Facebook advertising has been around for a while, but you’ll find more failures with Facebook than successful marketers. I’ve noticed a lot of terrible Facebook advertising campaigns being produced and regularly hear how people are not seeing the results they hoped for. Whether you are a newbie at facebook advertising or a seasoned pro, this post will hopefully help you.

The usual complaints are: “i’ve tested many campaigns without making any money,” “CPC is too high,” “no impressions for my ads,” “conversion rate is poor,” “all my ads are being taken down,” or “the affiliate managers are not helpful.”

Let’s be blunt here. To be successful on any advertising platform, we must understand the platform inside out. No exceptions here! Do not pay for facebook advertising unless you understand the platform and how everything works.

There are three types of ads on Facebook: Marketplace Ads; Premium Ads and Facebook Retargeting.

Marketplace ads are what you see on the right-hand side of your Facebook feed. Premium ads show up on the right and in the center of the page, and they allow videos, polls, pitching an event, content variations etc.

For the purpose of this discussion, we’ll stick to the marketplace ads.

Facebook Ads are different from Adwords. In setting up a Facebook ad, you have the option to specify the exact interests and characteristics of your target audience. You can tell Facebook to show your ad ONLY to 22-year-old females interested in paragliding. Or to target ONLY 70-year-old men who like playing roulette in Las Vegas.  You can target almost EVERYTHING with facebook advertising ….. That’s right… almost everything.

Facebook advertising can be very profitable, as long as you do things the right way.

Your Goals With Facebook Advertising

• Pay the least per click
• Get the most impressions
• Get high CTR
• Get conversions and make money

You can reach your goals by understanding the key components of Facebook advertising.

Maximizing Returns On Facebook Advertising

1.    Choose The Right Niche And Offers

Concentrating on one offer at a time helps you understand the kind of offers that do well, what works with a particular market and what makes people click on an ad.

Since Facebook users are often NOT in a buying mode, non-purchasing email and newsletter signups do well. The key is to achieve acquisition for later purchase. Collect the emails, twitter/pinterest followers, Facebook fans and capitalize on them later when they are in the buy mode, like holiday season.

Users look for fun, spend time with their friends, watch videos, so gaming, mobiles, dating etc. do well. Stay away from anything business-like, such as insurance products etc.

Ads that don’t get approved are those that follow Facebook’s Guidelines. Get familiar with the guidelines. You can also get free training on how to stay out of facebook jail by clicking here.

2.    Demographics

Never go too broad and try to reach too many people at once with your facebook advertising. Use the demographics feature and specify the age group your ads are meant to serve.

If your ad is meant for different age groups, create separate ad groups for different target audiences.

3.    Develop Your Strategy

Most people just jump into creating a campaign/ad without a strategy on reaching their target audience.

For example, if you’re promoting a sports drink to males aged 20-28, why not make it highly targeted by targeting men who play soccer. Use their interests related to soccer, such as teams, famous players etc. How about using images of girls in t-shirts of famous soccer teams with text that says, “Girls like it too!”

Although, you cannot use “interests” in Facebook ad copy, you can use related images.

Create several strategies before testing a Facebook advertising campaign. Some may not work, so keep several options handy.

4.    Create Your Ad

Make best use of the allotted ad space of 50 x 50 image and 135 characters for the text.

Picture is extremely important in facebook advertising. This is what people who are quickly scanning see, so text is secondary.  Include a Call of action in the text: “Buy,” “Check Out,” “Visit” etc. DO NOT include a URL on the ad itself.

A good ad with a high CTR (Click Through Rate) keeps your CPC (Cost Per Click) down.

Optimization Of Facebook Ads

It’s not possible to get everything right on your first facebook advertising try. No one’s THAT perfect.  Once your ads are ready, take your advertising to the next level. Start optimizing your campaigns. Test more than one ad at a time. Test different bid amounts.

1.    Split-Testing

Split-testing is running several ads at the same time, to see which ones perform the best.

Test different ad copies and different images. Find the best performers. For every strategy, create a minimum of 10 ads, but if none of them reach the 0.1% CTR, then test some more.

A CTR of .1% is considered good, and anything above .15% is very good. Less than .05% and you’re doing something wrong – targeting the wrong countries perhaps?

Initially, place your bids as suggested by Facebook. It’s also important to know when to drop ads.  Drop ads when there are no clicks even after 2,000 impressions or when the ads reach 5,000 impressions with a very low CTR. Don’t waste money on non-performers.

Testing is time-taking and tedious, but it can be extremely fulfilling when you finally manage to hit a profitable campaign.

2.    Lowering Bids

Facebook automatically lowers the CPC to ads with a higher CTR. But you can also decrease your bid manually. Do it gradually, decreasing by small margins until you notice less impressions to your ad.

3.    Conversion Rate

Low CPC is great and it shows that people are clicking on your ads. But your ultimate goal is conversions.

If you’re promoting a CPA offer and it’s not converting, then split test other offers, until you find one that converts.

If you’re promoting your own product with facebook advertising, then it could be that people liked your ad but not your landing page/website. Split test different landing pages. A simple landing page with a great headline and a strong call to action works wonders.  Or your landing page is not fulfilling your promise in the ad – result  – zero conversions.

Facebook Advertising Take Away..

So that’s the basics of getting started with Facebook advertising. Don’t leave anything to guesswork – test, test and test some more. Initially, you must be prepared to spend money without any ROI.

You might also like this previous post called How to Be Crowned the King Or Queen of Facebook. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or want any advice on facebook advertising or making money through facebook.