A Rough Guide to Facebook Advertising

Facebook is without doubt the most powerful advertising medium to come along in the history of the Internet. With over 200 million people logging on to Facebook everyday and spending serious amounts of time on the site it is a great platform for businesses to advertise on, providing things are done correctly.
If you are considering advertising on Facebook make note of the following tips to help you get the most out of your investment:

1) Knowing the rules

This is a very important part of the process as without knowing the ground rules you risk having your ad removed and you will lose money in the process. Make sure to familiarise yourself with all their rules before you start and avoid advertising things like “get rich quick schemes” which are not strictly allowed under the rules.

2) Getting approved

Facebook ads are not automatically approved, they are first checked and sometimes take a day or two to get approved. If your ad is not approved remember that just because you get disapproved by one FB employee doesn’t mean that another won’t approve the same ad in an hour or so (sneaky!). The people who approve the ads make mistakes so don’t lose heart if doesn’t go through the first time (plus, there is some inconsistency in the ad approval process).

3) The power of a picture

Although Facebook says that the text on the ad is the most important thing when it comes to getting people to click through, some Internet marketers have found through split-testing various campaigns that the picture is actually more important when it comes to getting people to click. Make sure you take the time to pick a relevant picture that will entice people to click on the ad or at least notice it in the first place.
An attractive image will help your ad stand out so use something eye-catching and relevant to your product or service.

4) Get your target right

Getting to know which target audience is most likely to buy from you is one of the main keys to success when it comes to Facebook advertising. You will be able to advertise to all sorts of groups based on a whole range of different factors so get to know who is most likely to buy from you and target them alone.
When advertising a Facebook page (as opposed to an external URL) you have the option to only show the ad to the friends of those who are already a fan of the page. This is powerful as it activates the social proof element of influence and could result in a better click-through rate. The idea here is that someone who sees an ad and sees that their friends have also ‘liked’ the page will see that as social proof and also click on the ad themselves.

5) Estimate your cost

Facebook's estimator tool will suggest a bid amount based on current competition for your chosen target audience

If you do not know what to bid for a particular ad then the best thing to do is to use the suggested bid that Facebook gives you to help you get started. This little tool will give you a suggested bid window based on how much other advertisers are paying to show their ads to your chosen audience (i.e. calculated using the demographic and other targeting you’ve selected).
Once you have started your campaign, you must keep an eye on your average cost-per-click (or impression) to see whether you can lower your bid to further optimise your ad or whether you need to increase your bid for extra exposure of the ad.

6) Change your ads based on the results that you getting

When you access Facebook ads manager you will be able to access all sorts of data on the response that you’ve received. You will get access here to campaign stats such as click-through rates, number of impressions, how many clicks you’ve had and how much you’ve spent too. You can access the details of the different campaigns that you are running and you will be able to better formulate new ads (or tweak existing ones) that will help you to be more profitable next time based on what you learn from the current campaigns.
Thanks to the highly targeted nature of Facebook advertising it is a great tool to advertise online, if you can take the time to discover what works for you. I personally prefer Facebook Ads over Google Adwords because of the way you can target specific users based on information that they have put on their profiles. The only real way to learn more about Facebook ads (or PPC in general) is to give it a go and launch a couple of campaigns. Ensure that you split-test your campaigns and monitor results to get the best results.


by Suraj Sodha
www.internetmarketinghighway.com