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Facebook ™ Ad Campaigns

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Facebook™ ad campaigns: Where advert is ing meets socia l mediaLet’s face it: Not all organizations have the budget to hire help from big ad

agencies or the marketing free-reign to dominate airwaves and billboards.

Thankfully, these tactics aren’t always necessary to make an impression; effective

advertising and deep pockets aren’t mutually exclusive.

Effective advertising has much more to do with strategy development and

targeted messaging, delivered via the media channels most likely to reach

intended audiences. Luckily for businesses and organizations everywhere,

technology trends and the socialization of the Internet have opened up a whole

new world of advertising. Advertising through social networking sites such as

Facebook stands to engage consumers as much as it stands to convince of a

message. An increasing number of marketers are exploring these new options and

finding value as social media advertising options continue to grow and improve.

In fact, a recent survey by Myers Publishing, LLC, named Facebook the top website

in providing “valuable targeted audiences” to advertisers, and marketers are

expected to spend upward of $1 billion on advertising through the site this year.1

The reason for this growth likely lies in the many benefits that Facebook

advertising offers:

• Facebook has a massive user base of more than 300 million people

worldwide. While originally heavy on the student population of

18- to 25-year-olds, the fastest growing demographic is now among

those 35 years and older.2 Chances are, members of your target

audience are logging in each day.

• Generally speaking, Facebook’s user base is highly active, spending

a cumulative 8 billion minutes per day on Facebook.3 Meaning that

any advertising on Facebook will be seen.

• Facebook has an uncluttered user interface. A white background,

consistent font and navigation, along with clearly designated ad

space throughout the site, allow ads to be noticed but tolerated by

1 Lawson, Matt. “Winning Facebook Tactics for Today’s Search Marketer.” MarketingProfs. 08 June 2010. Web. 01 July 2010. <http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2010/3680/winning-facebook-tactics-for-todays-search-marketer>.2 Handley, Ann, and Allen Weiss. “Facebook Success Stories.” MarketingProfs. Web. 01 June 2010. <http://www.marketingprofs.com>.3 Handley, Ann, and Allen Weiss. “Facebook Success Stories.” MarketingProfs. Web. 01 June 2010. <http://www.marketingprofs.com>.

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users. The ads aren’t in the user’s way, yet stand out due to limited

space for visual competition.

• Facebook ads often complement other forms of advertising within

a marketing strategy. In conjunction with direct marketing,

television ads and more, businesses can use Facebook ads to prime

audiences or reinforce messages that create brand awareness,

promote products or services and drive traffic to Facebook Fan

Pages or other websites.

• Facebook ads are easy to create and implement. The site walks

through a step-by-step process to create the ad, while providing

access to tips and explanations along the way. Mistakes are easily

deleted, and campaigns can be paused or removed with the click

of a mouse.

• Facebook ads are cheap in comparison to traditional forms of

advertising. Spend as much or as little as wanted; Facebook allows

marketers to set the limits to individual budgets.

• Facebook ads are highly targeted and easily measured by click-

through and conversion rates. Businesses looking to target only

24-year-old women on their birthday in the state of Wyoming who

like the movie “Speed 2: Cruise Control” can do so. (This example is

probably a really small window of opportunity, but hey … everyone

has a niche, right?)

Facebook is proving to be a powerful new tool in the advertiser’s arsenal. It’s

easy, it’s targeted, it’s measureable and it’s where many people are spending

considerable time. For businesses looking to explore this option or learn more

about how to be more effective Facebook advertisers, this Blue Paper® is a great

place to start. Read on to discover how to plan for, create and implement an ad

that works with any budget.

Developing a strategy and sett ing a goalThe strategy behind Facebook ad campaigns is really a piece of a much larger

pie. Facebook alone is not a strategy, but rather a tool or a medium. Therefore, a

business or organization’s Facebook advertising efforts should be integrated into

a larger, overarching advertising, marketing or public relations strategy.

In the realm of Facebook ads, there are two main goals businesses and

organizations can achieve in order to support a broader strategy: increased traffic

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or increased visibility. These goals are demonstrated by the two options Facebook

offers for ad payment:

• Pay per click (PPC)—generating traffic to a Facebook Fan Page or

an external website is most important to a business that chooses

this route.

• Pay per view (PPM)—businesses and organizations opting for this

option are placing more importance on just being seen. Also known

as “pay per impression.”

Research has shown that the most effective Facebook ad campaigns are those

that either target existing Facebook users that have ‘liked’ a page or include a call

to action that revolves around a business’s presence on Facebook. For example,

urging users to ‘like a page’ or enter a contest through a Fan Page.4

“Facebook is about relationship marketing, not direct sales,” said Nick O’Neill,

editor of the All Facebook Blog. “That means it’s more important to build a

relationship with a potential client or an existing customer rather than closing a

sale right away.”5

It is easier to use a Facebook ad to build a relationship through the site than it

is to use a Facebook ad to get a user to fill out an order form or join a mailing

list. Ultimately, Facebook ads should not be used to fulfill strategies seeking a

sales outcome, instead tailor ads to support these sales strategies by developing

relationships first.

Building relationships takes time and, often, repeated runs of Facebook ad

campaigns. But, research also suggests that patience will pay off due to the higher

conversion rate of users that have ‘liked’ a page versus other Facebook users. On

average, Facebook users that ‘like’ a brand spend $71.84 more per year on brands

they ‘like’ than consumers who don’t ‘like’ a page, and they are 28 percent more

likely than others to continue using that brand. In addition, those consumers

that ‘like’ a page are 41 percent more likely than others to recommend a ‘liked’

product to their friends.6

4 Keane, Meghan. “Nielsen: Facebook Ads Work Great — If You’ve Already Got Fans on the Network | Econsultancy.” Econsultancy | Community of Digital Marketing and Ecommerce Professionals. 20 Apr. 2010. Web. 01 July 2010. <http://econsultancy.com/blog/5778-nielsen-facebook-ads-work-great-if-you-ve-already-got-tons-of-fans>.

5 O’Neill, Nick. “10 Rules For Advertising On Facebook.” Business Insider. 16 July 2009. Web. 01 July 2010. <http://www.businessinsider.com/10-rules-for-advertising-on-facebook-2009-7>.

6 “Average Value of a Facebook Fan: $136.38.” MarketingProfs: Marketing Resources for Marketing Professionals. 15 June 2010. Web. 01 July 2010. <http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2010/3713/average-value-of-facebook-fan-13638>.

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The user’s manualOnce a business or organization decides on the purpose of its Facebook

advertising (and, this purpose complements the “bigger picture” business

strategy), it can move forward with ad creation, targeting and budgeting.

A note: In order to launch a Facebook ad, a business must have a Facebook

group or Fan Page and a credit card or PayPal™ account for payment. Don’t

have a Fan Page, yet? Visit Facebook’s Fan Page information site to get started.

Once a page has been created, there will be a link that appears on the left hand

side of the News Feed through the administrator’s personal log-in that says “

Ads and Pages.” Clicking this brings users into a dashboard where they will see

ad stats and a link to create a new ad campaign. Click on this and then it’s

easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

Designing the adOnce navigated to Facebook ad creator, the first step is designing the ad. Follow

along with Figure 1 to begin this step.

Figure 17

The Destination URL is the web address for the website a business wishes to

advertise. By clicking the blue link below the Destination URL, the option to

advertise a Fan Page or group will also appear. Whatever is linked, make sure it

is the most relevant page to the content of the ad so users who click on the ad

don’t get lost or frustrated by a link they were not expecting. Following this link

is the ad content.

7 “What Do You Want to Advertise? | Facebook.” Welcome to Facebook. Web. 01 July 2010. <http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/?act=29614022>.

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Content is comprised of both text and images. It’s relatively limited, so it’s

important to put a lot of thought into the message of the ad—conversion

depends on it. Be clear, concise and include a call to action. Explain the benefit of

click-through and grab the attention of Facebook users with simple wit. This can

be a challenge, but it can be done. Here are a few tips:

• Research other ads to get a feel for what businesses are offering

and where they are linking. Pay attention to other Facebook ads,

as well as search marketing ads’ titles and calls to action. This

preliminary research will provide both insight and inspiration.

• Make the title the call to action (“Like us”), the benefit (“Win a

laptop”) or the name of the page or business (“Smith Widgets”).

• Use the body text to go into further detail regarding what a brand,

product or service is, or what a website is all about. Save phone

numbers, contest details, etc. for the page or the website itself and

use the 135 character limit for only the important stuff.

• Avoid long sentences, and use proper grammar, complete sentences

and correct spelling. Also avoid abbreviations and acronyms.

Businesses that are unsure of what to make the call to action and how to

best combine text with a links that make the most sense, should take note

from 3M™ Canada.

3M™ Canada sought to increase brand champions online and encourage Facebook

users to drive friends to the site’s Facebook page on the brand’s behalf. It

launched a series of three ads: one that introduced a new shoe-shaped tape

dispenser, one that offered the chance to win a gift certificate to a shoe store and

one that promoted the shoe-shaped dispenser as a stocking stuffer. The brand

targeted the first two to women and the last to both women and men. In order

to win a free dispenser, users had to ‘like’ a page on post a comment on the wall,

while in order to win the gift certificate, users had to fill out a brief customer

survey. All in all, 3M Canada’s Facebook ads resulted in more than 1.5 million

impressions, 300,000 clicks, 250,000 new ‘likes’ and close to 200 comments on

the wall.8

8 Handley, Ann, and Allen Weiss. “Facebook Success Stories.” MarketingProfs. Web. 01 June 2010. <http://www.marketingprofs.com>.

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Next, select an image. While an image is not required, it definitely helps to draw

attention to an ad9:

• Choose colorful and engaging images that are relevant to the text

of the ad.

• Try adding a border to an image that contrasts with Facebook’s blue

and white interface, such as yellow.

• Test images by creating small runs of multiple ads with different

combinations of text and images, creating a larger run with the

most successful of these ads.

Target ing and keywordsThe next step of ad creation is shown in Figure 2. Basically, there are a variety of

targeting options and a counter at the right hand side that will fluctuate to show

the number of Facebook users included in the filters applied by targeting.

Figure 210

9 Lawson, Matt. “Winning Facebook Tactics for Today’s Search Marketer.” MarketingProfs: Marketing Resources for Marketing Professionals. 08 June 2010. Web. 02 July 2010. <http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2010/3680/winning-facebook-tactics-for-todays-search-marketer>.

10 “What Do You Want to Advertise? | Facebook.” Welcome to Facebook. Web. 01 July 2010. <http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/?act=29614022>.

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At first glance, many businesses make the mistake of equating broad Facebook

ad targeting with expanded reach. Really, though, the broader an ad is, the less

effective and more expensive it becomes because more people will be exposed to

the ad, which may drive up costs, but the fewer the ad will likely apply or appeal

to. Instead, consider creating a greater volume of ads that target fewer people11.

Facebook is known for its powerful and specific targeting power—use it.

O’Neill provides a basic outline of each of these targeting options12:

1. Location: Target by country, state or province, city and

metropolitan areas. Location is required by Facebook and is

pretty self-explanatory.

2. Age: Businesses and organizations with a solid marketing strategy

should have a handle the age of a target market and the target

market that best fits the messaging of the content and purpose of

a Facebook ad goes here.

3. Sex: Like age, this option is a pretty standard targeting filter.

Products for men with text aimed at men, for example, should be

targeted to men. Or, the text should be aimed at wives, girlfriends,

sisters or daughters and targeted to women.

4. Birthday: This option offers the opportunity to offer birthday wishes

and select birthday discounts as means of improving conversion

rates and increasing engagement with users. Beyond birthday

related ads, this filtering option may not be relevant.

5. Interested in: Refers to sexual orientation. ‘All’ is the default and

ads with this option will include both those interested in men and

women and those who do not list a preference at all.

6. Relationship: Refers to the relationship status of an individual.

Selling wedding dresses? Target engaged people. Offer dating

services? Target singles. Like ‘Interested in,’ this filter defaults

to ‘All.’

7. Languages: For bilingual or international ads, Facebook offers

the opportunity to reach users that speak a specific language. For

11 O’Neill, Nick. “10 Rules For Advertising On Facebook.” Business Insider. 16 July 2009. Web. 01 July 2010. <http://www.businessinsider.com/10-rules-for-advertising-on-facebook-2009-7>.

12 O’Neill, Nick. “10 Rules For Advertising On Facebook.” Business Insider. 16 July 2009. Web. 01 July 2010. <http://www.businessinsider.com/10-rules-for-advertising-on-facebook-2009-7>.

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Facebook ads created in the United States, the default language is

English. As a rule of thumb, the language filter should match the

language of the ad text.

8. Likes and interests: These are based on the information included

in a user’s profile. This can include movies, books, activities, clubs,

television shows, restaurants, brands, music, job titles, industries

and more. The most effective filtering here is based on interests

that best relate to the text of the ad or the industry of a business

or organization. For example, a campground would target ads to

those with interests like “camping,” “campfires,” or “RVs.” Pro

tip: Businesses that already utilize search marketing can think of

this targeting option as a means of repurposing keywords. Try

identifying the highest-performing paid-search keywords as way to

determine relevant Facebook ad Likes and interests.13

9. Education and work: Target by level of education or school to reach

certain socioeconomic filters of an ad or to target specific alums or

students. For example, a law school with a Facebook ad is going

to target undergrad and grad students as opposed to those who

only finished high school, while a group of alums advertising a class

reunion will only want to reach former students of their school.

An example of targeting by education can be found in One Day,

One Job’s success story. An online company that specializes in

helping college students find entry-level jobs, One Day, One Job

took to a Facebook ad campaign to grow its Web traffic. The

company created a series of ads targeting Ivy League seniors and

seniors from 40 other top-rated schools, both on a pay-per-click

and pay-per-impression basis. The results? For the impression ads,

8,000 impressions were allocated to the Ivy League ad, and 14,000

impressions to the ads targeting other schools. Click-through rates

averaged 0.06 percent in both cases. Both click campaigns, however,

had over one million impressions each, with the Ivy League ads

achieving a 0.15 percent click-through rate and other school ads

registering 0.10 percent.

Through careful monitoring and comparison to other

measurements like Web analytics, One Day, One Job found that

Facebook referrals tend to be more engaged Web site users: They

13 Lawson, Matt. “Winning Facebook Tactics for Today’s Search Marketer.” MarketingProfs: Marketing Resources for Marketing Professionals. 08 June 2010. Web. 02 July 2010. <http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2010/3680/winning-facebook-tactics-for-todays-search-marketer>.

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visit more pages and stay on the company’s website twice as long as

the average user.14

10. Connections on Facebook: This filter of targeting defines the

relationships of users to a specific page, event, group or application.

If a user has already ‘liked’ a business, that business can create

future ad campaigns promoting specific events, products or services

to just those they’ve already engaged. This is also a nice way of

preventing ad exhaustion of advertising a Fan Page to users that

have already ‘liked’ a page by eliminating them as a target.

Campaigns, pr ic ing and schedul ingThe last step in Facebook ad creation is naming or selecting a campaign, naming

the price and scheduling the ads. These options look like this:

Figure 315

Selecting the “Create a new campaign” option will require that a name is given

to an ad campaign. While the same ad can be used in multiple campaigns, each

campaign can have unique settings such as the targeting, pricing and scheduling.

Therefore, be as specific as possible in the name to help differentiate between

campaigns when the time comes for measurement.

Selecting a new campaign will also require setting some spending limits through

the Daily Budget and the Max Bid. Once the Daily Budget is reached, the ad will

no longer be shown that day and, therefore, advertisers will not be charged

beyond what they are willing to spend. The Max Bid is a way to increase the

effectiveness of an ad—the higher the bid, the more likely it is to appear to users.

14 “Case Study: A Facebook Experiment in Ad Targeting.” MarketingProfs: Marketing Resources for Marketing Professionals. Web. 05 July 2010. <http://www.marketingprofs.com/casestudy/152>.

15 “What Do You Want to Advertise? | Facebook.” Welcome to Facebook. Web. 01 July 2010. <http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/?act=29614022>.

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The default daily budget is $10, but can be set to as little as $1 per day. The

default cost per click is 30 cents and the default cost per impression is 70 cents.

These numbers have to jive with one another and ultimately depend upon a

business’s overall advertising, marketing or public relations budget. Budgets and

bids should be set with a goal in mind. Specifically, the goal established prior to

developing the Facebook ad. If the goal was to drive traffic, think about click

through and conversion rates. How many per day would constitute success or

return on investment for the campaign? If the goal was to increase impressions,

how many impressions per day would constitute success or return on investment?

When in doubt, CPC is almost always appropriate—in most cases it offers the

biggest bang for the buck.

The last piece is scheduling. Should an ad run continuously until a business

decides to stop, or should an ad run between specified time periods? If this is the

first time around the Facebook-ad block, or a new ad has just been developed,

testing short-term ads within a designated time period is always a good idea:

Establish the campaign, pricing and scheduling in a limited manner the first time

around until a successful ad is created and an appropriate price has been set that

reaches goals and stays within budget. Then, move forward full-throttle with a

long-term campaign with an open end-date.

After the cost piece has been taken care of, review the ad and launch it!

Measurement and report ingMeasurement is key to determining the success of current and future campaigns.

If something isn’t working, the beauty of Facebook ads is that you can stop them

before wasting money, and try again with a different message, targeting or

budget. Or perhaps, measurement will show that Facebook just isn’t the place for

a business or campaign—and that’s okay, too.

Facebook ads and pages have a built-in measurement dashboard with a myriad

tools for reporting to determine the value and effectiveness of campaigns. This

dashboard, also known as the Ads Manager, shows an overview of stats for all

ads can be seen through the “Campaigns” tab of the “Ads and Pages” link of the

page administrator. Statistics relating to individual ads can be seen through the

“My Ads” link.

The basic information provided in both covers the name of the ad, the status of

the ad, budget, clicks, impressions, click-through-rate (CTR), average cost-per-click

(CPC) and the dollars spent to date on the ad(s). There is also a graph visual that

illustrates the response of ads in comparison to the activity of the Fan Page.

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The key insights to monitor are clicks, CTR and CPC. Each of these variables

changes based on the type of campaign that is being run (by impression versus

click-through) and targeting. In theory, the most successful ads have the highest

CTR—users see the ad and are clicking through to find more information or

engage in the call to action put forward by the ad. In smaller runs especially, this

number is likely to go down over time as a targeted population is exposed to an

ad—another reason to watch and tweak ads and content regularly.

For example, take Adventures in Missions, an international nonprofit organization

connecting individuals to mission trips and based in Gainesville, Ga. In 2008, the

organization began exploring Facebook ad campaigns to secure new applicants to

one of its programs, World Race. Investing less than $100 in a two-week campaign

that targeted users with Evangelical religious preferences, the nonprofit tested a

series of ads varying text each time. Additionally, measurements from each test

run were used to alter interests and demographic information of subsequent

ads. Eventually, a full run was made and, in the first six months of the campaign,

the nonprofit saw a click-through rate of 30-60 clicks per day. According to the

organization, these views ultimately led to applications increasing two-fold.16

Sometimes, people want more data and for this, Facebook offers Detailed

Reports. These reports can be generated for download or exported for

integration with measurement of comprehensive tactics of an overall advertising,

marketing or public relations campaign.

These reports are customizable in a few different ways17:

• By advertising performance—this offers many of the same insights

as the dashboard views, only in report form. It also includes data on

unique impressions and clicks, unique CTR and social action statistics

(what did the user do on Facebook after exposure to the ad?).

• By responder demographics—this provides valuable information

on the people responding to ads in order to fine-tune market

information or to target future ads. This includes data on

demographics, percentage of impressions and clickers and

unique CTR.

• By responder profiles—this provides information about the types

of users who see or click on ads based on interests listed in user

16 Handley, Ann, and Allen Weiss. “Facebook Success Stories.” MarketingProfs. Web. 01 June 2010. <http://www.marketingprofs.com>.

17 “Help Center | Facebook.” Welcome to Facebook. Web. 05 July 2010. <http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=866>.

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4imprint serves more than 100,000 businesses with innovative promotional items throughout the United States,

Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland. Its product offerings include giveaways, business gifts, personalized gifts,

embroidered apparel, promotional pens, travel mugs, tote bags, water bottles, Post-it Notes, custom calendars,

and many other promotional items. For additional information, log on to www.4imprint.com.

profiles. Includes data on interests, books, music, television shows,

the number of clickers who clicked on an ad that have a specific

interest, and rank against interests across all of Facebook

• By view—customize reports by view, by summary, by data range and

export format.

If measurements are in-line with goals and budget, businesses are well on their

way to becoming Facebook ad campaign success stories.

Go forth and conquerFacebook ad campaigns are a highly targeted, easily measureable tool to ad

to any overarching advertising, marketing or public relations strategy on any

budget. What’s more, Facebook ads themselves can be ‘liked’ and shared among

users, often multiplying the impact of an ad and increasing a users engagement

with a business’s or organization’s presence on Facebook. That’s where advertising

and social media meet.