Overview

Why should you care about Facebook Ads?

Facebook is the second largest platform for advertising, next to Google. With Facebook ads, you have the ability to target very granular audiences and to use a highly varied set of creative methods. 

When are Facebook Ads right for you?

Facebook ads may be right for you if you have compelling creatives and/or value propositions, and if you have a budget that allows for exploration and optimization over time. 

When are Facebook Ads not right for you?

Facebook ads might not be right for you if your customers are not on Facebook (large enterprise clients, for example), and if you don’t have an advertising budget. 

How do Facebook Ads fit into the big picture?

Facebook Advertising is typically a top-of-the-funnel, awareness-building channel. While it can be used as a direct response platform, it is best used for awareness-building in combination with direct response. Facebook is a must-explore channel for companies advertising online. 

What are the most important high-level Facebook Ad concepts?

As with Google, ad quality and bids determine deliverability on Facebook. Your creative must be continually tested to improve the audience/creative match. Facebook users are primarily mobile, so the user experience must be simple, from both an ad and landing page standpoint. When constructing your campaigns, there will be 4 major vectors to test: audience, placement, image, and copy.

Where are the best resources online for Facebook Ads?

JonLoomer.com, Facebook Power Editor, Adespresso

Checklist

• Use good naming conventions
• Ensure each audience is unique
• Set up your conversion pixel 
• Optimize for conversions (though this may limit delivery)
• Set up custom scheduling (day/time parting) 
• Try targeting friends of fans
• Use Lookalike audiences
• Use custom audiences (site visitors, email lists, etc)
• Overlap targeting methods to refine audience
• Choose the right call-to-action for your goal
• Try dynamic product ads for retargeting
• Try lead capture ads
• Ask questions in ads to increase CTR
• Use cold audience strategies such as gated content, blog content and earned media to warm up potential customers/leads
• Use UTM tags in all of your ad landing pages
• In general, use daily budgets instead of lifetime
• Use oCPM bidding to start a campaign
• Use CPM bidding for Retargeting campaigns
• Start broad then refine (depending on goals)
• Don’t let ad frequency go over 1.5, otherwise audiences will saturate
• Use less than 20% text in ads
• Monitor comments on ads and respond
• Test right column ads in addition to newsfeed ads
• When running the same ad over multiple sets, use the existing post so that you don't lose likes/shares
• Create a lookalike audience based on conversions
• Exclude custom audiences of people who have converted on your site already
• Use addresses to target specific companies/people