Facebook Advertising
1. Facebook offers “ultimate targeting”
Some examples of ads targeted to a small business owner who is a woman.
Every person sees different ads on Facebook based on how they’ve “profiled” themselves. This gives marketers the ability to “micro target” people they think will be most likely to be interested in what they’re selling. It’s like buying a very targeted direct mail list and tailoring your message to be most relevant. That laser targeting and tailoring your messages will increase your response rates by making your ad more relevant to a prospective buyer.
If you’re a local jewelry store, you can use Facebook’s ad targeting system so your ads will appear to people who live in specific zip codes and have recently become engaged and updated their Facebook status to note this.
If someone who is getting engaged has noted on their profile that they like disco music, a local DJ could target those people with an ad about their services.
A solar panel seller can target men between 40 – 55 who own hybrid cars.
You can target business owners and even more narrowly target women business owners nationwide or within particular zip codes.
If you know precisely who your target audience is, then Facebook is a wonderful and inexpensive venue for “micro targeting” to find the people who will be most interested in what you are selling or offering.
ZIP code targeting allows you to target your ads very precisely.
Topic targeting combines overlapping someone’s identified likes and interests.
You can also target your ad to people who are your fans, people who are not your fans and to the friends of your fans. Friends of your fans are people who have things in common with your fan base.
Facebook advertising is much easier to buy and manage than Google’s AdWords. Why? With Facebook ads you select exactly who you want to reach like you’re buying a direct mail list and then you can create and tailor ads to those different target audience groups to be most relevant.
2. Facebook advertising in inexpensive and controllable
You set exactly how much you want to spend and you can easily turn on or off the ad campaign to adjust it or stop it.
3. You can add a graphic image or photo to your ad on Facebook
That will help your ad to stand out more. You can’t do this with text ads you buy on Google and the other search engines.
You Facebook ad can add a PDF or report, include an image of a product or another graphic that will be attention-getting and relevant to your target audience.
You can (and should) tailor the ad headline, text and offer to be most relevant to the specific audience you’ve selected for a particular ad. This will help increase your ad response rates vs. creating one ad that you run for everyone. So will tailoring the landing page the customer is sent to.
4. Facebook advertising can work well if you develop ads specifically for Facebook that are more like ads on TV that create brand awareness and preference or ads that work like reminder advertising.
For the rest of the story – the cons and cautions (there are 8 of them), typical response rates and what you need to know about Facebook advertising – you’ll want to read this:
