Nobody likes to waste marketing dollars. Facebook Advertising done right can provide good return. Here are tips you should consider when determining if Facebook ads are right for you.
1. Reaching my Target Customer/Audience
Over 2 Billion people are using Facebook every month. The average Facebook user checks their feed 8 times a day. Facebook is a relevant platform and Facebook advertising allows you to hyper-target the best audiences for your business.
With Facebook advertising, you can establish core audiences, custom audiences, and lookalike audiences – audiences of prospective customers that look just like your paying customers. You can segment these groups, marketing to their specific wants and needs, and discover your best converting audiences.
Keep in mind that setting Facebook audiences is not a “set it and forget it” tactic. The rules of the game constantly change and you’ll want to continually test and optimize your campaigns so that they can produce better quality prospects and ultimately a higher return on ad spend (ROAS).
2. Make Sure the Dollars and Cents Make Sense
This is an important consideration that a lot of marketers miss. If the goal with a Facebook advertising campaign is to generate revenue that not only covers the cost of the Facebook campaign but contributes profit to the business (which most do), it’s super important to take a look at pricing, margin, customer lifetime value and estimated costs. If you have the right data, this will help forecast ROI of the campaign.
For example, let’s say you’re promoting a product sold on your e-commerce site. Your average basket size is just $20 and you make 20% margin on every item you sell. This means that for every sale you make, you’re getting $4 in margin. If you’re just looking at the first transaction to pay for itself, the sale needs to cost less than $4 to obtain.
Now consider a similar scenario where your basket size is $50 and you’re getting 70% margin. You’d need the cost of the each sale to be less than $35… much easier to obtain..
Make sure to do your homework before starting a campaign, that way your eyes are wide open. You should have a good idea of what Facebook costs and conversion rates are appropriate for your industry within Facebook. You should also use a digital marketer that has relevant past experience for your industry. Past performance will be a good indicator of how likely your campaign will succeed… and you can see if the numbers work for you.
3. Results are Scalable
One of the most challenging aspects of any successful business is scaling growth in a predictable way. Traditional methods like trade shows, networking groups, and cold calling are still widely used. However, many digital marketing activities are preferred when they can provide reliable data and produce attractive return..
Facebook advertising is rich with data. You know how much each new lead or sale costs to generate. You’ll know how many prospects you’ll need to meet company growth goals. And if you have a good system to convert prospects into paying customers, you have a model you can scale… often on that provides 4x and better return on ad spend.
This puts a lot of power in the hands of the advertiser. Instead of waiting for the ebb and flow that comes with outbound sales tactics, Facebook ads can provide a predictable and scalable flow of inbound leads.
4. Your Budget
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to build awareness, convert customers, and re-target existing customers all through one platform? Facebook advertising allows for exactly that, and at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods.
For example, $50 in ad spend can get you in front of 5,000-10,000 people in a day. Not only are those 10,000 people viewing your product or service, but you can target the audiences that are most likely to engage with your brand and buy. Dollar for dollar, Facebook ad are pretty darn efficient. It’s also a marketing channel where prospective customers spend a lot of their time.
5. Don’t Forget Retargeting
You may or may not have heard of the “Rule of 7”. The idea behind this rule is that a prospective customer or client needs to see an ad 7 times on average before they take action.
Facebook Ads leverage the “Rule of 7” and have evolved it into producing efficient retargeting campaigns. For example, by adding a Facebook pixel to your website or a custom pixel to a particular action on your website (e.g. form fill), you can retarget prospective customers that have taken actions on your website or that have not visited your website in a certain amount of time.
Each new customer is different and should be marketed to differently depending on their place in the buying journey. For example, a person that added an item in their buying cart should be retargeted differently than the person who has seen 3 of your ads, but never clicked before.
Summing Up
While we investigated the top 4 reasons to explore the idea of Facebook Advertising, a mismanaged campaign or a campaign in the wrong hands can quickly have more downsides than up, becoming a waste of marketing dollars. Making sure you have a firm grasp of every aspect and variable in a campaign can help provide a stream of revenue that is scalable and predictable, something every business can benefit from!
Should you need any help or want to contact us with any questions on how Facebook Ads can be customized to your business, you can do so by emailing us here.