Tips For Buying Ads On Facebook

The first thing you’ll want to do before reading these tips for buying ads on Facebook is to define what it is you’re trying to accomplish. Are you looking to build a fan page and create a community? Are you looking to boost the audience of a post? Are you trying to drive traffic off to a landing page? Once you’ve determined your goal you’ll then be able to choose the correct strategy for successful ad buying.

1) Choose CPM or CPC



There is a rule of thumb when it comes to choosing CPM or CPC when buying ads on Facebook. Choose CPC if you’re looking to drive traffic off of Facebook to an outside landing page. Choose CPM if you’re keeping people on Facebook (gaining likes, driving engagement, boosting content exposure, etc). The theory behind this is quite simple. If you’re driving people off of Facebook to a landing page for a conversion, you only want to pay for the actual action of the click. Keep in mind that Facebook only gets paid via CPC if someone actually clicks on the ad. If less people click on the ad, Facebook will eventually stop serving it.

Now if you’re keeping people on Facebook, more often than not, you’ll want to use CPM. Facebook loves making money and they love keeping their traffic on Facebook where people can click on another ad and make them more money! They hear the cash register go cha-ching each time your ad is seen 1,000 times. It doesn’t matter to Facebook if you get 1,000 clicks or zero clicks, they still get paid. Impressions drive likes, engagement and boost the exposure if your content. How can you ensure you’ll get impressions…CPM.

2) Be active instead of passive



Ad buying on Facebook is like driving a manual transition car. To get where you want to go, you have to be constantly shifting gears. Leave the Ron Popeil “Set it and forget it” crap to the display buying cronies at your firm. Speaking of which, if you work for an agency or brand, treat your client’s money with respect. If your AMEX card was on the line you’d be watching those ads like a hawk. You’ll drastically impact the success of your campaigns by paying close attention to each ad you create.

3) Use Power Editor

The biggest benefit you’ll get from creating ads on Facebook with Power Editor vs Ads Manager (Facebook’s default option) is the ability to drastically customize when and where your ad is shown. There really isn’t a situation where I can see a benefit of using Ads Manager over Power Editor at this point.

Anyone can get and Power Editor. Just hop over to the Chrome store, do a quick search for it and install the tool. PE is still a bit buggy which can lead to some frustration however it’s advantages are so strong that we’ll all have to learn to deal with it until FB can get their act together.

4) Use steamy images and/or blood



This was an approved ad image for Spartan Race that helped the fitness event company capture over 3 million Facebook fans. Steamy images help sell trash novels and they help drive engagement with Facebook ads.



Blood also works amazingly well. With both case, you have to be very careful to not cross the invisible standards line that Facebook draws. Let’s not kid ourselves though, if got the dough, you might be able to get Facebook to bend the rules. And by dough, I mean multi-million dollar budgets.

5) Highly segment your audience

As illustrated in the Power Editor image above, you can highly segment your audience when advertising on Facebook. The benefit of slicing your audience down by placement and mobile device is how your ad is effected by the real time auction. You’re bids are only competing with other ads that fall within the same segment. The further you slice, the cheaper the ads, however you are effecting your potential reach with each slice. I like to segment my audiences to a potential reach of less than 20,000 at a time. This way you’ll ensure low competition with pin point accuracy for the target audience that you want to reach.

6) A/B Test



AB Testing, or split testing, is an essential technique when buying ads on Facebook. You can AB test on an unlimited number of combinations to find the ads that work best. A few standard split tests include image vs image, copy vs copy, Male vs Female, old vs young, East coast vs West coast, iOS vs Android, Desktop vs Mobile, and right hand column vs newsfeed. By testing, you’ll be able to identify trends of success which will likely surprise you.

7) Know when to pause



Kenny Rodgers once taught us that you’ve got to know when to hold em and know when to fold em. It matters not if he’s singing about Poker or Facebook ads, knowing when to throw it away can save you a lot of money. Keep in mind that typically 9 out of 10 ads probably won’t perform well. That being said, within any campaign you can expect to be pressing the pause button often.

Think of successful click through rates like batting averages in baseball. If it dips below .300, you might want to switch it up. You can get a fairly accurate idea of how well your ads will perform with as little as 1,500 impressions. Recalling tip number 2, remain active in watching your ads by refreshing the page often to gain a clear idea of when they begin to dip.

8) Use custom audiences



This tip probably should require an asterisk as not every Social Media Marketer has access to a subscriber list they can utilize for custom audiences however I do feel I have somewhat of a fiduciary responsibility to explain it’s importance. Custom Audiences allows you to laser target your ads to a group of people who have already been identified as being interested in your product or service. One thing I would recommend while using Custom Audiences is to still segment your audience and AB test when applicable. Although you’ve got a group who’s raised their hand saying they’re interested in what you’ve got to say, you can still increase the effectiveness of your ads by finding behavior trends that work best.

I hope you enjoyed these tips and that you’ll find them useful in your next campaign!

By: Michael Killi