How to Set Up and Optimize Your Facebook Advertising

Social media has completely changed how businesses can target and reach new customers. No matter which industry you’re in, you can bet that a sizable portion of your prospective customers are on social media— liking, sharing, and browsing the content that catches their eye. Building your page and getting it in front of the right people with strategic marketing can help you take your business to the next level. Use this guide to start making a name for your business on Facebook.

Create Your Facebook Business Account

1. Click on the drop-down menu in the top right corner of your Facebook page and click “Advertising on Facebook.” This leads to a variety of advertising and marketing resources.
2. Click on the “Get Started” button to create a Facebook business page.
3. On the next page, you have to label your page as “Business or Brand” or “Community or Public Figure”.
4. After selecting “Business or Brand”, you can name your page and select a category. Choose your category carefully—the category you fit into may influence who sees your message and how Facebook targets customers. If applicable, add your address and phone number. The more ways your customers can reach you the better.
5. From there, add a profile picture and a cover photo to drive up the appeal of your page. When people click on your ads to see what your business is all about, you want to give them plenty to look at.
6. From your Facebook page, you should then add your website link, a description of your business, business hours, and any other information you want people to see right away.

Create a Content Calendar

Part of being successful with Facebook is consistency. You know that feeling you get when you look up a business that catches your attention, only to find a Facebook page that hasn’t been updated in two years? Imagine your customers reaching your blank social media page and looking for a competitor with a more robust social media strategy.

Make sure you don’t miss out on potential customers— write up a content calendar. Each month, decide how many posts you’ll make, when you’ll publish new posts on your Facebook page, and the intent of each post.

On some days, you may choose to share content from relevant pages. On others, you may share information on your products or sales. You can also post questions that inspire viewer interaction and increase customer engagement. Try to stick to your initial calendar and keep an eye on which posts get the most attention – then schedule accordingly.

Check out The Small Business Guide to Content Marketing

Add a Button

With a button, you can immediately meet the needs of your visitors and make your business more accessible to them. When you’re on your business Facebook page, navigate to the upper right corner and click the blue “Add a Button” button.
The “Add a Button” feature allows you to preview the button you’re creating, so you can be confident about how it will appear to visitors.

1. The first step is deciding which function the button will have. Do you want people to:
   • Book an appointment?
   • Contact you for more information?
   • Learn more about your business?
   • Shop or make a donation?
   • Download an app or play a game?
2. Under each category, there are options that allow you to decide the wording of your button. If you choose “Book with you”, you can add a button that says “Book Now”. If you go with a “Contact you” button, there are options like “Call Now”, “Sign Up”, and “Send Email”.
3. It’s best to create a button now, see how it performs, and change the wording later if you want to test which option works better.
4. The next step is deciding where you want the button to send people. For example, if you choose to create a button that allows users to send you a message, you can opt to make a button that sends them right into Facebook Messenger, where they can connect with you directly.

Set Your Marketing Goals

Now that you have a Facebook page and a place to send potential customers, it’s time to flex your advertising muscles and use Facebook’s huge market to your advantage.

1. From the upper right drop-down menu, select “Advertising on Facebook” again and click the “Create an Ad” button.
2. The first step in a successful ad campaign is deciding what your goals are. You can choose from objectives in three categories: awareness, consideration, and conversion.
   • In the awareness category, you can aim for brand awareness or reach.
   • Consideration involves video views, lead generation, messages, or other actions that indicate that customers are willing to learn more about your brand.
   • Conversion is the final step. Ads in this category hope to get customers to purchase or visit your store.

Create Your Ads

After you select a marketing objective, you can get right into the ad creation process. Give your ad campaign a name and decide whether you want to add split testing or budget optimization.

• Split testing allows you to run two ad sets at the same time to figure out which ads work best.
• Budget optimization allows you to spread your budget over multiple ad sets, maximizing your budget while still meeting your bidding strategy and ad optimization choices.

Choose Your Audience and Placement

Getting the right kind of traffic is the goal of any marketing strategy. You don’t just want to get your content in front of as many people as possible. You want to get it in front of people who are likely to want what you’re offering. It’s important to spend some time testing different audiences to see who responds well to your ads.

You can customize your audience by gender, age, and language to start. From there, you can get even more detailed by targeting specific demographics, interests, and behaviors.

• In the demographics category, you may want to show your ads to people of specific education levels, political beliefs, industries, life events, or parenting roles.
• Look for people with specific interests in fields like food and drink, entertainment, and shopping, to find people who are likely to be interested in your offer.
• Behaviors vary widely, so choose to target customers who use mobile versions of Facebook, have certain purchasing behaviors, travel frequently, or watch certain sports, just to name a few options.

You may also want to reach people who are connected to your page in a specific way or exclude certain people from your ads.

• You can aim your ads at people who like your page or friends of people who already like your page, or you may choose to exclude these people from your ad campaigns altogether.
• If your business has an app or hosts Facebook events, you can try to reach those who have used your app or indicated interest in your events.

As you adjust your audience options, keep an eye on the audience size metric on the right side of the page. This shows you how many people your ad could potentially reach, based on the current audience you’ve selected. You’ll want to find a sweet spot.

• If your ad reaches too many people, you probably aren’t being specific enough.
• If your audience is too narrow, it could take a long time to use up your ad budget and have enough data to analyze.
• Aim for about 25,000 as a starting point.

Placement is another area where you can tweak and figure out what works best for your offers. Automatic placement is recommended by Facebook—this feature is designed to show your ads to more people and maximize your budget. However, adjusting your placements may allow you to reach a narrower, more targeted audience, which may help you boost your ROI.

• Consider putting ads in Facebook stories. Stories show up in a full-screen format, capturing the attention of anyone scrolling through the friends’ stories. This feature is also available in automatic ad placement options.

Set Up Your Ad

When it comes to setting up your actual ad, get ready to test, try it out, and test some more.

1. First, you have to choose who you want to show up as the advertiser. Use your business page for this—very few people benefit from using their personal Facebook page or profile for advertising purposes.
2. The next step is selecting the format of your ad.
   • Carousel is one option to consider, and it shows up frequently for large retailers like Amazon and Wish. With a carousel ad, you can add two or more images or videos that users scroll through. It’s a great way to highlight your products and pricing. You may also benefit from this structure if you run events or offer a variety of services that you want to showcase.
   • With image ads, you can have up to six specific ads with one image each.
   • Video advertisements use video clips or a loop of images.
   • A slideshow ad creates a looped video ad with up to 10 repeating images.

You can also try some unique Facebook advertisement options.

• The template option gives customers an easy way to fill out a form to request an appointment, more information, or samples. The form automatically fills out the information they’ve already given to Facebook, making it easier than ever for potential customers to reach out to you.
• Another Facebook-only feature is an instant experience. This lets you create a mobile landing page that gives users access to exclusive content when they interact your ad. You can track this activity to see which parts of your audience are responding to your ad and making it to the landing page.

Ad text is perhaps one of the most important features in any advertisement. An image captures a viewer’s attention, but it’s the right CTA that makes customers take the leap and click your ad.

• Make sure to spend some time previewing each text option to see how it shows up on different devices. With the Facebook tool, you can test your ad on mobile and desktop news feeds, Instagram feeds, Messenger inboxes, and more. The structuring of an ad can heavily influence how people respond to it, so don’t be afraid to test out different CTAs and wording options.
• Options vary for each type of ad. For example, if you choose a carousel ad, you can ask Facebook to show the best-performing card first. If one card consistently yields clicks and interaction, Facebook will show that card to users first in future ad runs.

Run Your Ad

After you’ve chosen your audience and designed your ad, all you have to do is create an ad schedule and a budget.

• You can spend as little as $5 per day on Facebook ads, giving you the freedom to work within your advertising budget and ramp up as you’re ready.
• The schedule determines the start and end date for your ad campaign. Leave yourself enough time at the end of the ad campaign to analyze results and make any necessary changes before running the next campaign.
• After double-checking everything for accuracy, go ahead and click the green Confirm button at the bottom. Your ad goes through a brief approval process before going live.

Rinse and Repeat

Creating your first ad campaign is a lot of work, and you’ve undoubtedly spent hours at the computer to get to this point. It doesn’t stop here, though!

The key to successful advertising is constant analysis and tweaking. Facebook makes this step pretty easy.

• With their analytics and ad reporting pages, you can see which demographic groups are finding your ad, who is interacting with it, and how many people are taking action at the end of your ad. The appropriate action depends on whether you’re aiming for increased reach, consideration, or conversion.
• Don’t forget to check in with your ad campaign throughout its lifespan, keeping an eye on metrics and looking for any weaknesses in your ad. However, save the majority of your analysis for the end of the campaign.
• When the campaign is finished, take advantage of the variety of charts and graphs Facebook offers to see how many people are interacting with your page, how many new likes your page has, and how successful your ad campaign has been. You can use this information to narrow down your potential audience— or expand it if your ad is resonating with an unexpected target group— change the wording of your campaign, or use new images.

As you ramp up your marketing efforts, you may get comfortable enough to run multiple ad campaigns at once. The more marketing efforts you have on your plate, the more potential customers you can reach. Facebook makes it pretty easy to create ads, analyze their performance, and make the necessary changes, so don’t be afraid to try new things and see who you can reach with your ads!

Facebook marketing can completely overhaul your advertising efforts, help you reach new groups of people, and take your business to new heights. Use this guide as a starting point and find out how Facebook marketing can breathe new life into your business.

FAQs

How do I optimize my Facebook business page?

After you get your page up and running, you can adjust your page to meet the needs of your audience. You can adjust the tabs on your Facebook page to highlight reviews, events, visitor posts, videos, and more, you can make sure the layout of your page is well-suited to your visitors.

Should my business have a Facebook group?

One of the main goals of a business page is to create a sense of community. A private Facebook group is a great way to do that. This is a great way to share information and build brand loyalty. For example, a home improvement store might run a private Facebook group where members can share pictures of projects and ask questions, or a graphic designer may run a group to share freebies and project templates.

Should my business use Facebook stories?

If you want to stay at the forefront of your customers’ minds, definitely use Facebook stories in your marketing. Not only can you get attention from those intentionally checking out your story, but your story may also autoplay after visitors watch a friend’s story, giving you even more reach.

How can I engage my audience?

When you start posting, think about your intent. Every post should have a goal, whether it’s to advertise a service, bring attention to an event, get visitors talking, or simply show up in visitors’ newsfeeds. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve with each post can help you decide which posts to boost.