In this tutorial we\’re going to show you how to create a Facebook ad for your Facebook page. This is a great (and inexpensive) way to add awareness for your organization or your cause.
The video runs approximately 18 minutes and will work for nearly every skill level. There are two requirements you should be aware of before employing the training from the video:
- You need a Facebook account
- You must have created a Facebook page
Those things must be done in that order because Facebook will not allow you to create a page before you create the account.
Remember, this video is made in HD (1920×1080) so make sure to view the video in the highest resolution available for your monitor.
Facebook Ad Types
The first step in creating an ad campaign is to choose the ad type. You can do this via the Facebook Ad Campaign Creation page.
There are several different ad types in Facebook, and each one performs a different function. We chose to run a Page Like ad which is geared at getting Facebook users to like our page. There are other ads that will link to your website, boost individual posts, promote an event, and several other functions.
Make sure you choose the ad type that most closely fits your specific advertising function.
Targeting Your Facebook Ads
Your ad will be much more cost-effective when you target who it will reach, rather than making available for everyone on the web. If you can define, demographically, your perfect customer or audience member this is the profile you\’ll use to create your target.
Location Targeting
In our video example, we were creating an ad to run with a page that promotes democracy in a particular city. We chose our first filter as a location filter and honed in on our specific city. As we narrowed our target further we could see Facebook narrow our potential reach – the number of people who could potentially see our ad.
Demographic and Interest Targeting
We didn\’t take advantage of age or gender demographics, but you can certainly do so if it fits your page or ad. We did choose various political interests in the interest filter area, and this helps us narrow our scope by people who have taken any kind of political activity on Facebook – like pages of politicians, party committees, commented on political cause pages, etc. This was a good filter for us because it targets our ad to people who are more likely to be involved in politics or political causes.
Behavior Targeting
Behavior targeting is another filter you can add to further narrow your ad to reach people who have displayed affinity for certain behaviors. For instance, if your organization is an animal shelter, you might choose the Animal Welfare behavior category, which will target your ad to Facebook users who have shown a tendency to like or interact with animal welfare pages and interests on the network.
Again, this is a good filter to use because it will focus your ad on people who are predisposed to liking your type of cause or organization. Use it if you can!
Connections
The connections filter allows you to further narrow the scope of you ad. By default, it will be set to filter out the people who already like your page. Unless you already have a huge fan base, I clear out everything in the connections are so the ad is served to your full targeted list. It\’s okay if a few people who already like you see your name in the sidebar ads. It helps keep your name fresh in their mind.
You can add additional connection requirements to further filter your target, like only those who use your app (if that\’s what you\’re running an ad on), or only those going to your event.
Saving Your Audience
If it\’s likely you\’ll reuse that audience filters again make sure to save your audience and name it something easy to remember but descriptive of the audience. You can use it to quickly setup a new ad in the future without researching all the demographics again.
Facebook Ad Budgets
This part is really important and you\’ll want to make sure you get this right. The first option is to set a daily budget. Be careful here – this isn\’t your overall budget – it\’s just a budget per day. That means if you enter $20 in that box and let your ad run for 10 days you can expect to have an advertising bill for $200.
The next setting allows you to run the ad continuously or to set a start and end date. In the video, we set a start and end date – basically we let the ad run for just one day. That way our total budget and our daily budget were on point.
Ad Optimization
You have the option to choose an optimization method of page clicks or ad clicks. The former will show your ad to people who are most likely to LIKE your page, the latter will show it to people who are likely to click through the ad.
What\’s the difference? Just clicking through the ad doesn\’t get you a LIKE. We are running an ad campaign to get Likes, so we chose the first optimization method to get Likes. If you were running an external campaign where your text was optimized to get someone to visit a Facebook page and checkout your site or your events – you might choose to get the clicks instead.
This setting will also affect your cost metrics. Choosing page likes will give you an ROI in terms of likes – $0.50 per like, for example. Choosing a click method will give you an ROI in terms of $ per click through your ad. This is more in line with how other online advertising works.
Ad Scheduling
We chose to let our ad run all the time. If we wanted, we could schedule it for the hours which we know certain people are online. We didn\’t worry too much about this setting since we constrained our ad to a budget and we\’re concerned with getting raw likes. If we want to send clicks to an external page that sold items where we\’d need to be available to fulfill the order, we might look at scheduling more closely.
Ad Creative
Ad Creative is the type of media you will use in your ad. We chose our Facebook page cover image, a nice high res shot with an American Flag in the background. You can choose your own images, upload new ones, or choose a video ad as well.
You\’ll then add text for your ad (up to 90 characters) and a headline for mobile ads and sidebar ads. The latter can be accessed underneath the advanced options area of ad creative.
Landing View
Your final setting is to choose the landing view. This is the place where your visitor will land after clicking your ad. In our case we wanted likes so we want them to land on our Timeline. You can choose your other options including Photos, Events, and any other custom tabs you\’ve created on your Facebook page. There are many third-party applications that help you create custom tabs and landing pages you can use here as well.
Nonprofits, for example, could create a landing page for donations – then optimize an ad for donations and choose the donation tab as the landing page. In this way – a smart nonprofit can create a very efficient income stream that grows as its Facebook fan base grows.
Facebook Ad Manager
After all the settings are complete you can place your order and the ad will be submitted for approval. As long as it doesn\’t break Facebook rules it will be approved quickly – usually within 5 to 10 minutes. You\’ll then be taken to the ad manager section of your Facebook account where you can monitor the results of your ad.
In the time it took me to write this post, the ad we placed in the example above has garnered 9 new page likes at a cost of $0.47 per like. Not bad.
If you have questions about Facebook ad creation leave a comment here or link over to our YouTube page and leave a note there.