Do the results of your Facebook ads yield a high click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC)?
Truth is, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to Facebook ads. If you’ve been struggling to find the right creative for your Facebook ad campaigns, this article will help ease your worries.
Whether you’re looking to generate more conversions or improve your Facebook ad metrics, here are 5 ways you can improve your Facebook ads.
Display your products using carousel ads
If you want your products to tell their own story, a carousel ad can be the best way to go. This type of ad creative features 2 to 10 images or videos where users swipe through multiple products showing a unique headline, call-to-action, and link to a specific landing page for each of your products. This ad creative is available for most forms of ad objectives – its only limitations are that it’s not available for the engagement objective and the video views objective is limited to the Instagram stories placement.
If you need help creating the perfect carousel ad, here’s a step-by-step guide from Facebook on how to create carousel ads – and their own page showing creative examples of carousel ads.
Placement specific ads
If you don’t make specific changes to a Facebook ad, Facebook will automatically show your ads on the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, and Messenger. When you do this, chances are, you’re not maximizing the visibility of your ads to reach a warm audience.
Here are different ways you can customize the placement of your ads:
- Stories
When used correctly, this ad placement can be very beneficial for your business – especially now that the average attention span has dropped to 8 seconds. Story-only ads are short videos in a full-screen view that will deliver your message right away. In Facebook story ads, the ad objective is limited to video views, lead generation, reach, conversions, app installs, brand awareness, and traffic.
- Messenger
A Messenger-only ad is another placement-specific ad that offers a personalized experience to your target market. It is divided into three: Sponsored message, Messenger inbox, or click to Messenger ad.
A sponsored message is an ad that sends messages to people you’ve talked to on Messenger in the past.
A Messenger inbox ad is an ad found in between your messages on Messenger. Once your audience clicks this ad, it will open up a detailed view of your ad that will lead them closer to your chosen landing page.
A click to Messenger ad is an ad that appears on all your chosen placements that adds a send message button as the preferred call-to-action. Once your audience clicks this ad, it will open a new conversation beginning with an automated greeting and a list of frequently asked questions you created.
- Test each of the platforms individually
Did you know that over 4.48 billion people have more than one social media account?
Not everyone may be as active on Facebook as they are on Instagram and vice-versa. Finding the right platform where your audience is most active can take some time to test; it can be exclusive on Instagram, Facebook, news feed, stories, Messenger, search results, or in-stream videos – but once you do figure out the right placements, you’ll give yourself the best chance to gain visibility with your target market and maximize ad budget.
Ditch stock photos
There’s a big problem when it comes to using professional, stock photos for your Facebook ads – your audience has probably seen them before. If you want to capture the attention of your audience through photos, here’s what Facebook recommends:
- Show faces of people using your product
- Don’t crowd your image with ugly blocks of text
- Use high-resolution images
- Test different color schemes
- Maintain visual consistency
Host a giveaway
Who doesn’t love a freebie? One of the best ways to increase brand awareness, reach, and engagement is through a giveaway. This type of ad can be useful to promote a new product, get rid of old stock, and collect contact details.
Offering a giveaway also shows that you have confidence in the products you’re offering as you let people try your products in exchange for a share, comment, or email address.
When hosting a giveaway, however, make sure to clearly outline the rules of your giveaway to not mislead your audience and to abide by Facebook’s policies.
Collaborate with influencers
As mentioned earlier, showing the faces of people using your products can give you a better chance of increasing your reach, brand awareness, and engagement. The only difference is, this time, you’re using a familiar face to help influence the decision of your target audience; plus, you get to reach a new audience consisting of your influencer’s followers.
Having influencers promote your products will also build trust and credibility for your brand. Just make sure the influencer/s you choose are relevant to your niche.
Don’t forget the data
As you experiment using some of the different ways you can improve your Facebook ad creatives mentioned above, make sure you’re monitoring relevant data.
Aside from the CTR, CPC, and return on ad spend (ROAS) data, you’ll also want to add the following often overlooked metrics when monitoring the success of your Facebook ads. To do this, go to Facebook ads manager, click on the ‘Columns: Performance’ column on the upper right side. Next, click on ‘customize columns’ to change the current dashboard and search for the following:
- Frequency
This is the number
of times your ads were shown to the same person. Facebook suggests keeping your ad frequency between 1 to 2, depending on your budget and duration. When the performance of your ad begins to drop as the frequency rises, this should be a good indicator of changing up your ad creative or target audience.
- Desired action
Remember what your goal is for every Facebook ad campaign. Have you achieved the number of likes, landing page views, video views, app installs, etc that you initially aimed for?
- Impressions
This is the number of times your ad was shown on screen. Knowing the number of impressions your ad was able to generate can indirectly increase brand awareness even if it is not your desired action.
Conclusion
If your Facebook ads have not been up to par with what you’ve expected, take it easy. There are different social media techniques to improve your Facebook ads.
If you want your ads to deliver huge results, here’s what you need to remember:
- Be creative with your ads.
- Test different ad creatives and placements.
- Rely on data (CTR, CPC, ROAS, frequency, and impressions) to help measure the success of your Facebook ads and to guide you in planning your future marketing campaigns.
Do you have any other creative Facebook ad ideas that have performed well in the past that are not on this list? We’d love to hear them.
Share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment below.
About the Author
Derick Quinanola is a writer and Facebook ad specialist who loves helping businesses maximize their potential through digital marketing. In his spare time, he loves to exercise, play video games, and spend time with his family.
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