When I first started my career in social media marketing, the concept of social advertising was unfamiliar to many brands I worked with, often misunderstood, and difficult to measure.

At that time, many brands and businesses wanted to know why they should pay to advertise on social media when it was historically free? What did it mean to “boost a post” to your Facebook audience and did audience acquisition campaigns really result in more revenue for your business?

“Pay to Play”

A lot has changed since then. If you’re in marketing or work with an agency, you’ve probably heard the overused words “pay to play” more often than not. Social advertising has become commonplace for many brands and is only expected to grow.

With more advanced targeting capabilities, new placements, and better reporting, I think social advertising can be a highly effective strategy to reach the audience that matters most to your business’ success.

Here are a few tips to ensure your business is set up for success when launching a Facebook advertising campaign. (Save the checklist for later!)

Setting Up a Facebook Ad Account

Set up or request access to a Facebook Business Manager Account
Review current audiences, campaign tracking, ad copy, objectives, and performance
Review whether pixel and event tracking are set up correctly

Measurement

Facebook Pixel:

Create a Facebook Pixel if not already (Instructions)
Add the pixel to all site pages
Add standard event code to some of the website pages
Verify pixel is firing with Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome Extension

Google Analytics:

Review current goals and event tracking
Verify they are setup correctly
Set up goals and event tracking using Google Tag Manager
Set up custom report in Google Analytics for automated reporting

Ad Objectives, Copy, Creative, Targeting, Spend

Create ongoing advertising spreadsheet
Outline campaign objectives
Determine target audiences (Ad Sets)
Write ad headers, copy, and newsfeed descriptions
Collect/Create all image assets, videos, logos and font files to be used in ads
Determine advertising spend (Minimum is $5/day per Ad Set)

Custom & Saved Audiences

Set up custom audiences in Facebook Business Manager. Examples below:

Retargeting Website Visitors
Retargeting Specific Page Visitors (ie: Pricing, Product, etc.)
Retargeting custom events (ie: Added to cart but did not purchase)
Page Fans
Email subscribers
Custom audience lists
Lookalike audiences
Location/Interest Based
And more!

Launch Ads

Now that you’re pixel is in place (and working correctly!), your saved/custom audiences are set up, and your copy and assets are approved, you’re ready to launch the ads in Facebook Business Manager. If you’re more advanced, I highly recommend using Power Editor since it will save you so much time when building larger campaigns and ad sets.

Reporting

Set up monthly advertising reporting dashboard in Google Analytics & Facebook

Questions? Send me a message in the comments below or email me directly at kellen@kellenmcavoy.com.

How to Successfully Set Up Social Ads