How to Create Attention-Grabbing Facebook Ad Campaigns
Anyone that has attempted to create their own Facebook advertisements will realise that whilst there is unlimited potential for utilising it as a sales channel, it is also a challenging market space to compete in. This article will walk you through how to set up an ad campaign that will get you results.
With so many businesses taking to Facebook as a sales platform you need strong ads to give you a competitive edge. Not only this, but Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement on changing the News Feed to favour person to person engagement means that less is going to be seen from brands, businesses and media. In light of this, I thought it worth posting this comprehensive article on how to create kick-ass ads to gain the most attention on Facebook, and to keep those all-important sales rolling in.
Make sure you read to the end to see our top tips for copy and creative, to really make your ads stand out from the crowd.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CAMPAIGN, AD AND AD SET?
Campaigns contain ads and ad sets. When you are creating your campaign, you pick the business goal you wish to achieve – this goal applies to the ads and ad sets that come underneath it. Your goal will be your marketing objective. For example, to drive sales or increase brand awareness.
Ad sets contain ads and are where you set your delivery options. It is during ad set configuration that you choose your target audience, budget, time schedule and placement (where in Facebook your ad will appear).
Ads are where you specify the copy, creative and any other aesthetic components such as content, photos and videos.
Because all of these components are linked, if you make edits to ad sets they will apply to all ads that fall under it. Similarly, any changes made to a campaign will affect the ad sets and ads that are part of it.
CAMPAIGNS – CHOOSING THE RIGHT OBJECTIVE TO GIVE YOU THE RESULTS YOU WANT
To set up a campaign, open Ads Manager and select “Create campaign”.
Next, select your objective from the following options:
It’s important that you get things right from the offset, as whatever you set as your objective will define the ads and ad sets, and eventually the end result. Facebook splits objectives into three categories: awareness, consideration and conversion. Carefully consider each of the option before creating your campaign, to ensure that you aren’t restricting yourself from what you want to achieve by selecting the wrong one.
Awareness
Awareness objectives are used to draw attention to your brand, and to try an increase the amount of people interested in it. Awareness is the best way to introduce people your ecosystem (an important asset to your business which you build through getting people to like your page, join your mailing list and visit your website).
- Brand awareness displays your ad to people most likely to be interested in your business and what it has to offer
- Reach shows your ad to the maximum number of people, including local awareness targeting
Consideration
These objectives are to get consumers engaged with your brand, whilst not necessarily purchasing a product. This is part of the persuasion process, to raise awareness before the purchasing stage.
- Traffic can be selected to drive people towards your website, Facebook page or a messenger app
- Engagement objectives are used to increase engagement with pages, posts, or encourage events (actions) by the user such as Likes and event responses
- App installs encourages people to download your app, whether it be desktop or mobile
- Video views targets people who are most likely to view your video
- Lead generation encourages people to share their contact details quickly and easily through a mobile friendly forum so you can build up your customer database
- Messages encourages interaction with your business in Messenger to complete purchases, offer support and answer questions in order to complete sales
Conversion
Objectives within the conversion category encourage actions such as purchasing or donating – the final part of the sales process.
- Conversions encourage actions in a website or app. By installing a Facebook Pixel, you can record data on these actions and use them for ad optimisation or to create audiences
- Product Catalog Sales objectives apply to ecommerce companies only – it allows you to upload images of each item you sell, then Facebook uses data it has collated to display certain items to certain people based on past engagement
- Store visits encourages people to visit your store locations on the ground
AD SETS – CREATE A STRATEGY THAT FITS WITH YOUR GOALS
As mentioned previously, it is within your ad set parameters that you select placements, audiences, scheduling and budgeting.
Platforms and placements
It’s worth noting that in some cases placements may vary depending on the objective that you’ve chosen. Below I list some of the most popular Facebook placements, but there are also other options available, including within Instagram, Messenger and the Audience Network.
- Facebook feed – this will appear in your newsfeed (a place where you can discover and interact with media posted by friends, family and businesses) and once clicked on will appear full-screen.
- Facebook In-stream - similar to television commercials/ advertisements, In-stream adverts appear midway through a video being watched on Facebook. They usually range from between 5-15 seconds.
- Suggested videos - this placement allows you to reach audiences through a reel of suggested videos based on their individual preferences and interests.
- Right column on desktop – for use on desktop, ads appear in the right-hand side pane.
- Live videos are an increasingly popular placement and are great for expanding the reach of your ad as they tend to get higher engagement than other ad types.
Audiences
There are three different audiences you can target depending on whether you want to find new customers or remarket to people that have already had some sort of interaction with your business.
- Core audiences are people that are new to your business. You can set the parameters within your ad set to manually create a core audience. Targeting options include gender, locations, interests, behaviours, age and language.
- Custom audiences allow you to target people that have already had some interaction with your business, whether it be carrying out an event such as visiting a certain page or falling within your data capturing measures to form part of your customer database.
- Lookalike audiences look at the characteristics of people that have engaged with your business and then finds people to target that are similar to them.
Budgeting and scheduling
This is the final part of ad set creation and is where you can set a daily or lifetime budget and set start/ end dates for your ad set. Once you have selected your budget, Facebook will give you an estimated reach to tell you how many people you can expect to see your ad.
For more information on how Facebook charges you for ads, check out this page.
AD CREATION – GET CREATIVE
This final stage of your advert creation is where you can choose your format, creative, copy and preview the final ads.
Formats
The most common ad formats are the following, but remember that you may be limited on which formats are available to you based on your chosen objective and placement.
Carousel: a scrollable sequence of 2-10 images or videos
Image: a single photo or graphic
Video: an ad anchored by a single video
Slideshow: a looping video ad composed of up to ten photos with transitions
Collection: a visual and immersive way to promote a product catalogue
This blog gives you an insight into how to get the best results by choosing the right placement and video formats.
You can make use of Lucidpress to make sure your creatives are eye catching and to maintain brand consistency.
Creative, copy and calls-to-action
This is where you specify the text, images and visual components of your ad to really capture the attention of your audience. It’s important here to think about which elements work better with different formats and placements, and of course, to consider who your target audience are.
In terms of design, the key things to think about are colour and clarity – ensuring that the people who see your ad know what you’re advertising and aren’t overwhelmed by something confusing or irrelevant. This is not to say, however, that you shouldn’t have fun with your ad or try something different to other businesses. A fun way to tailor your ad to a specific audience is through a locational specification in order to create something that catches people’s attention, and that they find it easy to relate to.
Credibility is also a big part of successful Facebook ads, therefore by adding some social proof you can instantly make your ad more appealing to the more sceptical of customers - many people are encouraged to purchase due to statistics that promote the reliability of a product.
Choosing your copy is not something to be rushed, as this determines the style of your sales pitch. I suggest that direct and actionable copy, without coming across as aggressive is the most useful – keep things short and informative so that the reader knows what they need to. It’s also recommended that you use a call-to-action, however think about your business objectives when considering the action. For example, if you have awareness objectives you may want a CTA which takes audiences to your home page, whilst if you have a conversion objective you’re more likely to want a CTA to take people to a purchase page.
Similarly, different audiences can determine different styles of copy and CTA. A top tip for remarketing is that you should always utilise some form of urgency and a call-to-action.
Preview
The final stage before publishing is to preview your ad and see how it looks across different devices and platforms. Once complete, you can either decide to publish or save and close to come back to the ad later.