising Objectives
Clicks to Website: Send people to your website. This is the more common method many small businesses and advertisers use.
Website Conversions: Increase conversions on your website. You’ll need a conversion pixel for your website before you can create this ad. This is how I generally setup most of my campaigns. This allows me to optimize better for conversions that are happening. Even if I am not selling a product or service I can still use this option if we get a little creative.
Page Post Engagement: Boost your posts. This is one of my least favorite options. It’s fine but I really don’t care in most instances about others seeing my posts. I would much rather get them to click on my website.
I’ll still use this method if I’m doing marketing for a special event just to get the word out more or if I have really killer content that I believe can be spread fast. An example of this might be a pumpkin patch. It’s October as I write this and chances are I would still drive business and interest to my pumpkin patch or corn maze for this time of year in the U.S.
Page Likes: Promote your Page and get Page likes to connect with more of the people who matter to you. This again to me is low value for many companies. It used to be a lot better back when you could then post new content and have it syndicated out to everyone automatically and for free. Facebook has gone pay to play so even if you post something it won’t go out to all your fans. Only a small fraction in the 3% to 10% range so you really don’t get a lot of value out of likes.
This can still play a factor in your marketing efforts however so you may find a good use and strategy to use this option.
App Installs: Get installs of your app. I have an app I promoted rather heavily on Facebook and found the platform to be a really nice way of getting installs to my own personal app. This is not common for many small businesses so I won’t go into this topic.
App Engagement: Increase engagement in your app. This is where you re-market to those who have installed your app to get them to come back and use the app again. It’s a solid way to help with user retention and it allows you to deep link into sections of your app which can provide great value.
Offer Claims: Create offers for people to redeem in your store. This can be a really great way to market coupons and discounts. You can set features such as who sees it and how many people can claim the discount which creates scarcity and forces people to take action or they lose the special.
Local Awareness: Reach people near your business. Here you set your business location and choose a radius of those located around you. It’s a nice way of reaching people in a set distance from your business to advertise daily specials or events.
Event Responses: Raise attendance at your event. If you are putting on a workshop of some kind this can be a great way to see how many people may attend. Generally you get at most a 50% show rate so if you want 10 people to show up to your event I would recommend getting at least 20 signups if not 30.
Product Catalog Promotion: Automatically show products from your product catalog based on your target audience. Think of this as the merchant feed options you have on AdWords and Bing Ads. When you use your product catalog it will normally be in combination with Dynamic ads.
Brand Awareness: Reach people more likely to pay attention to your brand. I have not yet personally used this option. From what I have read Facebook with show your ad to those who will most likely spend more time looking at your ad. I personally do branding a little differently for local businesses which I will discuss later in this guide.
Lead Generation: Collect leads for your business. Recently this had become one of my favorite ways to produce quality leads at a very reasonable price. It can be hard for some small business to capitalize on but if you have any kind of valuable information you can bundle into a quick free report as your lead generation offer it can work very well.
In order to take full advantage of this process you need a solid follow up already in place so ensure you have your sales funnel setup and ready to go.
Video Views: Create ads that get more people to view a video. To be 100% honest I have not had the same success with Facebook videos ads as I have with AdWords. It’s really great that you can target a specific audience but I have not had a client personally that has had great measurable success with video ads on Facebook just yet.
I do not like how many videos are still auto played inside feeds and I don’t like that they charge and count as a view after 3 seconds.
There is clear value to be had here but I do not have the solution for what this is just yet.
Dynamic Ads: Worth mentioning again as you can use your product catalog to setup Dynamic Ads to auto re-target page visitors for specific pages. There are services out there that can help you set this up like ChannelAdvisor, Mercent and Adroll. You can manually set this up as well but it’s a little more complicated just like setting up a Merchant feed in Bing Ads and AdWords.
Carousel Ads: With Carousel ads you can setup up to 10 images each having their own link to a specific location on your website. Great if you are targeting a specific niche and have several similar products or services you want to push.
The setup for images is a bit different then the regular format in Facebook.
- Recommended image size: 600 x 600 pixels
- Image ratio: 1:1
- Text: 90 characters
- Headline: 40 characters
- Link description: 20 characters
Slideshows: You can use both videos and images to create a slide show with audio and text overlays. Slideshows can stand out more than a normal ad because you have different images coming into focus that grabs people’s attention.
This is fantastic if you have some kind of process or story you want to tell your target audience.
Slide shows can be up to 35 seconds in length. All images should have the same dimensions and be in a 16:9 or 4:3 ratio. If you use different sized images then your images will be cropped and could possibly look off.
Writing the Perfect Ad Copy
Before you write your ad you should first focus on who you are targeting then customize the ad copy to that specific group.
Split test ad copy. Sounds simple but many do not take the time to test out different ad copies. I generally recommend you first use the same adcopy for 3 different images. Then pick the best image based on performance and then re-test that image against 3 different ad copy sets.
This works well if you have been able to get some decent traction on the image. Remember that the image is the most important thing. It’s what grabs peoples attention first and stops them from scrolling down. If you tested 3 images and they all performed really bad then either your targeting might be off or too wide or you need to test another 3 different images.
Have a clear call to Action and only 1 call to action so it’s not confusing. You can use the CTA buttons
- Apply Now
- Download
- Get Quote
- Learn More
- Sign up
- Subscribe
Even with the CTA buttons I generally still like to have in the ad copy 1 clear message of action.
Make More Less. You do not want to write paragraphs of information. You want a short and to the point message that outlines what you are offering, hit’s upon a pain point and or mentions a benefit and have your call to action present.
Social Proof: Test out ad copy based on Testimonials from your customers and put that in quotes. You can’t do this in AdWords but Facebook still allows it. If you have 7,000 happy customers in the past year then say so.
Ask a provocative question. If you did carpet cleaning maybe you could say something like How many bugs are living in your carpets? If you targeted me who has a little baby I’d probably take notice. You can get aggressive with this kind of marketing or be a little subtle. In the end I recommend you NEVER really sell but instead focus on helping the person out by offering free tips and tricks. Believe me this goes a really long ways and is a far better way to build your brand as a local leader in your industry.
Fear of loss or sense of urgency: This works really well. Having countdown times and limiting special offers to just the first 20 people or things like Sale ends Today gets peoples attention. People love great deals. I’m no exception here. If you have ever looked at how App Summo works you will understand their entire business is predicated on fear of loss and offering a great value.
Some words that help create a sense of urgency are
- Limited time!
- Only!
- Today!
- Hurry!
- Act now!
- Rush!
- Last chance!
Location Specific Imagery: If there is a local landmark or building that is recognizable you can always snap a quick picture of it and use it in your ad copy. If it’s relatable enough to your service or you can overlay an image on top of that then you could have a solid winner. I have used silhouettes of city Ski lines before to great effect.
Quick Recap
- It’s visual. The image is larger in this ad than the image in the right-hand column ad, making it more visually appealing and catching my eye even more than the previous example.
- It’s relevant. Same as with the right-hand column ad, it is relevant to me. (Side note: I actually purchased the wine from Club W, and it’s lovely).
- It includes an enticing value prop. They’ve already done the thinking for me by having Easter wine recommendations. Although there’s no discount on this ad, I still find value in their content.
- It has a clear call-to-action. They’re telling me to head over to their blog to read their suggestions. This way, I know exactly what to do — and what to expect when I click.
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