Hints, tips and thoughts from a marketing expert.

Facebook advertising – How to get started easily!

Advertising on Facebook has, without question, become one of the most important tools for marketers. For many SMEs, the step from organic social content to paid content is often a step too far.

Find out how you and your business can make the most of Facebook Ads.

Business is booming on social media

It’s no surprise to anyone, your potential audience on Facebook is massive. There are nearly 45 million people in the UK using Facebook every month.

So even if your business’ Facebook page has a few hundred or a few thousand followers, your potential reach through advertising is probably far greater than any other single channel.

80% – 90% of businesses in the UK are now using social media in one way or another. This number has risen sharply in recent years, matching the number of UK businesses who own a website. So, if you’re not on social media, why not?

Your potential audience on Facebook is massive.

With the vast majority of businesses using social media as part of their marketing mix, it’s time to think about how you can position yourself to customers and set yourself apart from your competition. Advertising on social media platforms such as Facebook is a no brainer. It gets you in front of your potential customers, across all of their devices.

Facebook ad examples

How to start advertising on Facebook

Getting started advertising on Facebook couldn’t be easier, you can advertise straight from your Facebook business page.

There are two ways to advertise:

  1. Boosting organic content – This is the quick and dirty way of sharing an existing piece of content to a wider, predetermined audience.
  2. Ad campaign – this method is all about creating goals and objectives. It gives you more control over the creative and is more suited to those campaigns where you need to say more than one thing.

Some marketers will tell you steer clear of boosting your content because it’s a lazy and clumsy way of advertising. But if you’re just starting out, this is the perfect way to test out the platform without commuting too much budget.
https://www.facebook.com/business/marketing/facebook?_rd

*Top Tip* 

If you’ve got thousands of dedicated followers, but they struggle to see your organic posts. Boost your best performing posts by £30 – £50, but keep your audience set to your followers. If your audience is relatively niche, try setting the audience as ‘People who like your Page and their friends’, as they’re the most likely people to have similar interests to your followers. 

Facebook Ads Audience

Facebook ad budgets are cheaper than you think

You’ll often see marketers talking of using large multimillion-pound marketing budgets and of Facebook generating billions of dollars in ad revenues, but advertising on Facebook is more affordable than you think.

Typically you can boost one of your posts on Facebook from as little as a few pounds a day. But you are going to want to think about the industry you’re in and let that guide your planning.

If you’re selling £5 sunglasses then you may see the value in spending £30-£50 for a 1-2 week campaign.

For higher value purchases, you’re going to want to think about committing more of your marketing budget than that. Yes, even if you’re just starting out.

There are a couple of thoughts about how you go about starting to budget for a campaign. For me, the best thing to do is just test things out. That way you’ll start learning what is and isn’t working for your customers.

Never stop testing.

This article from Keap gives you a better idea of how to go about setting an actual budget.

Measuring ROAS on Facebook

The first time you commit to Facebook advertising you’re usually going to need to prove to your senior management team that the platform is profitable.

Every business is different, so you need to think about what your rate of return is for remaining profitable.

Return on Ad Spend is the easiest and simplest way of measuring how successful a campaign has been.

ROAS Formula

(Revenue/Spend) = Return on Ad Spend

So, if you spend £20 on ads and that returned £100 worth of sunglasses orders your ROAS is 5. For each £1 you spend you get £5 back.

Test test test!

There are loads of different ad objectives, audience metrics and creative types to get into on the Facebook ad platform.

Although testing small budgets won’t give you all of the answers in terms of what will and won’t work for your customers, it should open up some questions for you to explore further.

Never stop testing!


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