Facebook Advertising
Short summary
The term “Facebook advertising” refers to marketing measures used on the large social media portal. When compared to other advertising on the internet, Facebook advertising has some differences you should keep in mind if your campaign is going to be successful.
Detailed summary
Advertising on social media sites such as Facebook or Instagram has sometimes been ridiculed or considered ineffective by those outside the marketing industry. However, Facebook advertising offers a wealth of possibilities in terms of content and targeting your audience. In addition, Facebook offers a huge audience of users – over 1.5 billion people are active on Facebook every month – who are also potential targets for your marketing campaigns.
If set up properly, Facebook advertising can be extremely effective because it allows you to reach a lot of people with your content. It is important to note that the selection of your target group has to be much more precise than with other online marketing measures. Facebook has lots of extra information about its users that other advertising platforms such as Google Adwords cannot offer. Those who advertise on Facebook can, of course, pay to access this information, which means that – if used incorrectly – Facebook advertising quickly becomes an expensive and ultimately less effective measure.
Facebook usually calculates advertising costs via CPC; The more people see the advert, the more the advertising customer will pay. However, if your target group is poorly selected, the conversion rate will be low and you will get a low-impact advertising campaign at a relatively high price. If you want to make good use of Facebook advertising, you will have to plan correctly from the start.
Facebook Advertising – a goldmine for target-group focused marketing
Facebook knows a lot about its users. In addition to name and place of residence, the information usually also includes age, gender, hobbies, job, workplace, relationship status, preferences, interests, languages and much more. This information is valuable to advertisers because it allows them to precisely tailor their marketing to the audience they wish to target. For instance, assuming a “normal” amount of information is available, a company may know that a potential customer is 30 years old and that she lives in one of the better areas of the city. Based on this data, it could reasonably be assumed she is interested in fashion.
But if Facebook’s information shows, for example, that the woman has two small children and is active in the groups “Stop Animal Testing” and “Healthy Agriculture – Healthy Food,” this gives a very different and much more accurate picture. Instead of fashion, this woman may be more interested in organic baby food and other organic products. It is precisely this type of information that makes Facebook advertising so effective. But it is also essential to make proper use of this data in order to deploy targeted advertising to good effect.
Before focusing on your targets, there are a few basic questions you need to ask yourself about your proposed Facebook advertising project:
- What is the goal of your advertising campaign (increase awareness of the company, new customer contacts, etc.)?
- What are you advertising (an external website, a Facebook page, an event)?
- How will it be advertised (through standard or story ads, via Likes, etc.)?
Once these questions have been clarified, you can begin to select your target group. First of all, you should focus on very broad parameters, such as the country where users live or the language they speak. It should be noted that there are significant cost implications here. Advertising in large, highly competitive markets such as the US is much more expensive than in smaller markets/countries such as Finland or Greece. Fortunately, you can set geographical limitations and restrict your Facebook advertising to target users in large cities, from a specific city, or even from a certain postcode area.
Thereafter, you can specify further details about your desired audience, including age, gender, and relationship status, interests, friends, connections, and other factors. The extent to which this is sensible and necessary will of course also depend on your campaign objectives. If, for example, the project is a B2C advertising campaign by a major beverage manufacturer looking to boost the profile of a new product, then only relatively broad filters will be required. If, on the other hand, it’s a B2B campaign placed by a mechanical engineer looking for new business partners in Asia, then very precise limitations would be necessary.
These examples also make it clear that, in principle, Facebook advertising is of interest to every advertiser – its 1.5 billion users are bound to include some members of your desired target audience. However, it is crucial to ensure your campaign is very closely matched to its target group to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing effort.
Facebook Advertising – the cost
As mentioned above, Facebook usually calculates costs by CPC or CPM. The exact cost of an ad cannot be determined in advance because Facebook still employs real-time bidding. Advertising display areas are automatically auctioned in fractions of a second. However, to ensure a smooth and manageable transaction, the advertisers can each set a maximum bid. There is also an option to determine a daily budget or a budget for a limited time period. Based on these budget restrictions, the advertiser must then decide how much they want to spend, which will allow them to manage their finances and see how much money is flowing into their Facebook advertising.
The Facebook Ads Manager
Facebook has created an Ads Manager to make things as simple as possible for marketing customers. This makes it very easy to start new advertising campaigns – for instance, you can set your budgets and select your target groups from within Ads Manager.
In addition, Facebook’s Ads Manager also allows ongoing control of an advertising campaign. This makes it quick and easy to determine whether or not marketing measures are successful. However, Ads Manager offers much more than that, and your project measures can be analyzed in great detail and adjusted if necessary. Ads Manager’s information is delivered in real time, so it’s possible to instantly address any problems that arise during an ongoing advertising campaign.
Among other things, Facebook Ads Manager reports how many times an ad has been displayed and clicked, how much the ads have cost to date, and how much of the budget remains. It also provides additional information including details of the conversion rate, reach, and any available feedback. In addition, you can break down your advertising campaign according to particular user characteristics. For example, it’s possible to identify any age group, gender or region where the advertising was particularly successful. Results can also be sorted according to user platform and device as well as by the time of day. This allows very accurate and sophisticated campaign analysis and, where necessary, additional social media optimization.
Conclusion
If used properly, Facebook Advertising can be a very efficient online marketing tool. Compared to other online marketing measures, it can be highly targeted to address your chosen target audience, which typically improves conversion rates and helps to keep advertising costs low. Of course, Facebook Advertising is by no means perfect on its own – your advertising measures must still be carefully planned and subsequently monitored and evaluated. That is the only way to unlock the full power of your advertising on this social media portal. Otherwise, your campaign may simply fizzle out or accumulate very high costs in relation to its impact.
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