Facebook Ads: How to Grow the Dough

By AdStation | April 11th, 2013 | Categories: Social Media
Money Grow

With more than one billion users, Facebook is a fantasy land for online marketers. But taming this social media behemoth requires patience, creativity, and marketing smarts. You can’t just burst onto the Newsfeed, ads blazin’, and expect the money to start rolling in. You must practice patience and plan your every move.

Making money with Facebook Ads presents a challenge because the mindset of the market – Friends and Fans – is different. Think about why you cruise Facebook. Undoubtedly, it’s not to do some online shopping. The same goes for every other user. People tune into Facebook because they want to tune out the world. This state of mind makes it extremely tough to turn an ad click into an immediate sale. Thriving Facebook marketers have figured out a way to propel their prospects into buying mode. It requires tons of patience. At the outset, it’s necessary to approach your campaign with the goal of list building rather than sale making. More on that in a minute.

Whether you are running ads on your website or on Facebook, the ground rule remains the same: You have to offer something that people want to buy. Beyond that, the process is the same with just a slightly different approach on Facebook. In a nutshell, your e-mail campaign involves grabbing people’s attention with an ad that offers some type of incentive to complete a specified action. With one click, your prospects arrive on your landing page, and you collect their contact information. You begin building a relationship with that customer by providing excellent customer service and delivering the goods. Lastly, you maintain regular contact with that customer, usually through an e-mail newsletter.

When you use Facebook Ads, you follow the same path essentially, but the focus is more on creating a large following or fan base. Keep in mind, the bigger the following, the greater potential for sales. On Facebook, the conversion process starts by getting a prospect to “Like” you. Again, an enticing incentive will earn you more “Likes.” This click takes the visitor to a landing page housed on Facebook versus your own website. You cultivate that new relationship by following through on your promise of sending whatever incentive you offered. Communication is still essential, but it comes in the form of wall posts instead of an e-mail newsletter.

Using Facebook Ads requires well-honed marketing smarts, especially when it comes to targeting your ads to specific users. With potential access to a billion sales prospects, it’s hard to know where to begin. In addition to the ability to target users by “Likes and Interest” (formerly known as keywords), Facebook offers demographic targeting of 16 different criteria. Think wisely about your moves here. What works for your e-mail campaign may be very different on Facebook. Plan ahead and know what you want to achieve and what targets you want to hit before you put ads out there. Be prepared for some trial and error.

There are additional challenges to consider with using Facebook Ads. For instance, you have to keep your content relevant and fresh. By this, I mean changing things up every few days. Your goal is to achieve a high CTR rate, and this can only be accomplished by a revolving door of over-the-top creative ad copy, relevant images, and keyword targeting. Also keep in mind that Facebook has an approval process for ads, so it is wise to have several ads in the hopper at any given time. This will give you access to a variety of ads while you are awaiting approval from others.