facebook ads and sponsored stories creation

Guide to creating Facebook ads and sponsored stories

Table of contents:

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Recent updates to the ad creation process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Getting started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Creating your ad or sponsored story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1 . Set up your ad or sponsored story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2 . Choose your audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3 . Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4 . Campaign, pricing and schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

5 . Place order or review ad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

A local bakery with the goal of creating awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

A national retailer with the goal of engaging its audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

© 2012 Facebook, Inc. All rights reserved. Product specifications subject to change without notice.

© 2012 Facebook, Inc. All rights reserved. Product specifications subject to change without notice. 2


Introduction

At Facebook, we believe businesses are better in a connected world. We are helping to create that

world by connecting over 845 million people and their friends to the things they care about.

For marketers, it’s the power of these real connections and the authentic conversations they enable that

makes Facebook a powerful marketing tool. When people engage with your business on Facebook, their friends

are able to see the connection.

People have always relied on friends to help them make decisions and to discover new things. Marketing

on Facebook allows you to tap into that behavior by adding social context that shows people’s interactions

with your business to their friends. A well-run campaign that leverages social activity generates a return on

investment of 3x or greater1.

This guide is designed to help you set up Facebook ads and sponsored stories to help you start conversations

with your fans, their friends, and a targeted audience in a relevant and compelling way. Ads let you connect

with a new audience. Sponsored stories start with a Page post or another action that someone takes with your

Page, app or event, and help you build deeper relationships with people you’re already connected to.

To learn more about Facebook ads and sponsored stories, and to see examples of each, go to:

http://www.fburl.com/?key=2332387.

1 Based on a variety of industry techniques including media mix modeling and other test/control approaches.



Changes to how you create ads and sponsored stories

We’ve updated how you create ads and sponsored stories to put the people you want to reach at the center of

the ad creation process. You can now share new types of stories and more relevant messaging.

Three new capabilities:

1. The updated Destination field enables you to promote any Page, event and website, or any app that you

manage.

2. Broad Category and Precise Interest targeting can be used together to target very specific groups.

3. Objective helps you optimize the delivery of your promotion to reach your business objectives.

We’ll revisit each of these new features in detail later in the guide.

1. The destination you enter in the field will be the place people will go when they click on your ad or

sponsored story.



2. Broad Category and Precise Interest targeting can be used together to choose a very specific audience for

your ad or sponsored story. When you target mutiple Broad Categories, your reach will increase. Adding

Precise Interest targeting will give you a smaller, but more precisely-targeted group.

3. Objective helps you deliver your ad or sponsored story to the people who are most likely to respond

to your campaign in the way that’s most important to you. You can choose from a variety of objectives

including: Page likes, app installations, or clicks on your ads or sponsored stories.



Getting Started

There are three ways to begin creating an ad or sponsored story.

1. Go to facebook.com/ads/create

2. From your homepage, click the “Create an Ad” link

http://facebook.com/ads/create



3. On the admin panel of your business’ Facebook Page, go to “Build Audience” and click on

“Create an Ad”



Creating your ad or sponsored story

1. Set up your ad or sponsored story

Specify what you want to promote by typing the name of a Page, event, app or website into the Destination

field. You can promote any Page, event, or website, but you can only promote apps you manage.

Does an agency or another department of your business manage your Page or app? You can

still promote it by sponsoring the following types of stories:

• All posts from the brand

• Any like of the Page

• Any like on Page posts from the brand

Promote your Page, and not a specific post.

Promote a Page post. Choose to always promote

your most recent post or pick a specific post.

Create a new ad by writing the content and

choosing an image. Make sure to clearly explain

what you are promoting, the unique qualities of

your product or service, and special offers. End

with a clear call-to-action so people know what to

do when they see your ad.

Show sponsored stories about people liking your

Page to their friends.



2. Choose your audience

When using Broad Targeting, Facebook reaches its intended audience 95% of the time versus an online

industry average of 72% of the time. For narrow targeting, Facebook reaches its intended audience 90% of the

time versus an online industry standard of 35%2.

You can target people by location, age, gender, interest, and many other variables.

Precise Interest targeting lets you reach people based on information they’ve provided in their profile

(timeline). This information is pulled from their listed likes and interests, the Pages they like, apps they use, and

other information they’ve added to their timeline.

When you enter an interest, an additional menu will appear under the headline “Suggested Likes and Interests” to

allow you to choose other, related likes and interests.

2Nielsen, “Reaching the Right Audiences Online”, October 2011

http://bit.ly/nielsenocr



Typing “#” before a Precise Interest lets you choose people who expressed a related

interest. For instance, typing “#Cooking” lets you reach people interested in “cooking”,

“cooking tips”, and “cooking and eating”.” Without the #, you would have targeted only

people who are interested in “cooking.”

Broad Categories help you to target specific groups—for instance, people who have recently moved or gotten

engaged, or groups like Baby Boomers.

Check off the categories you want to reach.

Using Precise Interests and Broad Categories together helps you focus on a very specific audience for your ads

or sponsored stories. For example, if you’re selling cookware, you may want to show your ad or sponsored story

to people who like cooking and who have just gotten engaged and might be selecting gifts for their wedding

registry. Choosing the broad category “Engaged <6 months” and the precise interest “#Cooking” will allow you

to reach this group.



Learn more about how to use Broad Category and Precise Interest targeting here:

http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/InterestsTargeting.pdf

Choose an audience that’s already connected to the Page or app you’re promoting or reach their friends.

Click Advanced Targeting Options to target people based on their relationship status, the languages they speak, their

education, and where they’ve worked.

Ads and sponsored stories perform better when they

are targeted to at least 100,000 users. Always check your

estimated audience to make sure it’s large enough.

http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/InterestsTargeting.pdf



3. Objective

Facebook advertising helps you achieve a variety of business objectives such as conversions, sales or brand

awareness. The Objective section lets you specify whether you want Facebook to show your ad or sponsored

story to the people most likely to like your Page, install your app or click on your ad or sponsored story.

For example, if you want to grow your audience, select “show this to people who are most likely to like my

Page” from the Objective field.

If you want more people to click on your ad or sponsored story, select “click on my ad or sponsored story.”

When you select “like my Page” or “install my app” in the Objective section, you’ll automatically pay for your ad

or sponsored story based on the number of impressions you receive (CPM). This means you will only pay when

someone sees your ad, which works best for campaigns to build awareness or grow your audience.

When you select “click on my ad or sponsored story,” you’ll automatically pay for the number of clicks you

receive (CPC) and you can specify how much you would like to pay for each click.

If you are advertising a website outside of Facebook, you can pay either based on the number of impressions

your receive (CPM) or for the number of clicks your receive (CPC).

Not sure which Objective you should be optimizing for? Set up a campaign with two

identical ads, one to optimize for clicks and the other to optimize for Page likes or app

installs. You can then see which Objective is best for achieving your business goals.

If you want more people to install your app, select “show this to people who are most likely to install my app.”



4. Campaign, pricing and schedule

This is where you name your campaign, choose how you’ll pay, and tell Facebook when to run your ad or

sponsored story.

If you chose “click on my ad or sponsored story” as your Objective, you’ll pay each time someone clicks on

your ad or sponsored story.

Give your campaigns distinct names like labor_day_promotion_2012_PageLikes_US that

make it easy to remember the targeting objectives you chose.

If you’ve chosen Page likes or app installs as your Objective, you’ll pay per thousand impressions (CPM). An

“impression” is any time someone sees your ad or sponsored story.

Type a name for your campaign.

Enter your maximum budget. We will never

exceed this number.

Choose the start and end dates for your

campaign, or click the check box to start

running it today.

The suggested bid range s based on the bids

that are currently winning the ad auction

for the users you’ve chosen to target. You’re

not required to bid within this range, but

we recommend using it to help ensure that

you’re getting a good amount of impressions

or clicks.



5. Place your order

Once you’re satisfied with your choices, you can place your order immediately by clicking the “Place Order.”

After you place your order, your ad or sponsored story will go through the Facebook review process before

going live. Please allow up to 24 hours for this process.

Clicking “Review Ad” will allow you to preview and edit your ad or sponsored story



Examples

A local bakery with the goal of creating awareness

Bob is a baker in Sunshine, Texas. He wants to run ads to build awareness of his custom cake business among

event-planning and catering businesses near him.

First, he sets up a Page on Facebook to showcase photos of the special cakes he makes.

While on his Page, he clicks on the “Build Audience” drop-down in the admin panel and selects “Create an Ad.”



He follows the process to run an ad on Facebook, selecting his Page as a destination, and clicking the button to

run a new ad about his Page.

The process automatically pulls in a title, image and body copy for the ad, and shows people who already like

his Page.

He restricts the ad to people in Sunshine, TX, and selects “#Event planning,” “#Event management,” and

“#Catering” from Precise Interests to make sure that event planners and caterers in his area will see his message.



Finally, he sets a campaign budget, and places his order.

Then he tells Facebook to show the ad to people who are most likely to click on it.



A national retailer with the goal of engaging its audience

Jasper’s Grocery is a health-food store with locations across the United States. It has a thriving fan base, but it

wants to build deeper relationships with its fans.

First, it establishes a regular schedule of posting to its Page five times per week, and tracks the engagement of

its current audience on a post-by-post basis.



The process automatically pulls in its latest post, as well as a title, image

and body copy. It also shows how many people have already liked the post,

commented on it, and shared it.

Jasper’s Market chooses to promote its post to people who are most likely to like its Page, and accepts the

default targeting for the United States.

When it understands what content its audience find most engaging, it decides to run a Facebook marketing

campaign to ensure that its entire audience sees its most recent posts.

It navigates to facebook.com/ads/create, and chooses to promote its most recent Page post.

http://facebook.com/ads/create



Finally, it sets a campaign budget and places its order.



Glossary

Ads – Marketing messages that point to a Page, event, app, or a destination outside of Facebook, such as a

website. Ads have the voice of the brand and can have social context, such as friends’ names or faces. Ads only

appear on the right-hand side of Facebook pages.

CPM – Cost Per Mila, which is Latin for “thousand.” The rate Facebook charges for one thousand ad impressions

CPC – Cost Per Click. The rate Facebook charges for each click.

Destination – The Page, event, app or website you want to promote.

Objective – The action you want people to take when they see your ad or sponsored story. You can choose to

have us show your ad or sponsored story to the people most likely to like your Page, install your app, or click on

your ad or sponsored story.

Sponsored stories – Marketing messages that come from a Page post, or a story about a friend interacting

with a brand through actions such as check-ins, app use, or Page likes. The core messsage is controlled by the

advertiser, but sponsored stories will also show social context, such as people interacting with what’s being

promoted to their friends. Sponsored stories can appear on the right hand side of Facebook or in the news feed

on the web or mobile.

facebook ads and sponsored stories creation

Documents

facebook ads

sponsored story7

sponsored storiesintroduction

sponsored storieschanges

sponsored stories weve

product specifications

new types of stories

place people