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.