Facebook is an extremely useful tool for any marketing team. With approximately 2.19 billion active monthly users, the social network offers the chance to reach a large number of potential customers with a single campaign.
However, it’s still important to confirm that a Facebook advertising strategy is delivering a strong return on investment, or ROI. Just as a Facebook marketing firm would, keep the following tips in mind when designing your next Facebook campaign. Doing so will help you maximize the amount of money earned for each dollar spent.
Funnel Users to a Conversion
Many Facebook users that view your ads may not be familiar with your brand initially. That means that trying to convince them to make a major purchase right away will be difficult. Don’t assume that one ad will be enough to generate the outcome you’re aiming for. Instead, you should focus on cultivating a relationship with cold audiences, one which essentially funnels them towards a major conversion.
To do so, start by including low-commitment calls-to-action in your first round of ads. Direct a user to watch a video or read additional content. After all, asking a user to make a purchase means asking them to make a financial commitment. They may not be convinced your products or services are worth that expense the first time they encounter their brand. However, you can ask them to take low-cost steps that will serve to educate a potential customer about your services. After releasing an ad or two of this nature, you can publish one that asks a user to actually pay for something you offer.
This customer-journey based approach is especially important on Facebook because most users aren’t using the platform with the intention of making a purchase. Thus, convincing them to do so is a challenge from the get-go. However, by continuously advertising to the same audience, you can improve brand recall and maximize your chances of making a sale later.
Use Content Marketing
Some marketers find that it’s smart to focus on generating a brand following on Facebook before trying to generate conversions and increase revenue. It’s easier to make sales once you have a stable base of social media followers.
That’s why it’s often a good idea to share branded content with your early round of advertisements. This can have the same effect as funneling customers through the journey to a purchase.
This is a particularly important tip to keep in mind if you’re trying to advertise to younger customers. Surveys indicate that unlike older generations, members of Generation Z typically used social media as a way of finding entertaining content.
What this means is they’re less interested in connecting with friends and family via these platforms. You could boost your odds of turning them into customers if you design a campaign that shares content they would find interesting.
Track Conversions
Facebook allows marketers to track an ad’s performance through metrics like Reach and Video Views. While these metrics can give you a basic sense of how effective an ad is, if your goal is to make a sale, you want to track how many conversions a Facebook ad yields. You can do this by installing the Facebook Pixel on your landing page, “Thank you for making a purchase” page, and any other relevant pages on your site.
The landing page a Facebook ad links to is just as important as the ad itself. A strong ad may convince users to click on it, but if the page they land on isn’t equally strong, much of the money spent on the Facebook campaign will be wasted. Tracking conversions lets you know whether the landing page is yielding the desired results.
It also gives marketers the opportunity to retarget users who may not have completed the transaction process. Oftentimes, retargeting campaigns deliver a high ROI.
As always, you should also track metrics related to how much money you’ve spent, like Cost per Click and Cost per 1000 Impressions. The lower these numbers, the better. By keeping an eye on these metrics, you can better determine what type of ad content results in the best possible ROI.
Facebook is a useful tool, but only it you leverage it strategically. These tips will help you do so.
