Facebook is starting to ramp up its revenue as it leverages its 600 million user database with all its captured personal data that people have entered when registering. The main source of revenue is banner ads that can be easily set up in a matter of minutes.
The major advantage that Facebook has over Google is the customer data that enables advertisers to target customers very specifically including age, sex, location, like and dislikes and you can even select specific Facebook pages or companies. It is also very cost effective and you can select how much you want to pay per day and cap it.
So what are the 10 simple steps to advertise on Facebook?
Step One: Go to Your Facebook Page
You do need to be a registered user on Facebook to create and place an advertisement.
Step Two: Click on the “Advertising” Text Button
This at the at the bottom right of your Facebook Home page
Step Three: Click On “Create an Ad”
Step Four: Design Your Ad
- Use an existing ad: This makes it easy to rinse and repeat if you want to take an initial pilot campaign from test to a full blown campaign)
- Destination URL (the link you are going to send people to when they click on your ad). This can be a contact us form or some other call to action landing page that converts the “click through” to an inquiry,subscription or purchase or whatever the action you are requiring from the advertisement on Facebook.
- Title: This is your headline that makes it compelling and tempting for the reader to click
- Body Text: This only provides you only 135 characters so it has to provide an opening sentence that wants the reader to continue through to the link
- Image: Select the banner graphic that your web designer can easily create in a compatible passive (jpeg) or animated (gif) format for placement on Facebook page
Step Five: Targeting
This allows you to select an entire country, State or City. You can then select target age and sex in the Demographics and then you can get really granular in terms of your target customer with their likes and dislikes.
- Location
- Demographics
- Likes and Interests
- Connections (optional)
- Advanced Targeting Options (which includes a range of elements such as birthdays, male, female, relationships and languages and you can even target education levels and work)
Step Six: Campaigns, Pricing And Scheduling
- This where you can name your campaign
- Select your budget range (you can cap it at very low levels to test the market and keep to budget and you can even set what you are willing to pay per click or impression). I tend to use pay per click because at least I know I am getting people to my landing page.
- Set the campaign so it runs only one day, one week or one month or what ever length you like). I like to run a test or pilot campaign first so I can check to see whether it is effective and whether I need to adjust my bid level or budget per day to achieve the campaign goals.
Step Seven: Review Your Ad
Just take a minute to ensure that your spelling and grammar is correct before placing the order
Step Eight: Place Your Order
This where you pull out the credit card and enter the essential details
Step Nine: Wait for Approval
This can a few hours or a day or two and longer if you do it over a weekend as it goes to Facebook to be manually approved
Step Ten: Monitor, Measure And Modify
Facebook provides a tool that graphs and shows you the number of clicks per day you are receiving and also how much each day is costing you). I would recommend that you test your ad and run a test pilot campaign for 7 to 14 days to monitor and measure your campaign and then you can further test your modifications.
So have a go and try some Facebook advertising and I look forward to hearing your stories.
Image by Eveline314