Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 0 People will forever debate how ads fit into the fundamental nature of Facebook, a site people join so they can keep in touch with friends, post and look at pictures, overshare, Facebook stalk other people, etc. I won’t get into the debate about whether commercial efforts can work in the long term on an inherently social site, but what I will do is show you how Facebook ads work. Facebook has recently made a number of updates to ads (stockholders are quite the motivators, aren’t they?); it’s trying to simplify ads and make them more effective. You can advertise anything from a page to an app to an event, but for the sake of trying to keep things (somewhat) brief and not insanely complicated, I’m going to focus only on questions relating to creating ads from a Facebook page. (We could be here a long time if I didn’t.) Ads in the right-hand column, ads in news feeds: what gives? In the early days of Facebook, the news feed didn’t exist and ads were relegated to the right-hand side of the page. Now, some ads (like links to external sites) appear only in the right hand column; other ads (promoting one of your posts right from your Facebook page, sponsored stories) appear only in the news feed. According to Facebook, ads in the news feed perform better (which makes sense, as these ads often include social context, and they’re right in front of your face rather than off to the side, where they can be easily ignored). Also, remember that if someone uses Facebook mobile, the only kind of ad that person will see is one in the news feed. Right-column ads are for desktop users only. What kinds of ads can you create for a page? When you create an ad with the Ad Create tool, you have two options: create a Facebook ad that points to a URL (an external URL or a Facebook URL) or create a Facebook ad that points to a Facebook destination (like a Facebook page, a places page, an app, or event). URLs When your ad points to a URL, you have two different options: 1. Domain ads in the right column– with this kind of ad, you have the option to show social activity with the ad. Social activity means that the number of people who like a business’s Facebook page can appear right below the ad copy (for example, “7,454 people like Mainstreethost- Inbound Marketing”). Some domain ads in the right column of my Facebook home page right now: 2. Page post link ads– these ads will still point to a URL, but they show in the news feed and they show as coming from your Facebook page. You connect your ad to any Facebook page that you’re an admin of, so that when people see this URL, it’s tied to a Facebook page. When you go to the Ad Create tool and enter a link, you’ll see both of these options. No matter which format you use (or if you use both formats), you set your headline, text, and an image. (This ability to choose any image you want is actually new within the past few months. Facebook used to source the thumbnail image based on the images on the URL you entered.) Facebook destinations When your ad points to a Facebook page, a places page, an app, or an event, Facebook gives you a few options depending on your goals: 1. Get more likes– This type of ad showcases whatever page, app, or event you’re trying to boost likes of. You create an ad that has a headline (25 characters), text (90 characters), and an image (100×72 px). These ads appear only in the right column, but your page could find its way into news feeds through sponsored stories. Facebook will automatically create a sponsored story when you create this kind of ad (when you advertise a Facebook page, the sponsored stories will be generated by likes). There’s no additional budget required for sponsored stories; instead, they share whatever budget you set in the pricing section. But, something to keep in is that when people see that sponsored story (or, if you’re paying for clicks, when someone clicks on that sponsored story), you’ll be charged. The right column ad A sponsored story, which shows up in news feeds 2. Promote page posts– You can choose a post that’s already on your Facebook page and promote that; you can ask Facebook to keep your ad up to date by automatically promoting your most recent post; or you can create within the Ad Create tool a brand new post to promote (that post will show up on your page). Again, Facebook automatically creates a sponsored story for you (when you promote a post, the sponsored stories will be generated by likes, comments, and shares). Right column ad A sponsored story in the news feed: you can choose whether you want to show stories about people liking the post, commenting on it, or sharing it. If you want to create only sponsored stories when you advertise a Facebook page or promote page posts, you can just remove the right column ad and keep the sponsored story. Who can I target with ads and how can I target them? If you’ve never experimented with ads, all the different options can get kind of confusing (and there are many more that I haven’t even talked about). Good news is the targeting and pricing options are the exact same for all the different types of ads I’ve covered so far! You can target by: Location (from something really broad like country to something very specific like zip code. Hello, local businesses!) Age (you can use exact match, which means that if you target people ages 21-25, you’ll target only those people, or you can forego exact match and target people slightly outside of the age range you specify. I’m not sure what Facebook defines as “slightly outside.”) Gender Onto the more involved stuff! Precise Interests- with precise interests, you define your ideal audience based on what they’re interested in. Broad Categories- you reach a wider audience that shares similar interests Connection targeting- you target people who have a certain connection to your page Friends of connection targeting- target people whose friends are connected to your page Advanced targeting- target people based on relationship status, languages, education, workplaces When it comes to precise interests and broad categories, Facebook pulls everything from info people have added to their timelines (pages they like, apps they use, and info like listed interests, activities, education and job titles). When you mess around with precise interests, you’ll notice that the estimated audience number Facebook provides you gets significantly smaller as you move away from broad categories (obviously, you’re targeting more granular interests). You may think, “I don’t want that! I want to get my ad in front of as many people as possible!” But you really want to get your ad in front of as many relevant, interested people as possible. The targeting process is a critical part of Facebook ads: you can target a broad category and reach a lot of people, sure, but those people may not fall in your target audience or be interested in your website/product/service. If you reach smaller groups of people whose needs, wants, interests are in line with your website/product/service, your ad becomes more relevant, meaningful, and appealing. (To figure out targeting, I’d start by looking at current customers, target audiences that you’ve defined for other marketing efforts, and buyer personas.) If you use a precise interest and a broad category, the connection between the two is an “and” clause. I’d be targeting people who like Real Simple magazine and who are in the broad category Cooking, aka my mom. If you choose multiple broad categories, the connection between the two is an “or” clause, so you target people who fall under any of the categories you select. I’d be targeting people who are in the category Cooking or people who are in the category DIY/Crafts, aka the prototypical Pinterest user. When you choose a precise interest, Facebook will give you suggested likes and interests (another “or” clause). And when you start typing interests in the precise Interests Field, you’ll see that Facebook suggests topics, which have hashtags. Anything marked with a hashtag will reach everyone who has expressed interests closely related to the term. A #LadyGaga topic! Related interests may include: meat dresses. In addition to interest targeting, connection targeting is another option with Facebook ads. You can forego connection targeting and show an ad to anyone; you can show it to only people connected to your page; you can show it to only people not connected to your page. And for those of us who are all about that word-of-mouth marketing, you’ll be glad to know that Facebook lets you target people whose friends are connected to your page. When you use friends of connection targeting, there will be “social context” in your ad. So if my coworker likes Gap’s Facebook page and Gap uses friends of connection targeting, when I see a Gap ad, I’ll also see “Brandon Koch likes Gap” in the ad. (Just made public my coworker’s affinity for Gap. Oops. Hope he doesn’t mind.) An example of connection targeting at work: How do I pay for Facebook ads? Time to talk dolla bills. When you advertise on Facebook, you set your campaign budget, which is the maximum amount you want to spend. You can choose whether you want a daily budget (Facebook will distribute your spend by day) or a lifetime budget (Facebook will distribute your spend throughout the entire length of your campaign). You also set a schedule, so you can run a campaign continuously or start it and end it on specific dates. When and what you’re charged depends on your objectives. Optimize to increase engagement with a post or to get more likes on a page- you get charged for impressions. Say I was running an ad to increase page likes; I’m not going to get charged every time someone likes the page, but instead, I’m going to get charged for impressions. Optimize for clicks- Facebook will automatically optimize your budget to get more clicks, or you can manually bid for clicks and set your CPC price. Facebook will give even give you a suggested bid range (based on who else is competing for the same audience). And this is a no-brainer, but if you’re bidding for clicks, you pay each time someone clicks on your ad or sponsored story. Optimize for impressions- you set your CPM cost (cost per thousand impressions), and like with clicks, Facebook will calculate a suggested bid. I mentioned this before, but just a reminder that Facebook automatically includes sponsored stories when you create an ad, so that means when people see a sponsored story or click on a sponsored story, you get charged. What about promoted posts in news feeds? So I’ve gone over the types of ads you can create in the Ad Create tool. You can also create promote one of your Facebook posts right from the news feed or right from your Facebook page. Just press “Boost Post” at the bottom of the post. How is this kind of promoted post different from the option in the Ad Create tool? When you promote an already-existing post right from your page or news feed, this kind of post will show only in the news feed. It’s not going to show in the right column. Also targeting and pricing options are more restricted. Say you have a really great piece of content that you’ve shared on Facebook. You created this to appeal to your buyer personas, and you know it’s valuable to them. Unfortunately not everyone connected to your page will see your post (hey, EdgeRank), but boosting the post is one way to try to get that post in more news feeds. How do I track ad performance? When you go to the Ad Create tool and choose the promote page posts option, Facebook lets you add URL tags, so you can track ad performance in Google Analytics. An awesome feature for people who live and die by data! This is really helpful for keeping data in analytics clean by separating people who click through to your site via an ad from people who click through via an organic Facebook post. There is also the Ads Manager in Facebook. The Ads Manager will give you stats for each of your ads for any time period you choose. You’ll see stats like: Ad reach Frequency Clicks CTR Average price Total spent Average paid for each page like (if you’re running an ad to get likes)/cost per engagement (if you’re running an ad to promote a post) (You can also edit your ads in the Ads Manager.) When you choose that Boost Post option on one of your posts, you can go to Facebook Insights, look at the posts tab, and change the Reach drop down to Organic/Paid. Why am I being highly retargeted with ads from third-party sites?! And what if I want to highly retarget on Facebook visitors from my site?! If you’ve looked at a product on a website, you’ve probably seen an ad with that exact product in your news feed. This is the work of Facebook Exchange (FBX), Facebook’s real-time bidding system. Brands partner with a small number of Demand-Side platforms (DSPs), which use cookie-based targeting to reach people. Basically a brand works with a Facebook Exchange partner. When a user visits the brand’s site, a cookie gets dropped on the user’s browser. The brand can then retarget the user when he/she enters Facebook with ads relevant to what he/she looked at on the site. In March, Facebook expanded FBX ads to the news feed and made them biddable in real-time. The FBX ads that I’ve seen in my news feed are images paired with clever copy (kind of dangerous if you have a penchant for online shopping). I looked at a pair of shoes on Nordstrom, so I saw an ad with a picture of the shoes + the copy, “You know you’ve been checking me out.” Hey, at least it’s creative. OK, that’s a wrap! I hope this post answers some of your questions about Facebook ads. If you want to really dive into Facebook ads, I would highly recommend using Power Editor. It has some amazing, useful features (lookalike audiences, dark posts, custom audiences) that you can’t get from the Ad Create tool. I’ll go over some Power Editor tips for noobs in my next post. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article originally appeared on Mainstreethost and has been republished with permission.Find out how to syndicate your content with B2C Author: Jay Leonard Jay is a UK-based cryptocurrency expert, specialising in fundamental analysis and medium to long term investments. Jay has a great deal of hands-on experience in analysing financial markets and performing technical analysis. Jay is currently focusing on the institutional adoption of cryptocurrency and what it means for the future of … View full profile ›More by this author:Top Trending Meme Coins: ELON, HOGE, SAMO, TAMA, MARVIN, BABYDOGE, MONAHotbit Exchange Forced to Suspend Service As itβs Under Criminal InvestigationCameo CEO Steven Galanis Wallet Hacked – $231k Worth of NFTs Stolen