Are you interested in getting more bang for your buck when it comes to advertising?
This article will show you four ways to enhance your Facebook Ads.
What Changed Within Facebook Ads?
If you’ve been running Facebook Ads over the past year, you may be confused by some of the newer options and the new layout of the Ads area. You may have felt like you had a good handle on everything if you read this post in Social Media Examiner about Facebook Ads.
But of course, this is Facebook, and the only constant with Facebook is change. Let’s dive into some of the changes with the Facebook Ads platform so that you can maximize your next Facebook Ad campaign.
The first step is to choose what you want to advertise. You can choose an external URL or a Facebook Page, App or Event. This step has not changed much from the previous iterations of the Facebook Ads interface.
You’ll notice your first difference if you choose to advertise your Facebook Page, Event or App.
#1: You Have New Choices
One big change with the new Facebook Ads layout is the choice of objectives.
The changes are as follows.
- Get More Page Likes. With this selection, you’re advertising your Page and trying to grow your Likes. You can write your own ad copy and you can craft your own title of your ad. The title defaults to the title of your Facebook Page, but you can change this.
- Promote Page Posts. This option was previously under the “Sponsored Story” section of Facebook Ads. This is a way to advertise one of your recent posts and the ad is pre-written for you. This type of ad still appears on the right side of Facebook Ads, as shown in the preview, and it appears in the News Feed where people can interact with the post itself right from the ad. A word of caution on this type of ad: You will get charged for a click if someone likes the post that you’re advertising. They don’t have to like your Page to like the post and they may even think that they are liking your Page by liking the post. So make sure you’re using this option wisely. But one thing I like about the Promote Page Posts selection is that you can select a post that had a photo and get a “bonus” photo in your ad.
Be aware of the new 20% maximum text rules in Facebook Ads. Make sure any photo you attach to a status update will need to comply with these rules (note that this one would not be approved for advertising!)
- See Advanced Options. Selecting this option allows you to have more flexibility in the bidding on your ad. If you select this option, you still have the same options of choosing to advertise your Page or a page post, and you will have to make those selections initially. The main difference here is in how you want to bid for your ad.
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Only the Bidding options change with the See Advanced Options selection.
Also note that when you choose to advertise your Facebook Page, you can change the landing view so that when users click on your ad to see more information, you can direct them to a particular tab on your Page.
#2: Sponsored Stories Are Automatically Selected When Advertising Your Facebook Page, Event or App
Be very cautious about this next step, because it is one of the major changes with Facebook Ads.
Facebook auto-selects the Sponsored Stories choice for any ad that advertises something on Facebook, such as a Page, an Event or an App. Facebook says, “No increase in budget is required.” But that is a little misleading.
What that statement means is if you are spending $10/day on your ad, then Facebook will also run your Sponsored Story within that $10/day budget, but will still charge you when someone clicks on that Sponsored Story.
So now you may have $5/day going toward the Sponsored Story and $5/day going to the ad you intended and that has the copy you want.
Now this may not be a bad thing if you’re truly looking to increase your likes. Remember that Sponsored Stories are the ones that go into the News Feed (and they are shown on the right side also), where more people notice them.
The Facebook Ad I ran recently that included the Sponsored Story Ad performed very well. When you look at the data, the Sponsored Story looks like it had a 100% conversion rate (Actions to Clicks), versus the Facebook Ad that had an 80% conversion rate of Actions to Clicks.
But make sure you dig a little deeper into these numbers. When you expand each of these ads (notice how each of the ads has a different line item in your reports), you see more information.
You find that while the Actions were high on the Sponsored Story, they didn’t all result in an actual Page like. Some users just liked the post, some commented on it and some shared it.
In this case, the Ad conversion now becomes 80% for the Sponsored Story and 77% conversion for the regular ad (74 likes from 96 clicks). The Sponsored Story still outperformed the ad in this case, but make sure you watch your numbers!
And do your own testing on Facebook Ads—you may find that your Page and your ads perform differently. Remember you can deselect the Sponsored Story if you do not want to create a Sponsored Story with your ad.
#3: Click See Advanced Options to Only Advertise a Sponsored Story
Another change with the new layout is that it’s more challenging to advertise just a Sponsored Story about people Liking your Page. To do so, click See Advanced Options, then Remove the Ad itself to leave just the Sponsored Story behind.
#4: Know Your Bidding Options
Bidding has not changed that much, but it is definitely something you should understand. When you choose to advertise something you have on Facebook such as your Page, Event or App, and you select the first radio button (Get More Likes, Increase Attendance, or Get New Users, respectively), then Facebook does your bidding for you. They optimize your ad with the CPM (cost per mille, which is cost per 1000 impressions) model.
You can switch to the Advanced Pricing either here in the Campaign and Budget window or by choosing to See Advanced Options as mentioned in #1. If you choose the Advanced Pricing option, you can then use the CPC (cost per click) model, as well as set your own bids for the CPM model.
Hopefully these tips have helped you stay on top of some of the changes in Facebook Ads and maybe even given you some new ideas on how you can leverage Facebook Ads.
How about you? What have you found to be working with your Facebook Ad campaigns? How frequently are you using Facebook Ads? Share your experience in the comments section below.
Note: This post originally appeared on Social Media Examiner and is reposted with permission.
