For those who own an ecommerce and want to sell online, it is no longer conceivable to be able to do without social network, especially Facebook; used for many years now, as a real sales tool, allows you to advertise in a simple and effective way by reaching a target that is really interested in the products/services offered by the brand.
Specifically, it is Facebook Ads that allows you to do all of this: just follow very specific steps to insert the reference parameters and obtain (hopefully!) excellent results. Here are the 7 main steps:
1. Create the company Facebook page
Facebook doesn’t allow advertising on private profiles, so you need to have a page to proceed. If it has not yet been created, the procedure is really very simple and intuitive and involves:
- enter your personal profile;
- click on the down arrow located at the top of the desktop, or on the main menu from mobile;
- select Create a page;
- choose the type of page activity from the menu that appears;
- choose the category to which the company belongs (local business or place, company, organization or institution, brand or product, artist, band or personality, entertainment, cause or community);
- enter basic information (business name, address and phone number, profile picture and preferred audience);
- with regard to the public, the system also asks you to specify some parameters (position, gender, interests).
Selecting the target of interest is practically essential, because it is the one that must be reached and involved through advertising and sponsorship activities.
2. Access ad management
After creating the business page, you can proceed with the next step, which involves entering all the characteristics necessary for creating an advertisement. Must:
- enter the page management section;
- select Create Listings from the drop down menu.
At this point, the system sends you directly to the ad creation page where you can specify the objectives, recipients, budget and duration of the ad.
3. Choose the goal
We then move on to choosing the objective of the advertising campaign, i.e. the salient feature of the whole operation which can be reconnected to 3 main categories:
- notoriety: the aim is to generate interest in the product/service or brand;
- consideration: people who already know the brand are encouraged to request information;
- conversions: users are encouraged to buy or use a service.
Based on these macro areas, Facebook suggests 8 goals in particular:
- boost your posts: promote a single post already published on the page;
- promote your page: increase your fan base;
- direct people to your website: bring users to the site;
- increase conversions on your website: pushes users to perform certain actions directly on the site (e.g. buy, book, find out more);
- get installs of your app: entice people to install your brand app on desktop or mobile;
- increase interaction with your application: pushes users to use the desktop app;
- reach people close to your company: the advertisement is shown to people who are in the area;
- increase participation in your event: increase the number of participants in a previously created event;
- get people to ask for your offer: a promotion is generated to be used both in the physical store and in the online one;
- get video views: increase the views of a video on the page.
Choosing one of these 8 main goals helps Facebook understand which direction to take, in order to fully focus on the result you intend to achieve.
4. Target potential customers
Once this is done, you can move on to selecting the target to show the advertising message through Facebook’s audience targeting tools. Consequently, for each ad you must specify:
- location (state, region, province, city, zip code, address);
- age (there are different groups between 18 and 65 years);
- gender (men, women, everyone).
In addition to these parameters, it is possible to indicate other optional data that allow you to target the audience in more detail, such as:
- relationship status;
- educational level;
- if employers;
- whether businesses or artisans;
- professional titles;
- if parents.
Furthermore, some topics of greatest interest can be indicated, a very important aspect for Facebook which aims precisely to discover user preferences. Simply put, the more details you enter, the more coverage your ad will get.
Next, the Behaviors section allows you to filter your audience based on criteria related to their buying habits or areas, such as:
- digital assets;
- seasonal activities and events;
- expatriates;
- mobile device users;
- trips.
Finally, in Connection it is possible to indicate the public to be reached with a specific device with respect to the connection relationship with:
- the page (fan or non-fan);
- the application (whether already downloaded or not);
- an event (whether announced or section not).
The advice is to always be as exhaustive as possible, in order to intercept the public really interested in your products/services, thus avoiding waste of time and money.
5. Set budget, duration and optimization
The next step involves setting other important parameters, such as the budget, the duration of the advertisement and its optimization.
The budget can be set on a daily basis or by setting a total maximum ceiling that must cover the entire campaign. In the latter case, it is necessary to specify the start date and end date of the sponsorship.
Alternatively, you can opt for a bid based on goal, clicks or reviews.
6. Insert images and text
The sponsorship, at this point, is almost ready, so it is possible to move on to the creative aspect which involves inserting the right images and captivating copy, both in line with the advertising objective.
Facebook allows you to insert, for each individual ad, a maximum of 6 images which must have suitable dimensions according to the set objective. Before uploading them, therefore, it is useful to keep in mind that the ad will be shown on both desktop and mobile and that the image must be optimized to the fullest (simply, you cannot exceed 20% of the prepared area) .
The accompanying copy, then, must be short but incisive, as well as engaging and able to generate curiosity. It must be able to capture attention, entice the user to perform a certain action and push him so that the goal set by the campaign can be achieved.
7. Place your ad
The last step consists in positioning the ad, for which it is possible to choose between 3 spaces reserved for it:
- news feed desktop;
- news feed mobile;
- right column of the news feed.
After that, you just have to wait for the system to verify the ad to finally see it published.
How to monitor results
Once the announcement has been published, it is necessary to monitor its progress and evaluate the results. Fortunately, Facebook provides several tools that allow you to do this and understand if you are moving in the right direction. The two main ones are Facebook Pixels and Facebook Insight, both of which are very useful for discovering interactions, better times and days, likes on posts, comments and so on.
The benefits of advertising on Facebook
Advertising on Facebook has a large number of advantages for those who want to sell and make their brand known online; first of all, the fact that the platform gives the possibility to choose one’s target audience, which cookie-based advertising does not allow to do.
Furthermore, with Facebook you can highlight even a single post without necessarily having to put on an entire campaign, in order to highlight the contents little by little without confusing the user. But that’s not all: the budget can be managed in a simple and flexible way, starting with a small investment to be increased over time (and based on the results obtained).
Finally, Facebook provides the page owner with a very extensive report, which provides detailed information that is very useful for monitoring the progress of advertising, correcting errors and changing direction in the event that the one undertaken is not actually the best.