Facebook & Instagram Advertising 101

Facebook & Instagram Advertising 101

It’s no surprise that 80% of Australians have an active social media account. That’s more than the percentage of households with TV’s (gasp!). Therefore, it goes without saying, no business should ignore Facebook as a powerful advertising channel. Affordable and dynamic, Facebook ads can be a game changer for small-to-medium-sized businesses. The best bit, you’re in control of your budget, deciding exactly how much you want to spend and when.

Why We Love Facebook Ads (and you should too!)

Facebook Ad Manager’s most impressive feature is its ability to target users based on a combination of characteristics and behaviour. From age, to location, interests and hobbies, professions and relationship status (and more!), you can create an incredibly targeted audience who will receive and hopefully respond to your communications. By doing so, you’re maximising budget, spending your precious dollars on those who really want your product or service.

But targeting doesn’t stop there. Facebook has so much data on each user, it can target people based on how they’re predicted to act when they see your ad. If you want more website traffic, optimise your ad for landing page views. If you want more sales, optimise for purchases. In addition to purchasing, there are other things you may want users to do such as download an app, send an enquiry, click to call, subscribe to the newsletter etc. You can create Facebook ads to prompt of any of these actions. Top tip; keep the Sales Funnel top of mind.

Be Responsive

The beauty of an ad that can be created and edited with the click of a button allows you to be responsive to current events and trends. With no lead time, you can experiment with little to no risk, helping you to really hone in on what makes your customer tick. Have a bit of fun and jump on a trending meme, make a cheeky ad in response to a footy game or respond to a social movement to show your brand values. The flexibility of Facebook advertising means you can advertise whenever you choose to.

An Integrated Approach is Always Best

Digital advertising is great, but it’s even better when you integrate your campaign across both online and offline channels (we’re talking print ads in the Lennox Wave, radio, billboards etc). You’ll reach more people with more frequency in different areas of their life, reminding them of your brand.

Don’t forget the power of complementing your campaign with organic social content. Post about it on your Facebook and Instagram feed, your stories, reels and IGTV. Write blogs and send eDMs. Not only does this reinforce your messaging, but you may be able to authentically connect with your following. Branch out to other platforms like LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and TikTok (hint: If you’re targeting young mums, download TikTok now).

One last word: use reports in Ads Manager to understand how your ads are performing and what you could change to better them next time. Contact us for Instagram & Facebook ads in Australia.

Apple’s iOS Update Will Change Facebook Advertising

iOS changes that will affect Facebook Advertising

Earlier this year at the annual Worldwide Developers' Conference, Apple announced product and policy changes that will affect how data is shared across iOS. Unfortunately, the limits this change places on advertising will disrupt the growth of small businesses and the free internet.

Don’t get us wrong, we are all for proactive privacy measures and data transparency. We believe in a world where personalisation and user privacy can coexist. In saying this, we aren’t too happy about the policies Apple is bringing in.

What will change

The new iOS 14 update will force people to opt-in for their data to be tracked on their mobile devices and across the web. By opting out, Apple’s proposed changes will limit your ability to effectively reach, understand and engage people on their mobile devices and across the web. This will disrupt how you control who sees your ads, understand the performance of your campaigns and draw insights of user behaviour. Over time, you may see an overall decrease in ad performance and personalisation and an increase in cost per action.

Specifically, these changes will limit your ability to:

  • “Effectively deliver ads to people based on their engagement with your business”
  • “Measure and report on conversions from certain customers”
  • “Ensure that your ads are delivered to the most relevant audiences at the right frequency”
  • “Accurately attribute app installs to people using iOS 14 and later”
  • “Predict and optimise cost per action over time and efficiently allocate budgets” (Facebook, 2020)

 

In summary

The changes to the policy in the iOS 14 update will make it harder for small businesses to reach their target audience. This limits growth and the ability to compete against the bigger players. It’s important to note that Facebook advertising isn’t (and shouldn’t be) the only driving force for selling online, gathering leads, building brand awareness. It is essential to create integrated campaigns across multiple platforms so that messages reach consumers in many areas of life, not just online.

What you can do to get ready for the change

If you plan to deliver conversion events on your website (you can read more about this here), you may need to verify your website's domain to avoid future disruptions. Domain verification should be prioritised for domains with pixels used by multiple businesses and personal ad accounts. If you plan to deliver ads for conversion events that occur within your business apps, follow these steps.

And if you’d like to read more about these changes, visit this blog post from Facebook, explaining the iOS policy changes in-depth.

 

Related Tag: Facebook Ads Australia

 

Make your Facebook Ads perform like never before

When people talk about how to set up Facebook Ads, they have previously attributed success to targeting (that’s your audiences). Yes, nailing your Audience is very important as you should always be communicating with consumers who are interested and in need of your product or service. But, with Facebook comes something no other advertising channel allows: Conversion Optimisation. AKA, targeting people who are most likely to take actions in the consumer funnel.

Facebook doesn’t show your ad to every person on your audience. Your ads are only shown to a small segment of that audience. Knowing this, you’d want that segment of the audience who are shown the ad to be the most interested, and actionable consumers… so you can make more sales. With Conversion Optimisation, you can make sure your ads are served to these people.

So how does it work?

Essentially, Facebook has so much data on each individual user, that it is now possible to target people based on how they are predicted to act when served your ad. When you set up a Facebook ads Gold Coast, you can now tell Facebook to optimise your ad for ‘Add to Cart’ clicks or ‘Initiate checkout’ clicks, even ‘Purchase’ clicks. So, with a defined, targeted audience, and optimisation for conversion you’re well on your way to a successful Facebook ad campaign.

We've seen Conversion Optimisation work before our very own eyes!

Trust us, we have seen how tweaking conversion optimisation has completely turned a Facebook campaign around. We ran a Facebook campaign for a client whose aim was to make more online sales. In setting up the campaign, we initially selected the goal ‘Traffic’ and directed consumers to the product page on their client’s website. We’d selected this goal, because we wanted to drive much traffic to the website as possible. But we didn’t consider if that traffic would be likely to purchase. After a few days, we’d only had one sale, and so we investigated what we could do better. Then we found this article about ad optimisation. After tweaking the campaign to have the goal ‘Conversions’, and to be optimised for the ‘Add to cart’ conversion event, 70+ orders were placed within a week. We were amazed with the result of a simple tweak.

So, now that you’re convinced Conversion Optimisation is going to be your new best-friend, let’s dive into how to set up ads that will make your money well worth it.

Set up your Campaign with the goal ‘Conversions’

If you’re selling product online, then set up your Facebook campaign with the goal ‘Conversions’. This is the very first decision you make about your campaign, and you’ll need to make sure your Facebook Pixel is connected to your website in order for this type of goal to work. On a side note, here is how to create and add a Facebook Pixel to your website.

 

Facebook Campaign for Conversions Goal
Choose your Conversion Event

Now that your campaign is set up for conversions, you’ll need to select a conversion event in the Ad Set. This is a certain action a consumer takes on their path to purchasing a product and works alongside the Consumer Funnel (a nifty marketing model we still use all the time). The conversion event is where you’ll choose what action you want your audience to take.

Facebook Ad Conversion Event Selection

Now, generally speaking, we’d want people to purchase your product, so choosing the event ‘Purchase’ seems obvious. Well, actually, you’ll miss a heap of people who might be interested in your product by selected such a small segment. Referring to the Consumer Funnel below, you’ll see that at each ‘conversion event’ you move through you lose consumers along the way. Hence, the upside-down triangle, indicative of the market size for each event.

Consumer Funnel

If you’re looking to reach a lot of interested people (and especially if this is your first-time advertising on Facebook), choose either ‘Leads’ or ‘Add to Cart’. If you are running a retarget ad, you’ll want to choose an event further down the Consumer Funnel, because you know they already are interested in what you are selling. Facebook’s rule of thumb is that you need to select an event that is being completed at least 15-25 times a week. Why? Because Facebook uses the data from goal completions to help place your ad in front of consumers who are predicted to act in the same way.