Is Facebook advertising even effective? Why go through the effort of creating an advertisement on Facebook?
The most obvious advantage of doing so is the massive audience your brand will gain exposure to. According to Facebook, when implementing an ad on their service, you’re reaching out to “more than 750 million potential customers.”
That’s a gargantuan number, but it’s true. Facebook has even surpassed Google as the most popular website on the Internet. The real question to be asked is why haven’t you already begun advertising on the largest, most used social media outlet in existence?
To further sweeten the deal, the process of creating an ad is quite simple. If you can create an ordinary Facebook profile, making an ad is only a bit more complicated.
Facebook Advertising: Creating Your First Ad
Simply visit Facebook.com/advertising/ and click the green “Create an Ad” button on the top right corner of the screen. Alternatively, you may also choose to contact Facebook’s sales team by clicking the link below the button, but it should be noted that this option serves more as a Facebook Ad Creation Wizard than an actual contact form.
When you arrive at the Facebook Advertising page, you can fill in the basic information pertaining to your ad (e.g. title, logo and message body). Unless your goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible, you’ll want to narrow your reach to the right niche audience for your product or service.
Fortunately, Facebook allows advertisers to target their ads to focus on specific demographics. Once you click the “Continue” button, you’ll reveal additional fields that allow you to filter your ad’s intended audience by region, age group, gender, interests, etc.
How is Facebook Advertising able to reach out to users based on their interests? Through the use of keywords, words or phrases that are relevant to your field. Thus, if you’re looking to advertise a website that sells cheap shoes, Facebook users with profiles containing terms that are pertinent to the keywords you enter will see your ad on their profile page (provided they also fit within the region, age and gender specifications you’ve listed).
Click “continue” again, and you’re now able to specify your account budget and whether you prefer to run your campaign continuously. Under the “Pricing” heading, you’ll see Facebook’s suggested bid per click. You’re also welcomed to specify your own figure by clicking on the advanced options, which brings up a custom field.
When you’re done, you’re given the option to review your ad. From here, you can either place your order or make revisions. When it’s all done, be sure and revisit the ad on occasion to track the its performance. This will help you ensure that your goals/expectations are being met. As time goes on, if you’re not satisfied with your clickthrough level, you may tweak the settings described above for better results.
