If you have no idea how to run a Facebook ad, you’ve landed on the right page. In this article, I will give you a step-by-step walkthrough on how to create your first ever Facebook ad.
Before we get started: you will need a Facebook Page to create adverts on Facebook. You cannot setup a Facebook advert through personal accounts.
Getting Started
To create an advert on Facebook, you will need to head to the Adverts Manager. This is located on the top left hand side of your personal Facebook profile:
Once clicked, you’ll be redirected to the Ads Manager dashboard where you’ll see a green button labelled Create Ad:
Click Create Ad and join me in the next section where we select the objective of our Facebook ad.
Selecting Your Objective
Facebook allows you to create adverts to reach the following objectives:
- Boost your posts – increase the visibility of a previous Facebook update.
- Promote your Page – gain more followers for your Page.
- Send people to your website – drive traffic to your website.
- Increase conversion on your website – generate sales or opt-ins.
- Get installs of your app – drive users to an app store to download your app (only targets mobile devices).
- Increase engagement in your app – drives awareness for your mobile app (can target mobile and desktop users).
- Raise attendance at your event – generates RSVPs to your next event or tradeshow.
- Get people to claim your offer – promote a voucher or deal which can be redeemed though your ad.
- Get video views – increase the visibility of your video.
For the sake of this article I’ve decided to promote a Facebook Page to gain more fans. Choosing increase conversion on your website is a fine goal if you’re looking to generate leads or make a sale, while promoting your posts is ideal for increasing the visibility of blog posts or pictures.
Select the appropriate objective based on what you wish your advert to achieve.
Selecting Your Audience
Targeting your audience is probably the most important step when creating a winning Facebook ad. Last week I showed you how to use Audience Insights which is a free tool providing detailed information on various Facebook audiences.
In that article I wanted to find the age demographics and interests of people who had interests bodybuilding and muscle. If you don’t have the time to read that article, Audience Insights revealed that users who liked bodybuilding and muscle were mostly between the age of 18-34, male, worked in the military and had interests in Muscle & fitness and Dwayne Johnson (movie star).
Using that data I’ve gone ahead and targeted that audience:
The potential reach of the advert set to be seen by 25,000 people since I’ve only targeted people in New York. You can target your audience by country, state, city and zip code. You can also target prospects by job titles and behaviors (expats, travel patterns) but for this example I’ve left them empty.
Pro-tip: You should never blindly target your audience as this will cost you money. At the very least use Audience Insights to understand who you’re advertising to.
You can also create your own custom audience and serve ads to visitors who previously visited your website.
Setting Up Your Budget
Facebook lets you use a daily or lifetime budget when serving your ad. Adverts can be set to run continually until the budget is consumed, or during a specific period of time:
Selecting the get more likes objective allows you to bid for:
- Page Likes – you’ll be charged each time your Page is liked
- Clicks – you’ll be charged each time your advert is clicked
Next you’ll be asked how much you wish to pay per like or click. You can set the amount manually or allow Facebook to optimize your bids to ensure your ads are always served. If you have a budget or know how much each lead is worth, you can set the cost per action manually to know your ROI before you even start.
For example, if your budget is $100 and you vset the cost per like to $1, at the ery minimum you’ll gain 100 new page likes for $100.
If you decide to use this method, Facebook offers their Suggested bid based on the audience you targeted:
Experiment with different bids once your ad goes lives to tweak and optimize your cost per action. You can use the Advert Scheduling and Delivery Type which can serve your ads at certain times of the day and days of the week.
This is great if you’re targeting people within a specific location or defined demographic. For example, high school students will usually access the Internet after they finish school at 5pm until they sleep at 10-11pm. In this example, you could serve your ads at this time and stop them running during school hours or when they go to sleep.
This reduces the likelihood of your ads being seen by the wrong people and inflating your costs.
Designing Your Ad
Campaigns that focus on liking a Page are fairly simple to design, you only need to do the following:
- Add a picture
- create a headline (90 characters)
Once you’ve come up with your copy and picture, your advert will look something like this:
You can choose to serve your ad on the desktop newsfeed, mobile newsfeed and desktop right column:
Once everything is setup and you’re happy, click Place Order and your advert will go live once it’s approved by Facebook.
Summary
It’s as simple as that. Creating a Facebook ad is very simple using the Facebook Adverts Manager. While it’s cool to be able to setup an advert in 10 minutes, setting up campaigns on the fly with little planning is not something I advise.
Make use of Audience Insights, custom audiences and learn how to write compelling ad headlines to make the most of your first ever advert. Following this guide you’ll have your first advert up and running in less than 10 minutes, but take some time in targeting the right audience, selecting the right ad copy and creating more than one ad to see which copy converts best.
Nick Bridges
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