You have a Facebook page for your business, and you have some of your customers as followers. Have you wondered whether it would be worth it to use the paid advertising options on Facebook?
With various advertising options—from a carousel ad showing multiple images, full-screen experience ads, and even augmented reality—there are options that can work for virtually any business. Facebook’s marketing objectives correlate with common business goals, such as brand awareness, engagement, and conversions, as well as many others. We think it’s worth looking into some of their advertising options. Here are some of the most notable benefits of marketing on Facebook.
Paid Posts Reach More People
Do you ever notice how you only see a selection of your friends in your newsfeed? Facebook’s algorithm shows users the content they will be most likely to interact with. For years, Facebook has been tweaking its algorithm to prioritize content from a user’s friends. This means that a business’s organic reach is going to be inherently lower. Just because someone follows your business on Facebook doesn’t guarantee that they will see your posts—in fact, there’s a good chance that they won’t. Our recommendation? Pay to boost your posts that have strong engagement—comments, likes, and shares— from your followers. This isn’t the same as creating an ad to run on Facebook, but it’s still an effective way to make sure more people see your business in their newsfeed. 
Choose Who You Target—And Be as Specific as You Want
Facebook allows advertisers to choose who sees an ad. You can do this through detailed targeting and connection. If you want an ad to be viewable to your existing customers, you can select ‘people who like your page’ under the connections section. You can even target friends of people who have a connection to your brand! This is helpful as advertisements to new customers are targeting a different audience than those targeting existing customers.
You can target people who are interested in what your store offers and exclude people who want something you don’t offer. As an example, if you own a spa, you can target people interested in spas, massages, and facials, but exclude people who are interested in hot stone massages if that’s something you don’t offer. You can decide who to include or exclude based on interests, behaviors, location, language, and demographics.
You Choose Where Your Ad Appears
You don’t have to do this—in fact, if you’re new to advertising on Facebook, choosing automatic placements is a great option. In this case, Facebook can place your ad where it is likely to get the best results across all of the platforms under Facebook’s umbrella, which include Instagram and Facebook Messenger.
If you want to have more control, however, you can choose the locations and platforms where your ad will appear. You can exclude desktop, for instance, or choose to run your ad exclusively on Instagram. Other customization options include placing your ad in the Facebook Newsfeed, Stories, messages, apps, in-article, and in-stream (for videos). You can also filter your ad placement based on operating systems or types of phone (iOS or Android).
The Power of The Pixel
The Facebook Pixel is a small bit of code you can add to any page of your website. You can add events to the pixel, such as add to cart. This will trigger the pixel, and you’ll know that the person who did this action viewed one of your Facebook ads. This is wonderful for retargeting. If someone sees one of your Facebook ads and visits your website, but abandons their cart before purchasing, you’ll be able to serve that person an ad specific to their actions, asking them to come back to your site to complete their purchase.
Lookalike Audiences
Besides retargeting campaigns, the Facebook Pixel is also useful for creating custom audiences. You can filter people who have visited your website and made a purchase—information gathered from the pixel—and create a custom audience. Once you have a custom audience, you can create a lookalike audience.
A lookalike audience is a group of people who look like the audience you already have, with similar interests or demographic information. Essentially, you’re advertising to people who have a lot in common with your current customers.
If you don’t have the Facebook Pixel or a custom audience to build a lookalike audience from, you can start with a source audience coming from a group of people who are fans of your Facebook page. The more specific your source audience is, the better your lookalike audience will be. Either way, the ability to target your advertising to a group of people who are highly likely to be interested in your business is a very powerful tool.
Facebook is one of the most powerful places to advertise your business. If you’re not sure where to begin, please reach out to us today. We’d be happy to help you evaluate your current Facebook business page and figure out an advertising strategy that will help you grow your business.
