How to advertise on Facebook for the beginner

90% of social media users use Facebook. This makes it the place to be—not only for dog spotting groups but also for small businesses wanting to show off their great products.

Why is it so great for businesses? 

Well, imagine being able to reach your ideal audience base by searching for customers with specific likes, interests, and behaviors. Facebook advertising lets you do just that. 

In this beginner’s guide to advertising on Facebook, we’ll explore why you should use Facebook to advertise, what the ads look like, their effectiveness, and of course, how you can set them up.

Let’s dig in with the obvious question.

Why should I advertise on Facebook?

Like any savvy business owner, you need to understand what makes Facebook such a valuable platform for promoting your business. 

There are a few reasons why you should advertise on Facebook:

1. You get access to an already active user base 

Two billion active monthly users. Now, that’s two billion reasons to advertise on Facebook. 

Seriously though, with that many active monthly users, Facebook gives you access to a primed audience to whom you can advertise. 

If executed correctly, you’ll be able to drive a significant amount of engaged traffic through to your page. 

2. You can easily target your ideal audience

The way Facebook lets advertisers target their ideal audience base makes it highly appealing to small businesses. 

Facebook’s ability to let its users like and connect with their networks allows Facebook to create a very detailed user profile, which is great for advertisers. 

These profiles allow you to filter customers based on their traits, interests, behaviors, and demographics, making it easier to connect with the customers that would be best served by your products.

The users get exposed to something they might like and you get your stuff in front of more eyes.

3. You get great exposure for your brand

Paying to advertise on Facebook allows you to post ads from your Facebook business page. 

This gives interested customers an easy opportunity to navigate to your page, where they can see other products you’re selling, happy customer testimonials, and in general, what you’re about. 

In essence, this is a great chance for you to increase your brand exposure. After all, if they like one product you sell, they’ll probably like the others too. 

Types of Facebook ads

Now that you are excited to get started, let’s break down the types of ads you can utilize on Facebook. 

Depending on what you are selling, you may choose one over another (or just go with them all!).

There are three main types of ads:

1. Image ads. Easy to create, clean, and affordable, an image ad is one of the most effective ad choices you can make.

2. Video ads. If you’ve got a bigger budget, and/or more time, you can create a 15-second video that’ll pop up in your audience’s feed. 

3. Carousel ads. Include up to 10 images or videos in a single ad, each with its own individual links. This is great for multiple products, tutorials, or for deep-diving into one particular product.

Here’s a hot tip: Make sure you have a super clear CTA at the end of the ad, no matter which format. Getting them to take action is the whole point of your ad!

How to start advertising on Facebook

Now that we know why they are great and what they look like, let’s break down how to advertise on Facebook, step-by-step.

Start an account on Facebook Business Manager

Your ads, business pages, and tools live in Facebook Business Manager, so head on over to business.facebook.com and create an account. 

You’ll need to enter your business name, Facebook business page, name, email address, and create or add an existing advertising account.

Create your target audience

When selecting your audience, consider whether you’re re-engaging with current customers or trying to find new ones. 

One great thing to do if you’re engaging with current customers is to utilize Facebook’s customer file. 

Just upload your list of email addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information, and Facebook will help you reach these customers with targeted ads. 

If you’re aiming to engage with new customers, tap into their interests, traits, and demographics. Have some fun with the options, and use the Audience Insights tool to help you when you’re testing categories.

Start your first campaign

Are your ads aiming to raise awareness, consideration, or conversion? 

These options can help you pick a goal. Are you hoping to make more online sales through your advertising? Or would you like more likes, shares, and comments on your posts?

Once you’ve chosen a goal, move on to choosing a budget. 

When creating a budget, consider the two following questions: 

• What is the cost of your product? Items that cost more generally need a higher ad budget.

• Which objective have you chosen? Sales-focused objectives, for example, cost more than awareness-focused objectives.

To give your ads a fair shot, allocate extra time and budget for Facebook’s algorithm to examine your data and share your ads. 

Lastly, select where your ad will be displayed. 

You can choose to have ads placed manually or automatically. Let Facebook do the work by automating your ad placement. It’ll use the available data to place it where it needs to go and to work towards the results you’re aiming to achieve.

Monitor your campaign performance

Is it working? Are people seeing ads for my shoes? 

The best way to find out is through monitoring your campaign (which will also allow you to optimize it if need be). You can do it all with Facebook’s Ad Manager. 

It’s a good idea to check your ads once a day and wait until they reach 1000 impressions before you make any big changes. 

This will give the algorithm time to do its work, and it’ll give you time to get used to the system as well. 

Time to start advertising

Through Facebook advertising, small businesses get a great opportunity to sell their products to their target audience, increase their audience base, and hone their marketing skills. 

It’s a fantastic thing to take advantage of, and relatively easy too: Facebook Business Manager does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. 

With it, you can easily create a campaign and get your product out there. If, when you start, things aren’t working for you, don’t fret.

Simply adjust and continue: you’ll get the hang of it soon enough.

All that’s left for you to do is to create an account and start advertising. 

All images courtesy of Facebook