Facebook Ads. Creating and Optimizing Effective Campaigns.
We all spend more or less time on social media. If you have something to offer, it’s obvious that you want to reach those who might be interested. It matters what you have to offer and that your page has quality content, but that’s not enough. Your audience uses search engines and social media, and in order for your message to reach the right people, you need well-thought-out ads. A large portion of your potential customers are on Facebook and Instagram. Although “ad” and “campaign” are used interchangeably, they are not the same thing.
An ad refers to how, where, and to whom you advertise and includes specific details. The campaign includes at least one ad and represents the structure in which the ad functions. It has a budget and a start and end date.
Facebook Ads Creatives
Before publishing an ad, you need the creative part (the design of the ad): you choose the format, add images/videos, text, and links. The main elements of an ad are: the image, the description, and the title. Obviously, the image is the first thing that catches attention, as it takes up the most space and is more flexible. After the image and title grab attention, the audience’s eyes go to the description. Here it’s important to present the benefits you offer in as few words as possible and possibly include a link to something free (high-quality content).
Ads can include an image or a video, but they can also be carousel type. The carousel displays multiple images or videos, each with its own link and separate text. You can showcase multiple products or different aspects of the same product or service. On social media, there are many things competing for users’ attention, so your ad content needs to stand out and be interesting.
Setting up and Optimizing Facebook Ads (Ad Set)
In the Meta Ads Manager, you set the budget and a timeframe for the campaign, then choose the objective (brand awareness, reach, traffic, engagement, leads, conversions, etc).
Target Audience Selection: You choose the target audience based on location, demographic criteria (gender, age, education, occupation), interests, behaviors (previous purchases), and connections (those who have interacted with your page or not). It’s better to target a narrow audience, such as page followers and specific interests.
Placement: You choose where you want the ad to appear (news feed, marketplace, video feeds, groups feed, etc). Each placement may require different text and design. When creating the ad set, you have two options: Advantage+ placements or Manual placements.
Advantage+ placements will automatically distribute the ads where it believes it will achieve the best results. However, this option is not always the best, as Facebook optimizes for getting the most desired actions at the lowest cost, without caring about quality. In the ad set, you can choose the action for which Facebook should optimize the ad. This way, it will be displayed to people who are most likely to take the desired action according to your goals.
Quality of Visitors Matters
Facebook is reliable when optimizing for purchases, value, or conversion leads. But the issue arises when you target a broad audience and choose optimization for engagement, video views, or link clicks. Facebook considers any click as a success, regardless of how much time the visitor spends on your website or what they do there. If you optimize for link clicks, you will get more clicks, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting quality, as Facebook does not differentiate between accidental clicks from real users or bots. Similarly, if you optimize for engagement, even negative reactions are counted. Audience Network is more susceptible to unnecessary clicks and requires more attention or can be avoided.
It is necessary to check the quality of the visits. One way to check how Facebook is using your budget and in what placement is the Ads Manager Breakdown. With it you can see the cost per action. Another way to measure where (which placement) clicks come from is “URL Parameters”, using a tool like Google Analytics. Depending on the content of the URL, you can find out that the source of the visits to the site was Facebook and more exactly from which ad the visitor comes from. This path requires some URL settings to be identified.
Another way to measure the source of clicks (i.e., which placements are driving traffic) is through “URL Parameters” using a tool like Google Analytics. By adding parameters to the URLs in your Facebook ads, you can identify the traffic source on your website and specifically which ad the visitor is coming from. This method requires some URL settings to be configured for proper identification.
“Ad delivery” has a learning phase based on your past activity to increase efficiency. However, it requires a volume of 25-50 optimized events, and reaching that volume depends on the size of your audience, cost per optimization event, and budget. Facebook Ads testing, also known as “Split testing” or “A/B testing,” allows you to test changes in ad variables such as audience, creatives (image, title, description), and placements to find what works best for you. If you create multiple ads for a campaign, they should be similar to compare small variations (text, image, target audience, etc.).
How does split testing work?
Facebook randomly separates the audience so that the tested variable (a difference between ads) does not overlap and is shown to the same people. Typically, two variations are tested, but you can test up to three. The winning ad set will be the one with the lower cost per result, and you will be notified when the test is complete.
If your advertising budget is at least or over €1000 per month, we would love to discuss how we can help you achieve the results you want. Book a call with one of our specialists. We are ready to help you! Book Call ⟶
