10 Facebook marketing tips for the best ad campaigns

With 2.895 billion monthly active users on Facebook, the popular networking site remains the largest social media platform online. That’s a lot of new faces which can lead to opportunities for connection and small business expansion. As a result of this social media site’s enduring popularity, including Facebook ad campaigns in your marketing plan is a great way to establish a successful audience relationship. 

But how can you make the most of this online presence to water and grow the seeds of your budding pursuits? How can you attract customers interested in your brand and convert those curious prospects into sales? When you embark on any new endeavor, preparation is the first step of the journey, so below, you’ll discover the best Facebook marketing ideas for small business advertisements. You’ll get the tips, tricks, and facts to develop your strategy with ease. 

10 tips for creating a successful Facebook ad campaign

A Facebook marketing strategy has the potential to usher in an era of abundance for your small business. These Facebook marketing tricks will help you develop a triumphant campaign worthy of a case study.  

1. Add quality images and captions. Content is key for any form of advertisement, including those on Facebook. A stellar product needs to be backed by an ad campaign that features high-quality, relevant images with meaningful, supportive captions. The planning behind the content is important too, but always remember to put your best creative foot forward. Make sure that what you’re trying to say is crystal clear to those who may not know about your business. This isn’t the space for “insider” terminology!

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

2. Include a call to action. What do you want someone to do when they see your ad? A clear call to action (CTA) spurs customers into action to sign up for your newsletter or buy that item they were eyeing. This CTA is vital to ushering in a customer on the next step of the journey. Notably, Facebook Ads feature preset calls to action, but there are many options to choose from.

From hevodata.com

3. Optimize your profile page. You wouldn’t want to send thousands of potential customers to your page just to find out your phone number is wrong! Your Facebook business page should have the most accurate and up-to-date information, including your contact information, refreshed profile photos, and a good cover image. A well-organized and relevant hierarchy of information allows for a smoother visitor experience, which creates a greater chance for conversion. 

4. Narrow your audience. Attracting the right people is more significant than reaching a larger audience that might not be interested in your offerings. Your reach intends to reap results. If your small business sells sodas with flavors that favor those with a bolder palate, then limiting Facebook users to those who like other popular soda brands is a good way to refine your audience — and find your people. Plus, when you begin to further define your target market, you’ll discover what other interests appeal to your demographic, and you can target those groups as well. 

5. Use a content calendar. Successful social media is strategic. Using a content calendar lets you plan ahead, and it creates a steady stream of content because you always know what’s up next. With scheduling programs, you can get it all ready to go and focus your efforts on other pressing matters — just make sure to monitor your posts after they go live. You can also use Facebook’s built-in tools to draft, schedule, and reschedule posts.

6. Post with intent. You already know that the first step in creating a Facebook ad is choosing your objective. Once you’ve defined your goal for an ad, keep that objective in mind when you post. Deliver your posts with purpose, and don’t stray from the strategy — random content doesn’t create a cohesive brand narrative. Think of yourself as a maestro of media, tuned into the wants and needs of your enthralled audience with well-paced and varied content. 

7. Blend in. If you’re on the feed of a prime audience member perfectly suited for your brand, you should blend in with the surrounding content to some extent. A heavy-handed promotional approach often deters customer engagement, while a more subtle, intriguing angle lends itself to curiosity and amusement, inciting your audience to interact with the content. You don’t want to trick your audience, but you do want to appeal to their interests. 

From wordstream.com

8. Get active on Facebook Stories. While there is a strategy to social media, it also gives off that effortlessly put-together portrayal that’s ideal for Facebook Stories. This feature is more casual in approach and presentation than the content curated for the page, so it’s an easy way to produce content that fosters connection with your customers. That’s because these posts are temporary and only last for 24 hours. Visitors can save this content and share it to their Stories, broadening the content’s reach even further. 

9. Test ad placements. Social media lends itself to exploration. Since it’s constantly growing and evolving, it’s necessary to try out different factors like ad placements to measure performance. Playing around with placement will help determine where your customers are more likely to find and interact with your campaigns. Again, clicks and conversions are the name of the Facebook game.  

10. Continue engagement. Social media isn’t a passive place — don’t just watch your audience’s behavior from afar. The heart of social media is connection: a space to relate and communicate with one another. And as a small business, it’s paramount to maintain a relationship with your customers, so like and reply to comments, promote in-person events, and share tagged posts with your product. 

12 ways to advertise on Facebook

Getting more granular, Facebook advertising can fall into a number of categories. For our purposes, the focus is on paid advertising opportunities, so let’s unpack the options that Facebook offers for small businesses.

1. Image ads. This ad type is a single image that incorporates a call to action and a link. It’s especially simple to create when you boost an existing post. An image ad is an effortless yet effective form of Facebook advertising that opens the door to creative possibilities.

From karolakarlson.com

2. Video ads. These ads can exist on the News Feed and Stories. Similar to image ads, video ads offer different avenues to messaging. You can keep it informative and show a behind-the-scenes glimpse of your product manufacturing, or you can get innovative with an extravagant commercial-like video worthy of the Super Bowl.  

3. Poll ads. Polls have continued to rise in popularity across social media platforms as a way to further engagement with visitors. This mobile-exclusive ad type presents an image or video and offers the customer two options to choose from — and both you and your viewers can see the winner.  

4. Carousel ads. By incorporating up to 10 images or videos, carousel ads can display your offerings to potential customers. Here, you can showcase a product or service, and every image or video is capable of having a link to direct guests to learn more or visit the sales page.

From dribble.com

5. Slideshow ads. Not to be confused with carousel ads, slideshow ads give way to a short video format through a curated selection of pictures, text, and video clips. You can produce your own or make use of the slideshow feature in Facebook Ads Manager. 

6. Instant experience ads. This full-screen ad format can incorporate videos, images, and interactive elements into one unit. The viewer doesn’t have to leave Facebook — all the content is in one place. 

7. Collection ads. Another mobile-only ad type, collection ads have the capacity to highlight 5 images or videos that viewers can select to purchase a service or product. This ad type allows customers to shop without leaving Facebook. 

8. Lead ads. Also available as a mobile-only format, lead ads direct visitors to a form that you can tailor based on the data you’re looking to acquire.  

9. Dynamic ads.This ad type lets you promote selected products that are customized to the customer. It’s safe to assume their interest because this customer might have already viewed the same product or even stowed it away in their online shopping cart.

From newsfeed.org

10. Messenger ads. Similar to email ads, messenger ads provide a personalized experience. Customers are given the chance to interact with a representative of your brand directly in Messenger.

11. Stories ads. On both Instagram and Facebook, Stories are taking over. This advertising format allows brands and businesses the opportunity to spread information to a lot of people quickly. 

12. Event ads. Having brand events helps grow awareness. Promoting the event on Facebook is an ideal way to garner more attendees and ticket sales.

Why should you advertise on Facebook?

Given its vast global community and access to any niche you can imagine, a Facebook marketing strategy for small businesses is a must for the following reasons.

• Reach more people faster. There are billions of Facebook users, and paid ads are a hyper-targeted approach to connecting with your specific audience and attracting more customers. Facebook ads go live pretty quickly and work their magic within minutes to display your brand to thousands of people. This approach revolutionized marketing with its ability to reach thousands of people with a single post.    

• Increase sales. The numbers don’t lie — effective Facebook ad campaigns that reach the right people generate an upsurge in transactions. When done right, a campaign can easily earn back what you’ve spent and more. There’s also the potential for an increase in offline sales, too. If a customer remembers an interesting ad, they might seek out your brick-and-mortar location for an in-person experience.

• Grow awareness. When people see your product or service several times on Facebook, this achieves brand recognition, which is awesome for building a reputation in your area of expertise. There are a lot of competitors in any given field, and asserting your prominence lets customers know that you’re the go-to shop for your specific offerings. 

• Build engagement. Connection in the digital space involves likes, comments, shares, and saves. This demonstrates a well-developed relationship between you and your customers. It shows that your target audience is listening and likes what they see, which usually leads to sales and helps to push your content in their feeds. Plus, cultivating a bond with your customer tears down that metaphorical wall between you and them, replicating the in-person small business shopping experience.  

• Create budget-friendly ads. A lot of marketing can be expensive, but advertising on Facebook is a cost-effective way to get the word out about your product or service. The platform makes it easy to adjust your allocated ad spend at any given time. You’re in control of the figure, and the platform accommodates any budget size — large or small. 

• Drive repeat business. By utilizing the social networking site’s Custom Audiences feature, you can readily find your existing audience and advertise to them directly by adding their emails to your advertising campaign. When you find your people, it increases the potential for repeat customers. In the world of business, a loyal customer is worth their weight in gold, so reel them in and keep them wanting more. 

Grow your business with Facebook ads

To summarize, a Facebook marketing strategy is a must for small business owners. Though organic reach is declining, paid advertising is more effective than ever before, and with just a little research and careful planning, you can expand your reach far beyond your hometown. These Facebook marketing tricks and tips are especially helpful for marketing newbies, and they can even help seasoned professionals brush up on their knowledge. 

And just like remembering to put your best foot forward with creative advertisements, it’s equally as important to make sure the content you direct your audience to is in top form. If you’re driving traffic to your website with a well-executed ad, then your site needs to live up to the artistry of the campaign you spent days, weeks, or maybe even months crafting. Tools like Namecheap Visual make it simple to create stunning websites and logos. This affordable tool will bring your brand to life, so when your customers find you on Facebook, they’ll have a one-of-a-kind website experience waiting for them. Get inventive and turn all of your small business dreams into a reality!