Facebook advertising is undoubtedly a popular and powerful way to promote a business.
The social platform now has more than 2 billion monthly active users, and in the previous year, it generated more than $15.28 billion in mobile ad revenue. It also now captures more than 1 in 5 digital ad spend dollars.
However, just because Facebook ads are a promotional tactic that works for many companies and that many advertisers choose to harness, it doesn’t mean that Facebook advertising works the same for every company across the board.
In fact, companies should approach Facebook advertising differently, especially based on their size, budgets and objectives.
According to Neil Patel, 62% of small businesses fail at Facebook advertising. However, if smaller-sized businesses retailored their approach to advertising on Facebook (which should be different from that of MNCs), they could better use the platform to grow their audience and generate more revenue.
If you run a small business but you want to harness the power of Facebook advertising, the following tips may help. These actionable ideas are tailored to small businesses who want to place the right kind of ads on Facebook, target the right kind of people with Facebook, and spend the right amount of advertising dollars on Facebook ads so that their ad spend pays off.
Small Business Tips for Effective Facebook Advertising
If you run a small business and you want to advertise on Facebook, consider utilizing the following tactics.
Target a Very Specific Audience
Start your advertising efforts on Facebook by targeting the right audience. Facebook allows you to get really specific about who sees your ad, by allowing you to use tools that let you specify audience characteristics (by things like location, demographics, interests, connection, behavior and more).
Don’t try to compete with large corporations by outbidding them on the mass market (most likely, you just don’t have the advertising dollars to do it).
Instead, get really narrow about who is going to see your ad – that is, people in your immediate geographic vicinity; people who have expressed interested, followed, or purchased from a direct competitor; or people in a very, very targeted age group that you know your brand resonates with.
By drilling down to a super specific audience, you can ensure that you’re spending your advertising budget on ads that are reaching people that are really going to want to buy from you, specifically.
Take Advantage of the Power of Remarketing
Facebook offers a powerful tool that many small businesses overlook: the ability to remarket to audiences. You can add a Facebook Pixel to your website code. This pixel will use JavaScript to track any Facebook users and then shows them ads with content from your site when they return to scroll through their Facebook newsfeed.
Try paying to Boost Posts from your Business’ Facebook Page
Last year, Facebook changed its algorithm to make sure people saw more content from the friends and family they’re connected with and less marketing content from businesses. Because of this change in algorithm, Facebook organic reach is now nearly non-existent.
In fact, experts believe that organic reach could be as low as 2% of a business’ audience. Because organic reach is so low, it may make sense to put some budget behind your content to make sure it gets seen. (After all, it doesn’t make sense to spend time and money on Facebook posts that aren’t going to appear in people’s feeds).
One cost-effective solution for small businesses that want to start growing by advertising on Facebook is using paid promotion. If your small business has its own Facebook page, you can post content on that Facebook page. Then, if you want more people to see that particular post, you can boost it – and the cost to boost a post starts at only $20.
Paid promotion of posts is a good way to use Facebook for reaching a wider audience without spending too much on advertising you aren’t sure will pay off.
When you do boost a post, make sure you target specific locations, demographics, interests, and more. Also be very clear with the CTA in that boosted post. Make sure it drives followers to do something that could turn them into a lead or a paying customer, like to visit your website or head to a landing page.
Don’t just encourage likes or comments, which is good for Facebook page engagement, but not necessarily going to increase business.
Use Video Ads
Recent research shows that for small businesses, video advertising pays off on Facebook.
More people currently watch video ad content on Facebook than they do on YouTube. Also, about 70% of Facebook users said they visited a company’s website after they watched their video ad on Facebook.
Finally, Facebook is getting better about showing the right ad content to the right people, and about 71% of consumers said that the video ad content they encountered on the platform felt relative to them. Take advantage of this accuracy and invest in video ads.
Check Facebook Ad Reports
One of the best parts of Facebook advertising is that you can look at ad reports from the platform to see how your ads are doing. These useful analytics allow you to gauge what’s working and what’s not, then tweak your ads show you’re sure that you’re investing in something that will work.
When you check Facebook ad reports, you can take in things like engagement and clicks, or view results by things like video view type, the day a video was viewed and more. Harness the power of data analysis in order to create ads that are more accurate and effective.
Opt for a Cost-Effective Solution Over an Agency
When it comes to Facebook advertising, many companies use agencies to help them generate smart creatives or to design ads that look great over and over again. However, you don’t have to shoulder the cost and headache of using a large agency in order to come up with great looking ad creatives, even if you feel like coming up with enough smart, effective content is a challenge.
One good strategy for good Facebook ads is using a resource like Creadits. Creadits is focused on helping you generate and test more ad creatives based on different creative concepts cost-effectively to maximize your ad performance. This ensures you can optimize your campaigns with the best content, but not spend an arm and a leg on agency services your business does not actually need.
