How to Plan your Facebook & Instagram Ads
Picture this: You’re having a great meeting with your boss when the discussion begins to turn its head towards Facebook and Instagram advertising. You’ve boosted posts in the past, but you’re not really sure what you need to do to run ads.
You have a feeling you’re about to be asked what you’ll need and how long it will take to get ads up and running, and you have no idea what to say.
Not Everyone is a Good Fit for Facebook and Instagram Advertising
Facebook made $7.68 Billion in Q1 alone in 2017! Instagram is expected to make almost $7 Billion in Ad revenue in 2018.
For marketers, this means:
a.) Facebook and Instagram advertising are important channels for marketing.
b) The Facebook and Instagram advertising market is VERY crowded.
We don’t see the results we once saw even two years ago because of market saturation. If it’s not done properly, it could be a waste of your marketing budget, and I argue that not every company is a good fit for running them. While $1,000 a month of social media ads may be a fraction of the total marketing budget for some companies, not everyone is so lucky. For smaller marketing budgets, you can’t afford to spend money on ads that don’t perform. Without employing best practices, social media ads rarely perform they way people want. So, what are best practices? Let’s take a look.
Planning Out The Creative Imagery For Ads
Creative is imagery and/or video that you will use to advertise. We are becoming increasingly more particular as consumers when it comes to things that visually appeal to us.
As stated earlier, Facebook and Instagram both have been an increasingly saturated landscape for marketers. In fact, in 2018, over 70% of all businesses are planning on advertising on Instagram! That means that marketers will be in a very competitive ad environment. To be successful, you need good creative that will catch the viewer’s eye. Otherwise, you’re simply wasting ad dollars.
As soon as someone asks you about social media ads on Facebook or Instagram, you should ask yourself,
“Do we have existing, strong images and/or video (creative) we can use?”
If the answer is no, follow-up with, “Do we have a budget for getting creative made?”
If the answer to that question is also no, then social media advertising might not be a good fit.
Accessing Ad Account: The Logistics
When we implement/create and manage digital ads, we require the client to have their own ad account. For example, if the client wants to advertise on Facebook and Instagram, we need the client to have an Ads Manager account. The Resolute digital team will then request access to the ad account. If you’re unsure where your Ads Manager account is on Facebook, the below process should be able to walk you through the set-up steps. Keep in mind that Facebook is CONSTANTLY changing. So while this information is accurate today, it could change any day.
How to Gain Access to your Ad Account on Facebook:
If you’ve ever boosted a post and/or placed an ad on Facebook or Instagram, you can follow these procedures to get to your Ads Manager account:
- Open your Facebook page
- In the top right-hand side of your FB page, click on the down arrow.
- A drop-down menu will appear. Scroll down until you see something that reads, “Manage Ads” and click on it.
- If you have never created an ad or boosted a post, you will need to click on “Create Ads”
- You will then be taken to a new interface, which opens to Ads Manager.
Again, the Ads Manager interface is constantly changing, but the Ad account number can usually be found under settings.
If you need to input a credit card, this also usually is found in the setting section.
Best Practices for Utilizing a Website & Landing Pages
Best practice for Facebook and Instagram ads is to utilize a landing page if you choose an objective to send traffic off of the social media platform. That means you will need to be able to have access to the back end of your website so you can:
- Implement a tracking pixel
- Set-up or access a landing page
Landing pages are meant to drive a clear call to action. That call to action might be to get them to buy something you were advertising, buy a ticket to an event, fill out an email lead capture form, etc. A landing page is meant to guide people in one clear direction, as opposed to a homepage on a website that shows people everything that your company offers.
Coming Up with Goals For Your Ads
I’m putting this last because it should make more sense now that you have read about all things that will be needed for advertising to be successful.
Knowing your advertising goals up front can help determine whether or not social media ads will actually help achieve them. For example, if you want to sell tickets to an event but do not have access to a website or landing page that allows people to buy them, digital advertising is probably not a good fit for you.
Conclusion
In this increasingly competitive advertising landscape, the social media ads that will continue to see results are those that have been properly set up and committed to implementing eye-catching creative and landing pages. The next time your boss or anyone else for that matter asks you, “What about ads on Facebook?” you’ll know what needs to happen for them to be successful.
Good luck everyone!
