Marketing agencies in Toronto: due to the popularity of newer channels such as TikTok and Instagram, you may be asking yourself ‘Is Facebook advertising still worth my time?’ Given that Facebook is the world’s largest social channel–with over 2.8 billion monthly active users, the answer is a hard yes.
Facebook is more than a place for your parents to share pet photos–it’s also a thriving digital marketplace! Nearly 70% of users visit a local business’s Facebook page at least once a week–therefore, it’s an undeniable force for businesses to connect with their audience.
Before we discuss executions, consider these five vital statistics:
- Facebook is the third-most visited website globally–it’s outranked only by Google and Youtube.
- 83% of Canadians have a Facebook account. In comparison, only 51% have an Instagram account.
- 80% of Facebook users only access the site on a mobile device
- 500 million people use Facebook stories every day.
- Facebook users spend an average of 34 minutes per day on the platform.
By now, you see there are endless opportunities to strike gold on Facebook–but you can’t rely on pure luck! So are you ready to craft effective Facebook ads? Then read on!
First off, assume your client already has a (free) Facebook page for their business..
Now that you’re logged on to Facebook, head over to the Facebook Ads Manager first campaign. This can be done in just seven simple steps:
1. Define your objective
After logging into Facebook Ads Manager, select the Campaigns Tab and hit Create to begin your new campaign.
Facebook streamlines the process by offering 11 marketing objectives based on your ad’s intent:
- Brand Awareness: to reach a new audience
- Reach: expose your ads to as many people in your audience as possible.
- Traffic: bring as many people as possible to a web page, app or Facebook Messenger conversation.
- Engagement: reach as many people as possible to increase post engagements, boost page follows, attend an event or promote special offers.
- App installs: get people to join and install your app.
- Video views: encourage people to watch your videos.
- Lead generation: immerse prospects into your sales funnel.
- Messages: encourage people to contact your business on Facebook Messenger.
- Conversions: get people to take an action on your website, such as buying your product, subscribing, or joining a list.
- Catalogue sales: connect Facebook ads to your product catalogue and highlight the offerings they’re most likely to buy.
- Store: drive nearby customers to your physical locations.
After you’ve determined a campaign objective, keep in mind that you’ll either be paying for conversion-focused objectives (such as sales) or exposure objectives (like traffic/views).
2. Name your campaign
After naming your campaigns, you must declare a category (such as employment, credit or politics). Afterwards, you can set it up for A/B testing. Do this by clicking Get Started in the A/B Test section to test the efficiency of multiple ads.
3. Set up your budget and schedule
Start by naming your ad set and which page to promote.
Next, decide how much money you want to spend on your Facebook ad campaign. You can choose a daily or lifetime budget for the campaign and then set start and end dates for your ad.
Toronto marketing agencies: running Facebook paid ads on a schedule is often the most efficient way to spend your budget. This way, you only pay for views and conversions instead of a daily rate. However, you can only set a schedule if you create a lifetime budget for your ad.
4. Define your target audience
The Facebook Ad Manager allows you to define your audience through target location, age, gender and language. Under location, you can specify to include or exclude cities of a specific size–to keep your promotions sharply localized.
The audience size indicator displays your potential reach as you select your audience. You’ll also get an estimated number of page likes–but keep in mind that these numbers are estimates, not guarantees.
Now we can further detail targeting for an adequate return on investment. You have two fields which can be sharply specified:
Detailed Targeting: you can specifically include or exclude consumers based on interests, demographics and behaviours. You can get ultra-specific. For example, you could choose to target consumers interested in vegetarian or plant-based foods but exclude people interested in veganism.
Connections: use this subset to include or exclude people who have an existing relationship with your Facebook Page, app or service. For example: you’d exclude people who like your page if they already have a membership, yet select “People who like your Page” to market new product launches or services. Additionally, you can choose to target friends of people who’ve interacted with your brand in the past.
5. Choose your Facebook Ad placements
The simplest method is to use Automatic Placements. From here, Facebook automatically places ads across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and the Audience Network when they are likely to get the best results.
If you prefer, you can choose precisely which channels or devices your ads appear on:
- Device type: mobile, desktop or both
- Platform: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger.
- Placements: Newsfeed, Stories, in-stream (for videos), search, messages, in-article and external apps or websites.
- Specific mobile devices/operating systems: Android, iOS, feature phones or desktop/notebook computers.
6. Set Brand Safety & Cost Controls
By using Brand Safety, you can choose to exclude any types of content that would be inappropriate to appear with your ad. This may include NSFW, violent political or hateful content. Furthermore, block lists can exclude specific websites or videos.
Lastly, you can optimize your ad bidding strategy and bidding type. You can add an optional bid control to align your budget with campaign goals or choose default options if you’re new to Facebook advertising.
7. Create your ad
The true fun begins now that you’re done with costs and audiences.
First, choose your ad format and its text/media components. The available formats will vary based on your selected campaign objectives.
The possibilities are vast. If you’re working with images, you can create a short animation by clicking Turn into Video or click Create Slideshow to make a slideshow ad.
Once you’re happy with your ad, use the preview tool on the top right to make sure it looks good in all formats. When you’re satisfied with its appearance, click the Publish button to launch your ad.
Types of Facebook Ads that social media marketing firms in Toronto can offer clients
Image ads:
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: 30 characters
Body text: 125 characters
Objective availability: All except video views
Video ads:
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: 30 characters
Body text: 125 characters
Objective availability: all except video views
Story ads:
Text: No character count–but try to leave a minimum of 250 characters text-free at the top and bottom of the ad.
Campaign objectives: all except engagement/store visits
Carousel ads:
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: 20 characters
Body text: 125 characters
Objective availability: all except engagement or video views
Slideshow ads:
Headline: 25 characters
Link description: 30 characters
Body text: 125 characters
Objective availability: all except video views
Campaign objectives: all
Slideshow ads:
Headline: 25 characters
Link description: 30 characters
Body text: 125 characters
Objective availability: all
Collection ads:
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: n/a
Body text: 125 characters
Objective availability: traffic, conversions, catalog sales, store traffic
Instant Experience ads:
Text: blocks of text that are 500 words max
Button text: 30 characters
Objective availability: all except lead generation
Messenger Inbox ads
Headline: 40 characters
Link description: n/a
Body text: 125 characters
Objective availability: traffic, app installs, conversions, catalog sales and messages
Marketing agencies in Toronto often ask us How much will Facebook advertising cost? Truthfully it depends.
The main factors that determine Facebook Ad costs are timing, bidding strategy, ad placement/relevance and your target audience. More desirable specifics come at higher costs.
The average costs per click for Facebook Ads this year, for each category were:
- Link clicks: $0.16
- Conversions: $0.25
- Lead generation: $0.67
- Impressions: $0.98
- Reach: $1.03
Now that you know the basics, leave the rest to us. Brand and Mortar is a top Toronto Marketing agency that believes in transparency, relationships and fostering the highest return on investment as possible. Grow your Facebook presence today by contacting us for a free consultation.
