Facebook ads may seem straightforward but understanding how they work is important. Social media marketing, or social network marketing, is a relatively new field of internet marketing that focuses on online social media services as a means of increasing brand awareness. You may already be aware that through your use of Facebook or other social network websites you have likely generated a number of opt-ins. These have been added through the regular postings you make on your status updates, or via the pages you may use to post classified adverts.
For anyone with even the slightest idea of how internet marketing works, this kind of advertising is relatively new. However, it is already proving to be an effective way of generating traffic to websites. As such, companies who offer Facebook ads promotions can stand to benefit from a good return on investment by allowing their ad campaigns to generate leads and interest in their products and services, increasing conversion rates in the process. The secret, however, lies in the use of carefully targeted keyword phrases and carefully designed graphics to attract interest in the advertising content and subsequently conversions from the resulting engagement.
In order to generate interest in one of Facebook’s various advertising products, a business needs to select keywords that are likely to draw interest. By looking through the large array of options offered by the social network, these keywords will ensure success in terms of click throughs and conversions. It is not just keywords that form the basis of a good Facebook advertising campaign; instead, it is the integration of content into the design of an effective ad. Content that engages the user and encourages them to take action is far more likely to result in a better user experience and a higher conversion rate. This is where any experienced marketer will recognise that advertising on Facebook needs to be done in the same way as traditional advertising on other sites.
To do this, the business model adopted needs to be closely aligned to the interests represented by the target audience on Facebook. By undertaking this exercise in search engine optimisation, a business can ensure that it develops the required expertise to deliver relevant ads that achieve the right results with the right audience. One of the most common mistakes made by companies is the adoption of a haphazard approach, which relies on a number of different elements. Instead, it makes sense to adopt a cohesive business model that will make it easier to identify the areas of focus which are needed to be developed.
For a business looking to engage with Facebook users, it makes sense to begin with the demographics and interests of the users themselves. The demographics comprise the complete profile of users and allow marketers to fine tune specific campaigns to those demographics. Interest targeting allows advertisers to define their target audience in a way which is more likely to result in a higher conversion rate. Facebook offers three distinct interests targeting options which can be used by businesses.
The first category is known as “social signals”. The social signals category includes the use of user generated content such as status updates and the use of other third party applications such as the official Facebook application and the like. In order to make adjustments to advertising strategy this category requires that advertisers have an understanding of the signals that are being used by users to reveal interest or form connections. In addition, the use of these signals requires a relatively accurate knowledge of how these interests are evolving over time and across various platforms.
The second category of interest targeting is based around the use of external applications. This includes the use of third party applications which allow advertisers to track the frequency with which certain user actions are taken and the content which are being displayed as a result. A good example of this type of application would be the ability of Facebook users to browse through different pages and click on the ones that they are interested in. As well, the use of these external applications allows for the monitoring of conversion rates in order to determine which advertisements are performing the best. Facebook offers a tracking option within its standard marketing settings which allows for tracking of conversions using any number of channels, which include clicks, likes, comments, shares and the like.
The final category of ad type which Facebook focuses upon when it comes to advertising is the sales funnel based approach. This approach has two separate objectives. The first objective is to get people into the sales funnel so that they can become regular buyers while the second objective is to get people to sign up for mailing lists so that these can be used to deliver more targeted sales promotions in the future. A good example of this type of ad is one that asks the user to “Like” an offer before the ad is shown while another example places the focus on a request for the user to “Sign up to receive coupons”.