Advertising on Facebook Ads has become a standard practice for both B2B and B2C marketers. eMarketer estimates that Facebook will generate $22.37 billion in net ad revenue this year, accounting for 67.9% of total social network ad revenue. Facebook has established itself as the leading platform for social media advertising. This is partly due to users spending an average of 55 minutes a day on Facebook, as reported by the New York Times, but also because Facebook has effectively created ad types that cater to various advertiser goals.
Today, I am going to pull out some of the ad types that have worked for me, as my advertising efforts are really focused on lead gen.
Marketing Objective: Awareness
The awareness campaigns are often used by bigger brands and disregarded by lead gen marketers since it is upper funnel. However, I urge you to test and measure Facebook awareness campaigns the same way you would display campaigns. Lifting brand awareness is key for lead gen advertisers because the more prospective customers who are aware of your brand, the higher your branded search volume will be and the more conversions (online form fills and phone calls) you will receive. This consequently improves your overall digital acquisition efficiency.
“Boost your posts” and “increase brand awareness” ad types really help drive a lift in brand awareness. They allow marketers to push thought leadership content as well as push out messaging to a designated target audience on a CPM pricing model. This can really help maximize your budget towards reaching as many prospects as possible.
Marketing Objective: Consideration
Consideration is the area where I spend the majority of my social media budget. The ad type “collect leads for your business” has been a game changer for lead gen efforts. It has proven to be just as efficient as PPC branded search.
You can collect a lead directly within Facebook (minimizing drop off that could occur from click to landing page, or even once the consumer gets to your landing page), mainly due to the fact that Facebook actually auto populates most of the user information for them, which even helps decrease mobile drop off!
There is one negative feature to this ad type. You don’t always get the option to drive people to your website, which inhibits you from retargeting them if they do not convert. However, when you do get lead information you can still integrate that information with most marketing automation tools and feed directly into your CRM. You can upload those details into your other advertising efforts focused on prospecting lookalike audiences or retargeting.
Marketing Objective: Conversion
For lead gen campaigns, the conversion ad types feel mostly geared towards the ecommerce sector with product and promotion ad types. However, there is an ad type that I strongly recommend for lead gen campaigns: “increase conversions on your website.” I recommend this ad type mainly because of the way Facebook allows you to bid: by cost per result. This ad type also allows you to set a conversion window of one or seven days. This is key in our multi-channel and multi-device world, where conversions often happen after the initial brand introduction. Increasing your conversion window helps marketers better understand the true impact Facebook is having on their overall lead gen efforts.
It’s also important to remember this ad type drives customers to your landing page and, since most Facebook traffic is mobile, ensure your landing pages are optimized to drive all conversions, including phone calls.
Attribution is key to understanding the customer journey. If Facebook is driving brand awareness, and whether conversions are achieved from other channels or you are collecting leads directly from Facebook, always ensure your analytics include every step leading up to conversion.