Facebook ads are perhaps one of the most accessible and talked-about marketing methods among business owners today. Facebook is a relatively intuitive platform, and social media experts often tout their ads’ effectiveness. It’s for good reason: more than 1.6 billion people use Facebook every single day, according to Sprout Social. What’s even more compelling is the research from Hootsuite that indicates the average active Facebook user clicks on 12 ads per month.  

In reality, though, many brands struggle to get a meaningful number of clicks on their paid Facebook ads. Their messages may reach thousands of people, but they aren’t seeing a significant increase in any real results.  

In today’s competitive social media advertising market, it isn’t enough to throw some cash behind a photo and a clever hashtag and expect huge sales. However, with some small changes to your advertising designs and strategies, your business can improve the outcomes of its campaigns. We’ll let you in on some of our secrets on how to optimize Facebook Ads for the most success. 

Graphics

Most business owners realize that social media posts without images can get lost in the shuffle. Too often, though, they choose to resort to the easiest possible options, such as product photos or stock graphics. These graphics may draw the eye more than text alone, but to inspire even more engagement, we recommend swapping out still images for short videos. According to The Marketing Helpline, social media posts with videos earn 48 percent more views than non-video posts. These videos don’t have to be complex or lengthy to be effective. Simply adding motion to still graphics can be enough to make more users stop scrolling and read your message. 

If video simply isn’t possible for an ad, it’s important to keep text to a minimum on still image graphics. The human eye tends to be more attracted to visuals than to written text, so limiting the number of words in your graphic may appeal to more people. Additionally, Facebook’s algorithm prioritizes images with a smaller percentage of text. The platform’s official recommendation is to limit text to 10 percent or less of the entire image. If you exceed 10 percent, Facebook may limit your post reach, or reject your ad entirely. 

Audience Targeting

Facebook offers a huge array of demographic and psychographic filters you can apply to your ad campaign’s target audience. Instead of reaching a random audience of Facebook users, these filters will specify the exact kinds of people you would like to view your ad. You can designate factors ranging from a set geographic area to marital status to their other various preferences. For example, a travel agency may want to run an ad promoting their relaxing tropical vacations for couples at the end of the upcoming tax season. A good target Facebook audience for this campaign would be women age 25-40 who were recently married, have no kids, work in finance or accounting, earn a household income of at least $100,000, show an interest in travel and have clicked on ads relating to travel in the past few months. 

When used strategically, these tools can certainly help you reach a relevant audience. With all this information at your fingertips, it’s tempting to create an audience that is very specifically catered to your brand. However, limiting your ad audience too much can create a very small pool of people to work with. If your audience is too small, the same users may end up seeing your ad multiple times. As a result, your campaign reach and overall effectiveness is limited. 

Instead, we usually try to pick only a few key metrics to narrow down the potential audience. Consider starting with a couple relevant demographic targets, such as people who live near your business and are age 21-55. Then, you can also layer on a few additional psychographic metrics that reflect the mindset of your typical customer. 

At the start of the campaign, pay close attention to the performance data to see if certain subgroups outperform others. If you discover females age 35-55 click through twice as often, you can focus your budget on this specific demographic. These targeting strategies will help you use your ad money on the most relevant potential customers without limiting your reach. 

Spend 

We often get questions from our clients about how to determine the appropriate budget for their Facebook ad campaign. Your total campaign budget will likely vary on variety of factors, such as the size of your potential audience and how many days you’d like to run your ads. In general, though, if you’re just starting out with Facebook ads and want your ad to make a significant impact, we recommend spending at least $5-10 per day for your campaign. This budget will allow you to reach a sizable audience and get some valuable metrics. 
 
Over the first days or weeks of your campaign, make a point to track your ad’s performance. If you’re seeing lots of engagement from your audience, you may choose to double down and spend more each day to achieve even more positive results. On the other hand, if the ad isn’t as effective as you’d like, you can stop the campaign and tweak the message or targeting metrics before spending more cash on a strategy that isn’t working. 

Campaign Objective 

Facebook’s ad platform also offers multiple options for you to set your campaign objective. As you decide with objective to choose, think about what is your most desired result of this campaign. Do you want people to click a link to your website to make a purchase? Would you prefer to raise awareness for a discount or overall brand message? Are you trying to increase the number of sign-ups to your mailing list? Whichever objective you choose, Facebook will adjust your ad cost and optimize its delivery accordingly to best fit your desired outcome. 

These tips are a great starting point to help improve your Facebook advertising strategy. However, many businesses struggle to find time to manage ad campaigns and find the perfect formula for paid posts. If you’re interested in more expert advice, or are still struggling to find the right formula for your paid posts, consider reaching out to an agency like ours to ensure that your brand is reaching its audience as effectively as possible.