Do you use Facebook ads to promote your business?
Are you struggling to connect with your audience?
By fine-tuning your Facebook ads, you can capture the attention of both customers and prospects.
#1: Use a Clutter-Free Image With Minimal Text
The image you choose for your ad depends on what business you’re in and whom you’re targeting. If you’re a personal brand, you may want to choose a picture of yourself, because a friendly face can improve the performance of your ad. It’s also possible to get good results with images that show a product or something else that’s relevant to what you’re advertising.
When choosing an image, make sure that it isn’t too busy or cluttered. And avoid using an image that has Facebook’s shade of blue because people may dismiss your ad, thinking it has something to do with Facebook. It’s also helpful to add a border around your image.
Keep images text-free, or use a very small amount of text. Facebook has implemented a 20% rule for text in an ad image, which means text can cover no more than 20% of the image. In a tiny ad on the sidebar of a page, a lot of text on an image wouldn’t be legible anyway.
#2: Write Short, Attention-Grabbing Copy
Your ad copy should be short and enticing and grab the user’s attention immediately. Spend some time coming up with your ad copy. Facebook suggests you include a timeframe and a price (when appropriate) and stick to one call to action.
There are two distinct components to the ad copy: the headline and the text. In the news feed, the ad’s headline (which is clickable) appears under the picture, and in the sidebar, it appears before the text copy. Try to keep the headline to a single line in the ad.
The text copy sits above the image in the news feed or under the headline in the sidebar. Keep the text short enough that the person viewing the ad won’t have to click the See More button.
#3: Explore Audience Targeting
When you’re targeting an audience for your ad, don’t just type in male/female, 30 to 40 years old, in a certain city and hope for the best. It’s important to know who your customers are so you can drill down and segment accordingly.
Target the people you want to be connected to you and your brand. For example, if you’re advertising something that people can buy, you might want to target those who have bought from you before or expressed an interest in buying at some time.
When creating your ad, always choose the location, age, gender and interests you’re targeting. Most people won’t list their job title or very personal details on their Facebook profile, so you can leave these details out.
Target interests by specifying the pages that your ideal customer likes.
You can target your direct competitors’ pages. For example, if you’re a photographer in Toronto, target the followers of the page of a competing photographer in the area.
You might also want to target the pages of businesses whose products and services are complementary to yours. These people likely have the same customers as you. For example, if you’re a web designer, target people who like the pages of a particular copywriter.
Look at the profiles of people who like your page and see what other pages they like. You’ll probably find common likes among your fans.
Make sure that you target the actual pages, which show up in Interests, rather than the interests themselves.
Note that there seems to be no real rhyme or reason to the pages that Facebook pulls up in the Interests section. You may enter the name of a page that has over 20,000 likes, and Facebook won’t find it, but one with 2,000 likes may show up if you search for it. This is something you’ll have to test for yourself when choosing pages.
#4: Set a Daily Ad Budget
For more visibility, choose a daily ad budget rather than a lifetime ad budget. Consider starting with a small budget of $1 to $2 per day. Then once the ad has been running for a week and slowly picking up momentum, increase that daily ad budget a little at a time.
What you’re looking for from your ads is a good conversion rate. Most of the time, you’ll want to see a conversion rate under $1. Sometimes, depending on your type of business, the conversion rate may be over $1, but if it ultimately leads to a sale, the cost was worth it.
Bonus Tip: Provide a Clear Goal for the Ad
All of your ads need to send people somewhere. Directing people to a landing page is an effective way to get them to sign up for your webinar or mailing list, for example.
Make sure that the page you’re sending your target audience to has great copy and is ready to convert.