How to Make Facebook Ads Work For Your Business

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - Facebook ads that don’t produce results are one of the most frustrating challenges a small business owner can face. Unfortunately, I speak from experience. The first $1,000 I ever spent on Facebook ads came out of my savings account from money I had saved from my summer internship. Though this wasted ad spend pushed me into utter resentment for Facebook ads, I decided to learn from my mistakes rather than wallow in regret. This, my friends, is the most expensive lesson I have ever learned.

Let’s get one thing straight - Facebook ads (and digital ads in general) are so complex that if one thing doesn’t work for your business, there are literally thousands of other things that could. So how do you find this not-so-small needle in a haystack?

1. Research

Forgive me for being mundane, but this step is essential. Research is the backbone to every memorable strategic decision ever made.

The better you know your customer, the easier it is to write to them and their needs. Failed campaigns are a great way to find out what works and what doesn’t, as well as identifying any technical issues like targeting, objective, placement, budget allocation, or even your landing page. But you know what works almost just as well as failed ads for research?

Organic content. It’s the best way to get live feedback from your audience on what type of content they respond to. Plus, it’s free. It takes a lot of time and effort to build that foundation of good quality content that consistently engages your audience, but it can be very effective. Take your best performing content (most audience reactions) and use it to mold the content for your ads.

What are some other ways you can conduct research?

Well, there’s always Google of course. If you don’t know where else to start, start with Google. There are customer satisfaction surveys which work wonders, customer reviews, and analyzing your competition’s content. See what your audience reacts to, what they value, what attracts them to your industry or similar brands, products, and/or services. Speak to those values and interests in a way no one else has ever done before. Speak to them with a pure, authentic understanding that they are not alone and that you know how to solve their problems.

2. Strategy

Strategy covers objectives, targeting, placement, budget, and timeframe. Why are you running the ad, what are you trying to accomplish, and where do you want your audience to see your ad? For example, do you want it on IG as well? In video streams? On stories? In search results? Display ads? Etc.

First thing FB will always ask is what your objective is for your campaign. The largest thing with objective is that I never recommend using just one campaign, unless if you’re selling something inexpensive like t-shirts or food; then you can go straight for the sale. Otherwise, you should be stringing together different objective campaigns to guide your audience through your sales funnel.

A good campaign funnel would look a little like this: Awareness —> Traffic —> Conversions.

After choosing your objective, you’ll decide on a budget. A little known secret: if you choose a lifetime budget rather than a daily budget, Facebook will optimize your ad spend to shift from your slow days to your better performing days. For example, my audience is generally not on social media on Sundays, but they are most certainly active on Mondays. With a lifetime budget, Facebook would shift my ad spend so it looks more like Sunday $10, Monday $20, rather than $15 each day.

Next comes targeting. Something I always see clients doing in their past campaigns is putting too many parameters on their targeting. Keep it simple; 3 - 5 characteristics. Geography, if that’s important, a couple interests, and a digital behavior. For example, I target people who are interested in startups, entrepreneurship, and small business AND they have to be a business page admin. They also have to live within a 25 mile radius of beautiful downtown Cincinnati.

Now, along with targeting goes retargeting. You should be running at least two retargeting campaigns, because that’s what pushes the sale. You can retarget website visitors (if you have your pixel set up), people who watched at least 3 seconds of your videos, people who attended an event you hosted, there are plenty of options.

3. Creative

Anyone can figure out how to run Facebook ads. The tricky part is coming up with creative that stands out. Images are usually decent, but can get boring. Use bright images, with lots of light and bright colors. I would suggest using a video for your awareness campaign just so you can retarget that audience later on.

Your content should always provide value. Speak to the interests and values you discovered about your audience in your research and demonstrate your understanding of their needs. Speak to their pain point and illustrate your knowledge of a solution. Establish your brand as an expert in your field, and people will be more willing to listen.

Testimonials also work great, usually later down the campaign funnel. You can use testimonials for your conversion ad, which will be your final campaign objective. Push the sale, but give them reason to sign up or buy now. Focus on scarcity and make sure you’ve provided so much value through your previous ads, website, and incentives that your offer greatly outweighs the cost. That’s pretty much the key when it comes to content. Target their values, speak to them, resonate with them, offer a solution, give them reason to sign up. But always focus on value first. And your content should always match the objective as well as your landing page.

You can browse the several other blog posts I’ve written on how to create content that stands out at dmdigital.org/blog.

A great feature that Facebook has that is dire to running successful campaigns is their option to A/B split-test. You can create several different versions of the same ad and change up the headline, text, image, or call to action or description. You can also test against different audiences. The best part is that Facebook optimizes your budget to shift over to the best performing variation of ad element combinations.

4. Analysis

Constantly observing your campaign is crucial for maintaining performance and collecting data for future campaigns. It provides you insights on what works and what doesn’t and allows you to make changes as needed. A very common mistake with this, however, is making changes or shutting off ads too early. If your caad has only been running for a few days, give Facebook some time to optimize its algorithm to better meet the goals of you ad.

Start a spreadsheet with weekly data from each ad and each campaign and allow your findings to provide a path for future strategy. If something didn’t work, try to dig deep and find out why. It could be anything from technical set up, to your creative, to your landing page (huge element, by the way).

If you would like a more in-depth look at these four essential factors to making Facebook Ads work for you, listen to our Small Business Owner Podcast, or download a copy of our free digital marketing guide.