Didn’t get a chance to check out the Trada Webinar on making Facebook ads work for you? No worries! Here at BlitzLocal, we watched and learned, and took some notes for you. They started with an educational slideshow about the different types of Facebook ads, and finished by answering questions from the chat window. Here are our notes, and some additional article links for extra information.
The Bottom Line: Facebook Ads are the most versatile, targeted way to advertise online, and they have incredible reach.
Challenges with Facebook Advertising
Banner Blindness
You have to hire a graphic artist to make all the ad creatives
Facebook Glossary:
Connections: The number of individuals who liked your Facebook page, RSVP’d to your event, or installed your app within 24 hours of seeing your ad or sponsored story. Basically, a connection is a conversion.
Unique Reach: The number of individual people who saw your sponsored stories or ads.
Social Reach: The number of people who saw your sponsored stories or ads because their friends liked your page, RSVP’d to your event, or used your app.
Frequency: The average number of times each person saw your campaign’s sponsored story or ad. This is helpful for measuring ad fatigue.
Basic Ad Formats
Basic Ads
“Like” ad: Links to tab on Facebook page
Event ad: Links to event
Application ad: Links to application
Standard ad: Links to specific URL
Sponsored Stories
Page “Like” Story: Mary-Jane likes your page, Page “like” Story lets Mary-Jane’s friends know about the like
Page Post Story: You published a post to your page’s fans. Page Post Story allows this post to show up in fans’ news feeds
Pages Post “Like” Story; Alex liked one of your page posts in the last 7 days. Page Post “like” Story lets Alex’s friends know about the post like
App Used and Game Played Story: Lauren played/used your game or app. App Used/Game Played Story tells her friends about this action
App Share Story: Hayes shared a story from your app in the last 7 Days. App Share Story lets Hayes’ friends know about the share
Check-in Story: Lisa checked in or claimed a deal using Facebook Places. Check-in Story lets Lisa’s friends know about it.
Domain Story: Mike liked/shared content from your website or pasted a link from your site to his wall. Domain Story lets Mike’s friends know about this action.
The complexity and potential of targeting on Facebook
There are so many ways of targeting that it can be confusing
Age, likes, interests, birthday, apps, education, timeline content, friends, event RSVPs, fans
When choosing targets, focus on two things:
Narrowing your audience
Demo and Geo Targeting
Geography: Country, State, Province, City or Zip targeting
Demographics: Gender, Age, Birthday, Relationship Status, Language
Workplace and Education Targeting
Workplace, Education, Preferred Language
Likes and Interests Targeting
Favorite TV Shows, Movies, Books, Music, Hobbies, Religion, Political Views
Thinking outside the box – Let’s say you want to sell golf clubs
Nick (who plays golf) is an obvious target
Barbara doesn’t like golf – but she likes the Palm Beach Country Club
Chaz doesn’t have the word golf anywhere on his profile, but he plays golf for a living: he’s a sales guy!
Try the obvious targets, but Facebook’s best advertisers use non-linear thinking to target ads.
Campaign Organization Tips
An “Account” in Facebook is similar to a “Campaign” in Paid Search
A “Campaign” in Facebook is similar to “Ad Group” in Paid Search
Warning: Don’t create campaigns with many different targets and ads. Keep your campaigns small.
Do not put all segmented target groups in one campaign – as your ads are competing within the campaign.
Prevent ad fatigue, or banner blindness by changing ads frequently
As soon as CTR trends down, submit new content!
Q&A:
What is a good CTR?
What images work best?
Logos traditionally don’t work well
Images of people are effective
Format design keeping small size in account
What is a preferred or optimal frequency?
Keep it small!
6,7,8 is bad
Any issues with click fraud?
There is a department at Facebook dedicated to click fraud with a sophisticated monitoring team.
More difficult to produce in Facebook than in search where you can just search to make a specific ad appear.
How will timeline affect ads/business pages?
Fans much more likely to take some type of action than non-fans.
Targeting workplaces is a great tool for B2B marketing.
What sort of company uses page post story? How breaking should the news be? What types of posts work best?
Entertainment, news businesses using these most effectively
Have emotional connection so people will click
Is there advertising on Facebook mobile?
In testing, not released to general public yet.
Notes taken by BlitzLocal Analyst Matt Prater
Graphics obtained from: http://www.slideshare.net/TradaPaidSearch/facebook-ads-you-can-make-them-work and www.facebook.com.