When you’re on the hunt for Facebook advertising tips and advice for running your best campaign yet, it can be tough to find all of the information you need in one place. Often, you’ll find one or two tips in one place, but you’ll have to keep searching for a truly comprehensive guide to Facebook advertising.
Your Comprehensive List of Facebook Advertising Tips
To help you optimize your Facebook advertising efforts, we have created a comprehensive list of our top Facebook advertising tips all in one place. We’ve also conveniently broken them down into three groups: general Facebook advertising tips, tips for successful campaigns, and tips for maximizing conversions.
5 Tips For Facebook Advertising
Let’s get started with our general Facebook advertising tips!
Make sure your ads stand out
Have you ever been annoyed by an ad that pops up in your Facebook feed? And conversely, have you ever stopped to learn more about an ad that catches your attention? What is it about those ads that either repulse you or appeal to you? Take a moment to study ads and try to understand why some ads work for you and why some ads don’t.
Whatever the case, you need to make sure that your ads are standing out. Make them visual, make them short and make them concise and to the point. Really focus on the visual part as well because people will most likely be drawn in by your image long before they read your copy or call to action.
You may be targeting the ‘right’ people, but that doesn’t mean that your ad will stand out. People are on Facebook to chat with friends and family, to share cat memes and funny videos and your ad is honestly interrupting that. So you better make sure that it catches their attention with humor, beauty, a fantastic discount or maybe a free offer. Get creative and think outside the box.
Target your specific audience
Speaking of targeting the ‘right’ people, it’s extremely important that you’re very specific with who you want to reach. The broader your target market is, the less likely it is that you’ll get much engagement from your ad. What is YOUR target audience interested in? Where does YOUR target audience live?
You can get incredibly specific with your ads, including:
- People who have engaged with a post
- People who have viewed a video
- Users who have opened or completed a lead form
- People who have visited your site
And so much more. The more specific you are, the better. You want to target people who will actually be interested in what you have to offer, not people who “maybe” might be interested. Too many advertisers waste money by wanting to reach everyone ever on Facebook, but not everyone on Facebook is your target market. Be specific.
Install Facebook Pixel on your website
Facebook Pixel tracks all kinds of great information that you can leverage towards Facebook ads. It ensures your ads are being shown to people who are most likely to engage with your ad. As a bonus, it also helps you learn a bit more about the traffic on your website. You can get Facebook Pixel straight from Facebook.
Monitor performance
What many businesses tend to do is set up the ad and forget it until it’s completed its course. Instead, monitor the performance of the ad and adjust along the way. If you see something out of the ordinary, such as lower clicks than expected, you could adjust your call to action, or the ad text or maybe even the target audience. Monitor it daily and adjust as needed. You don’t need to continue wasting money on an ad that isn’t working, adjust it as many times as you need to in order to make it work.
A/B Testing your Facebook advertising tips
Speaking of monitoring performance, one of the best things you can do for your advertising is to do some A/B testing. Throw out a couple of ads that are different in a few ways, such as a different call to action, different pictures, different targeting, etc. Set them as if they were real ads because you’re going to need to see real results.
So, you’ll need to send people to a page, maybe it could be a ‘coming soon page’ if you’re not ready to send them to a real sales page or product just yet. Just make sure you’re making a real offer and sending them to a real webpage, offering a real phone number, offer, etc. You need to see real results so the ads need to be real. In the end, evaluate the results. A/B testing can work wonders to get the hang of targeting the right audience with the right ads.
Bottom line, your ad needs to appeal to the Facebook user in some way or another. Facebook advertising needs to stick with the heart of social media and make it about them and their needs. People are being torn this way and that way to spend their hard-earned money, it’s up to you to be creative enough to convince them to spend it with your business.
24 Facebook Advertising Tips for Successful Campaigns
Now, let’s move on to our 24 best Facebook advertising tips to set up and start running successful campaigns.
Use video to your advantage
Video ads on Facebook are known to perform better than any other type of ad on Facebook. They are attention-grabbing and serve as a fantastic way to efficiently talk about your offered product or service.
We talk more about the benefits of Facebook video ads here.
Create lead form ads
Facebook lead form ads provide the perfect way to reach email subscribers. You might ask returning visitors to sign up for your email newsletter with a lead form ad.
This helps to generate more high-quality leads as this group of visitors includes those who have already had an interaction with your brand.
Use Facebook Ads to retarget video viewers
Similar to how you would use lead form ads, you can use your Facebook ads to retarget those who view your videos. Delivering an additional piece of content that provides value to them right after they have already interacted with your brand is a sure way to drive a quality lead.
Try using Facebook Pixel
You can install Facebook pixel onto your website in order to track the actions that users take on your website and use that information to retarget them.
Get conversations going with Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger is a great way to make your advertising method more personal and engaging. Use it as a way to start conversations with potential customers and make yourself available to answer their questions.
While it can be tedious, the payoff this type of outreach provides can be great.
Make use of UTM parameters
Adding UTM parameters to your Facebook ads makes it a lot easier to collect data that you can trust. It takes a few minutes to set up but can be great for tracking more reliable information.
Customize lookalike audiences
Custom audiences and lookalike audiences help you to expand your reach and increase your chances of advertising success.
Lookalike audiences specifically can help to target those who share similar traits to those that currently engage with your Facebook page. They can help you to define who shows interest in your related product or service offerings.
Use trial and error
It’s going to take some trial and error, and testing to get your Facebook ads right. Test both lead ads and conversion ads to see what gets better results for your business.
It may take a few attempts to see what is going to get you the best ROI.
Create ads for Facebook Marketplace
An interesting way to advertise on Facebook is to create ads for Facebook marketplace.
Audiences in the marketplace include those who are currently ready to make a purchase which means your ad is more likely to convert.
Use the lowest cost bid strategy
There are different Facebook ad bidding strategies: lowest cost and target cost. Using the lowest cost bid strategy is best for your every day ads in comparison to target cost which is better for long-term campaigns.
Incorporate discounts and offers
One of our favorite Facebook advertising tips is to offer a discount on your ad. A discount encourages users to want to engage with it even more! A simple price reduction is an easy way to pull viewers in and get them to make a purchase at a discounted price.
Other offers like freebies and contests also work in much the same way. Users are given a unique offer that entices them to engage.
Ensure you’re setting up ads with the correct objective
If you set up your Facebook ad with the incorrect objective then it is a lot less likely to perform. Facebook algorithms are sophisticated and will work to help you achieve the objective that you select. Select the option that best suits your specific needs.
Target hyper-responsive users with custom audiences
The ones who are going to be most responsive to your Facebook ads are those who already know about your business.
Advertise to the customers that are known to be hyper-responsive to help drive better results. This is more effective than delivering to cold audiences who don’t know your brand.
Think about the structure of your Facebook Ad
The structure of your Facebook ad is more important than you might think. It can affect the performance of the ad and save time when it comes to trial and error and optimization.
You can learn more about how to structure your Facebook ads and maximize conversions here.
Test with warm audiences
Choose a warm audience as your target audience to help get a feel for how interested users are going to react to your ads. This method can also help you to establish your expertise and get a solid start on making sales.
Focus on important metrics only
Facebook ad manager provides a lot of functionality and also a lot of options when it comes to metrics. Vanity metrics are interesting to look at, but don’t necessarily tell the whole story.
There is likely only 1 or 2 metrics that are going to be valuable to your business. Look at your goals and focus on these results.
Try broadening your target audience
One of the best features that Facebook advertising has to offer is the ability to customize your target audience. However, sometimes broadening your audience can be an effective method for expanding your potential target market.
Target customers from your competitors
Custom audiences give you the option to target your competitors’ customers and offer them something your competitor can’t. You might try offering the same product or service at a lower price, or show how yours are better.
Try out interactive Facebook advertising
Another great Facebook advertising tip is to make your Facebook ads interactive in order to get even further engagement. You might try out quizzes and polls through Facebook, or ask a question for audience input.
Carousel ads are also a great way to get your audience’s attention and encourage them to participate.
Dynamic retargeting for driving Ecommerce results
Dynamic retargeting campaigns can be great for driving results for those with eCommerce businesses. When a user looks at a product you offer, you can retarget that user with a Facebook ad. This feature is incredibly easy to set up on Facebook.
Grab your audience’s attention
Use a callout to grab your audience’s attention. You might ask a direct question that specifically relates to your target audience or say something that will resonate with only them.
This lets your audience know that this ad is for them.
Keep text to a minimum
When looking at your ad creative, think about the attention span of your audience. It’s likely that they will keep scrolling through their feed if the text is too long. Keep ads to 20% or less text.
(Learn more about Facebook Ad creative with our high-converting cheat sheet.)
Incorporate emojis
Facebook is not a professional platform which means that emojis can be used in your ad copy to help it stand out. Emojis are more attention-grabbing than regular text and can add a light and fun feel to your message.
Use page posts as ads
Regular page posts are great for making ads feel more natural and organic to users as they pop up in their news feed. Share page posts with plenty of likes, shares, and comments to help improve performance.
Facebook Advertising Tips to Maximize Conversions
Facebook advertising is becoming more and more popular. Especially as organic reach on Facebook has become harder to accomplish in more recent times.
Audiences still exist on Facebook which makes it a continued ideal platform for social media marketing, to target people and maximizes conversions. This is why Facebook advertising tips are useful in a time like this.
19 Facebook Advertising Tips for Maximizing Conversions
Here are 19 of our best tips for maximizing conversions with Facebook advertising!
Have intention behind every post
When you create your Facebook ad, it should have intention behind it in order to be most successful, rather than tossing up any old content. When posts are created with intention, they are more likely to relate to your target audience.
Use a content calendar and schedule ads
A content calendar should be used for Facebook ad campaigns so that you can intentionally align with your campaign strategy and help you stay organized.
You might also consider scheduling ads at a specific time each day. This can help to ensure that your ad is running while your audience is online which ultimately increases your chances of gaining subscribers, viewers, and customers.
Create a community page
Adding a community page to your Facebook page can help increase organic reach and Facebook audience engagement with your page.
Once a Facebook user has seen your ad and engaged with it, they can use your community page to keep up an ongoing relationship with your brand. The more opportunities you give them to interact with your brand, the more likely they are going to.
Sync your landing page
Your landing page has a lot to do with the effectiveness of your Facebook ad. It’s always best to create an ad and a landing page that match one another, from the messaging to the layout.
When your ad and your landing page work together, Facebook users are less likely to bounce away from the landing page. This helps to increase conversions and make ads more effective.
Target the right clients with your Facebook advertising
You can have the best and most ‘ conversion-worthy ad out there, but if the right clients don’t see it, then it’s not worth your time or money.
Facebook targeting allows you to target users based on their individual interests and demographics. This means that your product or service is getting in front of the right eyes and avoids wasting time in front of the wrong ones.
Look at audience insights
Audience insights within the Facebook platform is a powerful tool for helping you to better understand your audience. Use audience insights to see specific demographics on who is viewing your ads and when they are online to engage with it.
Use this data to make informed decisions on what content to post and what days/times are going to be most effective.
Embed Facebook videos
The secret to getting the most engagement out of videos in your ads is to embed them directly. Facebook favors videos that are directly embedded which helps to increase engagement levels considerably.
Keep Facebook advertising copy short
When it comes to Facebook ads, less is more! Keeping Facebook ad copy short (under 150 characters), helps your ad to receive better engagement.
These days attention spans are short. This means Facebook users are more willing to engage with a post that quickly sparks their interest over one that is long and sure to take time to read.
Be specific about your offer
Like we said above, attention spans are short. This means that getting the point across almost instantly is the key to driving conversions.
Be specific about exactly what it is that your Facebook ad is offering to your audience and what they can get from clicking on it. The less work they have to do to figure out what it is you’re offering the more likely they are to take you upon it.
Collaborate with others (and exchange your favorite Facebook advertising tips!)
Collaboration is a great way to help improve reach. While your ad goes out to your target audience, it can get better engagement if audience members recognize another brand that you are associating yourself with. If a direct collaboration with another leader in your industry isn’t possible, you might consider referencing them in your ad as another way to create recognition.
Use the power of emotion
The ability to strike emotion in people is a powerful tool. It can help your target audience to develop a connection with your brand and also make your brand feel more humanized.
You might provide a solution to a pain point, talk about benefits, or show how your product or service could be the solution to their problems.
Boost posts
Boosting regular Facebook posts is a great way to obtain further reach on them without needing a huge budget. Audience targeting is also possible with this method.
Try your best to blend in
You want your ad to feel like it is a part of a Facebook user’s regular feed, rather than an ad. Try to make ad content friendly, familiar and entertaining.
Use Facebook advertising to promote a free offer
All types of audiences love anything free. By promoting a free offer, you will start to see a significant increase in engagement with your ad. Of course, this is great for your brand!
Free offers also provide a way for customers to have a reason to get started with the product or service you offer, which can lead to more sales in the future.
Use a call to action
Once your audience sees your ad and consumes it, they need direction on what to do next. A call to action gives them this direction.
Remember: call to action should work to get the reader interested in learning more.
Think about your lead magnet
What are you putting into your ad that encourages customers to give their email or some other form of contact information? Include a lead magnet in your ad by offering something of value to customers in exchange for this information.
A lead magnet could include things like a white paper, article, email subscription, or another free resource.
Use retargeting ads
Retargeting ads are ads that target those who have already shown interest in your content in some way. Facebook ads manager allows you to create custom audiences to retarget users who have watched your videos.
Include certain types of photos
Funnily enough, professional photos aren’t always the best option for your ads. Stock style photos tend to fall by the wayside.
For best results, try to use photos that are more likely to blend in with your target audience’s feed. This helps your ad come across as less “salesy.”
Track your progress with these Facebook advertising tips continuously
To best understand what is working with your Facebook ad campaign and what isn’t, you need to track and collect data continuously.
Once you have this data, you can use it to make adjustments to your current ads and help them to maximize conversions even further.
Can’t Get Enough Facebook Advertising Tips?
Blue Water Marketing has covered a LOT in this post. But we know the world of Facebook advertising is a big one, and there’s a lot to discuss. Do you have questions about these Facebook advertising tips or other tips you would add to this list? Let us know!