If you’re a client at Foundery or have had social media marketing campaigns for your business, you probably already know how effective Facebook ads can be. They’re relatively inexpensive (especially when compared to other types of social ads, like LinkedIn and Twitter), the targeting options are extremely vast, and the results are usually impressive. Facebook also has a remarketing option and even has Lookalike Audiences to help you expand your targeting options.
However, the main reason why Facebook ads are so effective is because Facebook is the one social network that nearly everyone is on, whether they’re a student in university procrastinating writing their final paper or a grandmother looking forward to seeing new pictures of their grandchild. This means that the potential reach for an ad on Facebook is huge.
Facebook Ads by the Numbers
- There are over 1.59 billion people who use Facebook
- There are more than 1,300 different targeting options so you can narrow down your audience
- There are 15 different types of campaigns available to help you reach your objective
With all that said, there are a few things you need to know about Facebook ads. The most important thing to note is that there are several different types of Facebook ads, each with its own list of pros and cons that depend on what your overall goal is.
This week’s blog post is going to highlight some of Facebook’s different ad options. Whether you’ve never run Facebook ads before or if you consider them to be an integral part of your marketing strategy, I hope you’ll be able to pick up some useful information.
Types of Facebook Ads
Although there are many different types of Facebook ads (15), I’m going to focus on the ones that are most popular among our clients. The type of Facebook ad that will work best for you depends on your goals. Maybe you want to increase responses to your Boxing Day Sale event or maybe you want to display your top selling pieces of jewellery to prospective customers. Regardless of your goal, Facebook has outlined numerous different ads that can help with your bottom line.
Lead Ads
If you’re looking to build your email list or have customers fill out a form, a lead ad will let your target do so without having to leave Facebook. Facebook auto-populates much of the form so that it is simple as can be for your customers.
Pros: It’s so easy for customers to fill out.
Cons: Because they don’t leave Facebook, you don’t have a chance to wow them with your website.
Carousel Ads
This type of ad was designed with ecommerce businesses in mind. It lets you promote up to five different images, each with their own ad copy and links to your website. You’ll be able to see which of the five images performs best so that you can use that information on your next ad.
Pros: It lets retailers highlight their products in an automatically scrolling format and clicks are more likely to happen.
Cons: There aren’t many. Even though this type of ad is geared towards ecommerce business, anyone can use it. For example, you could test your site’s best performing blogs and see which ones get the most clicks.
Website Clicks
This type of ad has the goal of sending people to your website. These are the ads that you’ll notice in your newsfeed and on the right sidebar (if you’re browsing on desktop). It is similar to the Carousel ad in that it’s objective is to get clicks to your website, except you can only display one image.
Pros: Simple, easy and gets your message across.
Cons: Some people find the character limits on ad copy to be very restrictive.
Website Conversions
This type of ad looks like a regular website click ad but is designed to use Facebook’s conversion pixel to increase conversions on your website. After you install the pixel on your website, you’ll be able to see what people do on your website after they click on your ad. For example, if you put the pixel on your website’s checkout pages, you’ll be able to see who converts because of the ad.
Pros: Choosing this type of ad objective allows Facebook to serve your ads to people who are most likely to convert.
Cons: Because you are serving ads to people already familiar with your brand, this isn’t a good way to get exposure for your brand and target people who might need your services but haven’t heard of you yet.
Boosted Posts
This type of ad is a personal favourite. You can boost anything that you’ve posted on your Timeline, whether it’s a picture of your newest product or a link to your latest blog post. Because the post is on your timeline, you’ll benefit from organic reach too and visitors to your page will see the increased engagement and make them want to engage with the post (and maybe even your page!) too.
Pros: There are LOTS. Unlike the other types of ads where you need to allot a minimum budget of $5 per day, you can boost a post for as little as $1 per day. This makes it easy to promote new content; even if you want to spend $5 to boost a post for a couple days, it’s going to extend your reach that much more. Plus, there are no character limits to this type of ad, meaning that you could write a novel and promote it (but please don’t).
Cons: Maybe you don’t want your boosted post to live forever in your Timeline. The other types of ads don’t show up on your Facebook page, whereas this one stays on the timeline.
Event Responses
If you want more exposure to your event, this type of ad will promote it and get event responses from people who meet your targeting criteria.
Pros: Boosting your event to the relevant audience can help you gain exposure that might otherwise have been hard to do.
Cons: Oftentimes many people will say that they’re going to the event and don’t actually show up since there is no accountability.
Video Views
This type of ad has performed very well for our clients who have experimented with it. It has extremely high engagement rates for a very low cost and helps you build a connection with your customers. The possibilities for video ads are endless; you can make them engaging, funny, unique, etc.
Pros: Video is the most popular Facebook service right now, and being able to do it so inexpensively is great. You can also retarget visitors who have watched a certain amount of your video in your future ads.
Cons: Creating a video can often feel overwhelming and like it’s not worth your time (but it is).
Page Likes
If you’re just getting started on Facebook, it’s a good idea to run Page Like ads to grow your audience. Its only call to action is for people to like your page so it’s important to target the right audience with an eye-catching image.
Pros: You’ll increase your page likes with almost zero effort.
Cons: This type of ad is often more expensive than other Facebook ads. But keep in mind that it’s better to pay more for someone who is in your target audience rather than someone who simply clicked on “Like” just for the sake of it.
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