A Guide to Facebook Ads 2021
Facebook has over 2.8 billion active users, and using Facebook ads is the number one way to advertise on a digital platform, as Facebook ads result in the highest return on investment compared to all other forms of paid advertising channels. Facebook ads are made to get a brand’s message right in front of the exact demographic the content is intended for.
To get the best results using Facebook ads, you need to understand the different types of ads and how they work on the platform. This guide will explain everything you need, from how to advertise on the app to the different types of ads, and even some tips and tricks throughout.
Types of Facebook ads
Image ads: Image ads are simple, you can create one by boosting an existing image post from your Facebook page.
Video ads: Video ads give you a chance to be more creative. They can be used to show a product or something in action that wouldn’t be able to capture with static imagery.
Poll ads: This is a mobile-only feature that gives an interactive element to an image or video ad by adding a two-option poll.
Carousel ads: A carousel ad is an ad that showcases up to 10 images or videos, and each image or video can have its own website link. You can use this ad type to show off different products, or use it to piece together to create one image.
Slideshow ads: These types of ads give you an easy way to create short clips from a selection of photos and videos.
Collection ads: Collection ads are another mobile-only type of ad which allows you to display five images or videos that customers can click to buy from.
Instant Experience ads: Instant Experience ads, previously called Canvas, is a full-screen ad format that loads 15x quicker than a mobile site outside of Facebook.
Lead ads: These ads are only available on mobile devices as they’re designed specifically to make it easier for people to give their contact information without a lot of typing.
Dynamic ads: Dynamic ads enable you to advertise targeted products to the audience most likely to buy.
Messenger ads: Facebook Messenger has 1.3 billion active users every month. When making your ad, you just choose Messenger as your desired placement.
Stories ads: Stories ads are focused mainly on mobile use, as a vertical video format.
Augmented Reality ads: AR ads use features like animations to allow users to interact with your business. They can also be used to extend your reach, for example, designing a filter that people can use and share.
How to Advertise on Facebook
First and most importantly, to advertise on Facebook, you should have a Facebook Business page. If you do, you can head to Facebook Ads Manager to create your campaign. If you don’t have one set up, this is your first step.
Here at the seven steps to using Facebook Ads Manager:
1. Decide your objective
The first step is to log into your Facebook Ads Manager and in the Campaigns tab, press Create to start a new campaign. Facebook offers 11 objectives for your campaign; brand awareness, reach, traffic, engagement, app installs, video views, messages, lead generation, conversions, catalog sales, and store traffic. Base the objectives on your goals, and bear in mind that for conversion-focused objectives, you pay per action, and for exposure objectives, you pay for impressions.
2. Title the campaign
Name your ad campaign, and decide which categories it fits into, ie. politics.
3. Set your budget and schedule
At the top of the screen, you will be able to choose which Page to promote. Now, you will have to decide how much money you want to allocate to your campaign; you can choose a daily or a lifetime budget. Next, you can set the start and end dates, choosing to make it live straight away or in the future.
4. Target your consumer
On this page, you can now scroll down to start developing the target audience for your Facebook ads. You can add a custom audience of people who already interact with your business through Facebook, or outside of. You can also select your audience based on target age, location, gender and language. The page will display your audience size as you make your selections, to give you a sense of your potential reach.
After this, you can be more specific; Detailed Targeting or Connections. Detailed Targeting allows you to target people based on their behaviour and interests. Connections mean you can choose to target or exclude Facebook users who have an existing connection to your business page.
5. Choose ad placements
Next, you can choose where you want your ads to appear. The easiest way to do this is to use Automatic Placements, which automatically places your ads on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. If you want to choose them yourself, you will want to consider the device type, platform, and the placement.
6. Set safety and controls
The Brand Safety section allows you to select any types of content that you want to exclude that would be inappropriate to appear with your ad. After this, you can optimise your ad bidding strategy and bid control, but if you want, can choose the default options.
7. Create your ad
Now you can create your ad. First, you need to choose your ad format, entering the text and image elements. This part of the process gives you the opportunity to be creative. You can experiment with turning static imagery into video or create slideshows. Before publishing your ad, Facebook gives you the option to preview it to make sure you’re happy.
Facebook ads can seem very confusing and very overwhelming at first, but hopefully after reading this blog you can get your head around them a lot more easily. If you have any more questions regarding Facebook ads, get in touch with us here. If you want to read any more of our blogs, click here.
