You’ve done it; you’ve launched your first online store. Now, you know that you need to have your brand noticed. You created a Facebook page for your business, but it’s not accumulating traction as planned. Then an idea came to mind, you need to create ads!
But, how do you do that? How do you create Facebook ads? Don’t worry, I’ll show you how to do that. So, welcome to my quick guide on how to create Facebook Ads – for beginners.
Facebook currently has 2.9 billion active monthly users. Making it the biggest social media platform in the world. With that said, 93% of marketers all around the globe utilize Facebook Ads regularly.
Companies with a large budget can afford to test ads, target audiences, and creatives. But, if your budget is limited, you need to make sure that whatever amount you put into ads should work and bring you your precious ROI.
I’ll share some experiences and things that I have researched and used using Facebook Ads in this article. I’d share some tried and tested tips and strategies on maximizing the results with minimal ad spend.
Before we start on how to create Facebook Ads, there’s one crucial thing that you need to know first.
A lot of business owners don’t realize, is that Facebook Ads are different from Boosted Posts.
Let me tell you about what Boosted Posts are first.
Why should you use Facebook Boosted Posts and when to use it.
Facebook’s paid advertising is called Boosted posts. It focuses on maximizing engagement in your posts. To put it simply, it boosts your existing posts on your Facebook Business Page to get more traction. It will help your posts gain more likes, comments, and shares than grow conversions like registrations and sales.
Boosted Posts are easier to manage by beginners compared to Facebook Ads. They are easy to learn and don’t require a Meta Pixel Setup (this is a code you add to your website that will track conversions and visitors)
Facebook will use your ad budget to show your content to audiences more likely to interact with it (Press the like button, share the post, or leave a comment) when you boost a post.
Here are two scenarios where boosted posts work best
- When you’re introducing your business on Facebook for the first time
- When you want to let people know about helpful information or updates about your business
Introduce your business by boosting posts
You need to make a following on your Facebook Business Page once you launch your business. If you’re not making any noise, updates on your status, and you only have a few followers on your Business Page, you won’t have enough social proof for users to buy from you. Drive engagement towards your brand by boosting your posts.
Introduce your audience to your business by using your first Facebook posts. Let them know about what your products are about, what your business means to you, and don’t forget to tell them a small detail about yourself. Boost those posts to grow a community of people who share the same views as you.
Always boost updates
Boosting essential updates for your existing followers is the next important content you need to do. The algorithm of Facebook makes it challenging to get noticed organically. Without the aid of promotions, only 2% of your Business Page followers would be able to see your posts. It may sound unfair, but you need to spend extra to make that happen for your fans to see more of your posts.
This process makes boosting posts important when you’re sharing important information or updates that might be interesting for your audience.
For example, if you need to let people know about an upcoming giveaway from your business that your followers would like to join in (everybody loves free things) – boost the post to ensure that your followers are informed.
Boosting your posts will help you get noticed, and people will engage with them. After a while, you’ll see that you already have a group of followers who regularly interact with your business.
However, Likes don’t pay the bills. This is a big reason why you should not spend a big chunk of your ad budget just on Boosting Posts. Leave some of it for your spending on Facebook Ads.
Create Facebook Ads: convert engagement into purchases.
With Facebook Ads, you have the chance to include a call-to-action button in your posts and provide more precise audience targeting compared to Boosted posts.
Facebook Ads won’t show up on your Facebook Page like what Boosted Posts do. You need to keep in mind to save your Facebook Page feed for valuable content and leave your promotional messages for your ads.
To make sure that your Facebook Ads work, you need to understand that targeting the right audience is everything. You can spend a fortune on promotion, but you won’t get results if your ads aren’t showing to the right people.
There are two kinds of audiences that you can target when you create Facebook Ads: lookalike audiences and audiences based on interest. Here’s how you can use them:
Lookalike audiences: How does it work?
If you have been managing your store for some time now, you should have a list of your customers’ and site visitors’ email addresses from checkout details or subscriptions. If you don’t, continue reading, and I’ll show you another option in just a minute.
On Facebook, you can upload your email list and create a lookalike audience. A lookalike audience means people with the same interests and behaviors as your current customers.
You will need at least 1000 emails to make a lookalike audience. The larger the list, the higher quality of audiences you’ll get. Here’s a step by step guide on how to do this:
- Download your list of emails. Make sure that it’s in an Excel or .CSV file, or you can also import the email addresses from your list
- Go to Audiences in your Facebook Ads Manager
3. Click Create a Lookalike Audience
4. Choose your Source. It could be Custom audience or Custom audience with added value. Upload the Excel or .CSV file where your emails are listed. After then, click Next to confirm.
5. Choose the country/countries you where you’d like to find similar set of audiences
6. Choose your desired audience size and then select Create audience
Doing this will give you your own list of lookalike audiences with the same actions as your current customers and subscribers.
But, I don’t have a customer email list. What should I do?
By using Meta Pixel, you can also create lookalike audiences even without having a customer email list. You need to install Meta Pixel on your store first so it can track your visitors and conversions. Once it’s up and running, you can now start making audiences from your store’s visitors.
Here’s how to do it:
Go to Events Manager.
Click 
Connect Data Sources and select Web.
Add your Pixel Name.
Enter your website URL to check for easy setup options. Click Continue.
After this, you need to install the Meta Pixel on your website. You can choose whether you want to manually put the code in your website, use a partner integration or have the instructions email to you.
Once you’re done, you’re also done making a lookalike audience of users who has the same actions as your existing customers.
If you like to have a lookalike audience that would just target people interested in a specific product, group your visitors by product categories or pages they go to. To do that, in step 2, you need to select People who visit specific web pages instead of choosing Anyone who visits your website. Add URL keywords from your product pages then you’re all set.
Aside from the options mentioned earlier, you can also create lookalike audiences based on:
- Your Facebook Business Page followers
- People who’ve interacted with your posts
- People who’ve completed a particular action on your website, like entering their payment information or adding a product to their cart
Create audiences based on user interest
Targeting people with specific interests is another way to put an audience together.
Imagine that you’re selling merchandise printed with puppies. The interest “Puppies” is not specific enough. About 27-30 million Facebook users in the US, aged 18-65+, love puppies.
Now think about what kind of people loves puppies. Combine them with different interests, demographics, and behaviors. That way, you can make your audience more specific:
- How old are they?
- What’s their family status?
- What do they like?
- What books do they read?
Try to narrow down your audience using the fields offered when you create Facebook Ads. Otherwise, you won’t maximize and just waste your budget.
What makes a good Facebook Ads audience?
There’s no actual thing that can fully answer this question. But, if you target people who already have an idea about your brand (Existing customers or Facebook followers), interest audiences can range from ten to a hundred thousand users. On the other hand, lookalike audiences’ size can reach 1M, depending on your campaign.
The size of your audience doesn’t matter. Whether big or small, you don’t want to be too specific or too broad. If it’s too specific, your audience reach will be very low; if it’s too broad, you’ll reach many users who aren’t really interested in your product. Make sure to balance out your audiences to always end up in the middle.
How to create Facebook Ads that have the best copy and visuals
You need to create Facebook Ads that are convincing and attention-grabbing for them to convert. This will test how good your ad creatives are.
There are two elements to ad creatives: copy and visual.
There’s a visual hierarchy in every Facebook Ad. The bigger it appears, the more important it is. The visual, which is the biggest one, is the most important. Followed by the headline, then the caption to the post, and finally, the call-to-action button.
An image that captivates makes an audience read the copy, and a persuasive copy leaves the reader no choice but to answer the call-to-action button by clicking on it.
Best images that would work when you create Facebook Ads
Here is the style of visuals that are proven to be the best in ad campaigns:
Zoomed in high-quality photos of the product
You would want your product to be evidently visibly in News Feed ads. You also need to make sure that it’s also evident on the right-hand side. Here’s a sample:
A portrait of a person pointing or looking at you
Doing this would make the reader feel that they are really being addressed. Eye contact and being pointed at boosts positive feelings towards a product or service and further motivates users to buy it.
Colorful and bright images that pop out in the feed.
You only have 2.5 seconds to capture the attention of a user scrolling through their news feed on a desktop and 1.7 seconds on a mobile phone. That’s the amount of time users spend on a piece of content in their Facebook feeds. Here’s a quick sample of an ad with bright colors:
Copy that works best when you create Facebook ads
You’ve created stunning and captivating visuals; now, it’s time to close a sale with a compelling ad copy. When it comes to text, here’s what’s best:
Social proof
Nothing is more effective than displaying some people already bought your products or services. This will show that they already trust you or recommend you to others. There are various kinds of social proof you can use in your ads. From using quotes to using numbers. Here’s a sample of a copy with social proof:
Highlighting deals
Make a unique discount code for users and include it on your Facebook Ads. Do not forget to highlight it, so it’s easier to be seen. Mentioning it right in the headline will definitely work best.
You should create at least 6 ads per campaign with 2-3 different pictures and copy variations. It’s challenging to separate ad visuals from the copy since they work hand in hand to convince people to click. Experiment with different combinations of photos and text in a campaign to see what works and doesn’t.
Facebook Ads for Beginners
10 million businesses around the world use Facebook to market their brand. With that said, it’s easy to lose money when you’re just starting out and if you’re not sure about what you’re doing because the competition is tough.
But you don’t need to be discouraged. On Facebook, the winner of this battle isn’t determined by who has the biggest budget but the one who has the brightest approach.
Making sure that you select the right audience before running your ad would help you make every cent you use on your ads count. Don’t be intimidated if that means targeting a group of users with a few people. A small audience will pave the way for you to meet people who are going to be really interested in whatever you are selling.
Also, before venturing into more advanced advertising strategies, make sure to put your new knowledge to the test first and create a new campaign on Facebook.
If you want to start growing your business today, speak with digital marketing experts online at Expandant.
