Set a concrete and realistic goal for the campaign
Before you start advertising on Facebook, it’s important that you have set a clear objective for the campaign. We often talk about conversions and brand building, but make this as concrete as you can. Do you want more traffic to a specific landing page? Sign-ups for an event? Or perhaps more sales of a specific product? For each concrete objective, there are dedicated strategies that work best.
Your objective should also be realistic. Consider how much you expect the conversion to cost and how much margin you have on the product/service you are selling. This will make it easier for you to define the appropriate size of your ad budget.
Make sure your ad has a clear message
For many users, Facebook has become a scrolling platform. This means you only have a few seconds to capture your target audience’s attention!
Ads on Facebook therefore need to be eye-catching, but also have a clear message. Avoid too much clutter! Make sure the information you communicate is short and concise. Include a CTA that clearly tells the target audience what to do after they’ve seen the ad, for example:
- “Order now”
- “Buy now”
- “Sign up”
- “Learn more”
Do you need help with advertising?
Leverage all available formats
If you only use the most popular formats, you’ll be competing with everyone else and will end up paying very high CPCs. To get the most out of your ad budget on Facebook, we therefore recommend using all available formats, as this helps keep costs down:
- 1:1 (Feed)
- 9:16 (Story)
- 1.91:1 (Column)
Test many different assets (ads)
Neither you nor Facebook know what type of content your target audience prefers. Some may prefer ads featuring real people, while others like illustrations. That’s why testing is essential!
By creating and testing many different ads (with the same message), Facebook will gradually select the ones that work best for your target audience. This is more cost-effective, as you avoid spending a lot of money on ads that don’t perform.
Ad budget and campaign duration
Even if you start investing money from day one, that doesn’t mean you will get conversions and achieve strong profitability from day one.
The Facebook algorithm has a learning phase that takes longer than before. Short campaigns are therefore not recommended, simply because Facebook does not know enough about who to reach and when.
Run the campaign over several months, especially if you don’t have much historical data on what works and what doesn’t. This is important—particularly if you’re targeting a more specific audience. The longer you run the campaign, the more Facebook will learn about your audience.
This means that over time you will reach the right audience more accurately and get a better return on your ad budget.
Also remember that we operate in a market flooded with ads and intense competition. This means you need to claim your space! And that requires a certain size of ad budget. For example, it’s not unusual that you have to spend 3000 kroner on a campaign that doesn’t perform that well, but that the algorithm will learn a lot from for next time.
If you have a limited budget, it becomes even more important to have a solid underlying strategy to ensure it makes financial sense.
Use the Meta pixel
With the Meta pixel (formerly the Facebook pixel), you get more insight into how your campaign is performing, as you can track customer actions from start to finish.
Among other things, you gain insights into who has completed a purchase on your website and how much they have spent, not just who has clicked on the ad. This is valuable information, as it enables you to target your ads more effectively towards people who are likely to buy. You can also target people who have visited your website but not completed their purchase (retargeting).
In fact, it’s often the meta pixel and Conversion API that make the difference between good and poor campaigns!
Optimize the campaign along the way
To get the most out of your advertising budget, it is important to optimize the campaign along the way. First and foremost, make sure that the ad is actually reaching the audience you want. Also keep an eye on the cost per click (CPC), which is how much you pay for each click.
If you find that you’re paying a lot for a single click, you need to assess whether you’re willing to accept that cost. In certain categories, clicks can be expensive, and if you’re also reaching the wrong target audience, it’s essentially the same as throwing your money away.
However, if you reach the right target audience and generate many conversions, it can actually be worth spending, for example, 50 kroner on a single click.
Also make sure that the ad frequency does not exceed 3. This most likely means that you have too few people in your target audience and that they are seeing your ads too often. From a frequency of 2–3, the cost per click also increases significantly.
Facebook advertising is effective, but also complex
As you can see, simply publishing an ad on Facebook and hoping for the best is not enough. It requires a well-thought-out strategy, from campaign setup to effective optimizations along the way.
In addition, competition is steadily increasing from other players who are trying to reach exactly the same target audience as you. It is therefore essential that you stand out from the crowd.
Another important point is that Facebook has become stricter about what content and targeting they approve. It is therefore crucial that you comply with their guidelines if your ads are to be approved at all. An agency like ours stays up to date on changes in the regulations at all times!
Would you like support from our experienced specialists with Facebook advertising?
