A DIY Guide On Running Simple Facebook Ad Campaigns

Want to learn how to set up a Facebook advertising campaign? It’s easier than you think! We’ve put together a step-by-step guide that will get you ready to start advertising on Facebook in no time. 

Whether you just launched your first business and are looking for new ways to reach customers or have been in business for decades, Facebook has you covered.

The BEST Facebook Ads Tutorial for Beginners in 2023
Takeaways
1. Learn the basics of Facebook advertising.
2. Create simple yet effective ad campaigns.
3. Understand audience targeting strategies.
4. Optimize ads based on performance metrics.
5. Gain insights into DIY ad campaign setup.

#1: Set An Objective

There are three things you need to set an objective for your ad campaign:

  • Define your goal (for example, create awareness, drive traffic, or increase sales)
  • Define your audience (who do you want to reach?)
  • Define what they will do once they click on the ad (do they make a purchase? fill out a form?)

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#2: Find Your Target Audience

The most important thing you need to do is find your target audience. If you don’t know who your audience is, how will you be able to create ads that they’ll be interested in, and therefore convert into sales?

To start this process, consider some questions: What’s the target age range of your customers? Where are they located? What kind of income do they have? Do they prefer mobile devices over desktop computers or laptops? These details will help narrow down who your ideal customer is.

Choose The Perfect Ad Image For Your Target Audience

Your ad images should be relevant to what it is that you’re selling or promoting through Facebook Ads, but also appealing in general (i.e., something that catches people’s attention). 

Consider different types of images such as videos (if applicable), product photos or screenshots from inside your app/website/game etc…

#3: Set Your Budget & Schedule Your Ads

Now that you know the basics and have a better understanding of how Facebook Ads work, it’s time to dive into some of the more advanced features.

Setting Your Budget

As mentioned above, setting up your ad budget can be done either manually or automatically.

Manual budgeting allows you to specify what percentage of your total ad spend will go towards each campaign in each stage (i.e., day one through seven). Automatic budgeting allows you to set daily budgets so that they scale throughout your campaign. 

This is great if there’s no specific strategy involved it just depends on how much money you want to spend overtime before ending the campaign altogether! 

It also gives advertisers an opportunity for more flexibility with their campaigns by allowing them more control over their budgets and ROI tracking capabilities; 

However, these options do not come with any guarantees regarding performance metrics such as clicks or impressions since those depend on other factors (like competition).

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#4: Write A Compelling Ad Copy

Now that you have your audience, you need to write an ad that will get them clicking. This is where things get tricky.

Facebook ads have a small space to work with and it’s important that your message doesn’t get lost in the clutter of other ads on the platform. 

You want to make sure your message is clear and concise so that people can easily understand what they’re seeing and reading. Here are some tips for writing great Facebook Ads:

  • Use short, simple sentences
  • Use a conversational tone (it should sound like something you would say)
  • Use a headline that is clear and concise (no more than 25 characters)
  • Include a call-to-action (CTA) such as “get this widget now!” or “click here for more info!”
  • Include compelling images either stock photos or images from your own website/social media pages

#5: Choose The Best Facebook Advertising Objectives For Your Business

Once you’ve decided on your target market and ad objective, it’s time to create your ad. There are a lot of different types of ads available on Facebook and it can get overwhelming if you aren’t sure what you want to offer.

Here are the main types of ads:

Newsfeed Ads

These are the most common type of Facebook advertising and appear in people’s newsfeeds based on their interests or demographics. They’re great for branding but don’t have much engagement potential.

Right Column Ads

These run along the right sidebar of a user’s screen while they’re surfing around Facebook and can be clicked through to visit your website or landing page (if applicable). 

They tend to have higher conversion rates than Newsfeed ads because they’re more personalized; 

However, they also cost more because they require more upfront investment from advertisers. After all, users have to actively click through before being taken elsewhere (which is why many businesses tend not use them).

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Mobile App Install Ads

This type of ad will prompt users who see them on their mobile devices with an install button for downloading an app directly from Apple’s App Store (for iOS) or Google Play Store (for Android). 

The added benefit here is that marketers won’t need any coding knowledge whatsoever since Apple/Google handles all aspects related directly back out from within their respective stores’ interfaces once clicked this means less hassle overall!”

#6: Create Custom Audiences Using Facebook Pixel & Email List

In this section, we’re going to talk about creating custom audiences using Facebook Pixel and email list.

Facebook Pixel is a tool that helps you create a data-driven marketing strategy. It helps you track users on your website so you can retarget them with ads from Facebook.

An email list is a database of contacts who have signed up for your emails, newsletters or whitepapers by giving their permission via an opt-in form on your website. 

When someone submits their email address at the end of an article or video they are tagged as “lead” in your database which means they are interested in reading more content related to that specific topic. 

They have given explicit permission for you to contact them again in the future so if you do this over time through multiple interactions with them then it becomes really easy for marketers like ourselves!

#7: Send Traffic To A Landing Page Or Take Them Directly To The Product Page

You need to make sure that your landing page is well-designed, with a clear call to action and a purpose. The goal of the landing page is to convert your visitor into a customer by providing them with the information they need to make their decision.

There are many ways you can do this:

  • A video demo of your product (examples)
  • A written explanation of how it works (examples)

#8: Always Be Testing Different Images, Ad Copy, & Audiences

As you are running ads and seeing what works, keep testing. You want to make sure you are getting the most out of your ad spend for each campaign. The best way to do this is by testing different images, ad copy, and audiences.

For example:

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Test Different Images 

If a photo or video seems like it’s working well in your ad but isn’t performing as well as you’d expect, test other images from the same product line or category. 

For example, if one image gets a higher percent of clicks than another and they’re both similar products (like two photos of women’s dresses).

Then that might mean that there’s a certain style of dress within this category that attracts clicks better than others do (maybe strappy hemlines draw more interest).

Test Different Audiences 

If an audience has low conversion rates despite being highly targeted (you’ll know this if traffic comes from Facebook), try expanding the size of your audience first before trying something new to get more scale while keeping costs low at the same time. 

Then narrow down again once results have been established over time! That will help ensure ROI doesn’t slip away just because someone didn’t see enough people who were interested enough yet.”

#9: Optimize Your Ads For Conversions (Not Likes)

Once you’ve identified your audience, the next step is to optimize your ads for conversions. This may seem counterintuitive; after all, if someone is liking my page or watching my video, isn’t that good?

In short: no. Likes on a Facebook Page are not something that can be directly converted into revenue for advertisers they’re just simply an indication of an interest in a brand or product. 

You only want likes from people who are likely to buy from you when presented with an opportunity to do so.

Conversions have nothing to do with likes, either they refer specifically to actions taken by users on websites and mobile apps (such as signing up for a membership). 

Because these actions require time, effort and money from the user side of things, they’re much more meaningful than any type of like or share could ever be since those things take very little effort on behalf of users themselves!

#10: Keep A Close Eye On Performance Metrics In Ads Manager

Now that you’ve started running Facebook ads, it’s important to keep a close eye on the performance metrics in Ads Manager.

You should be checking these stats daily. The data will give you a general idea of how your ad is doing and help you determine if changes need to be made (i.e., when there are dips or spikes). 

You can also use this information to optimize your campaign by making tweaks based on data trends.

The metrics that we recommend monitoring are:

Impression Share 

The number of times your ads were shown compared to all other eligible impressions (based on budget status and delivery method). 

If this number drops significantly over time (more than 50%), then it could mean that your targeting needs some work and/or there isn’t enough demand for what you’re offering with this particular ad.

Clickthrough Rate

Clicks divided by total impressions (CTR). This shows how many people who saw the ad actually clicked through to visit the landing page or website associated with it which means they were interested enough in learning more about what was being advertised! 

If possible, try setting up conversion tracking so that you can see exactly which kind of actions resulted from each click; this will help pinpoint whether users’ purchases came directly from viewing an ad versus elsewhere online because there’s still room for improvement here…

#11: Use The “Lookalike” Audience Feature To Scale Your Campaigns

Once you’ve created an ad campaign, you might want to scale it. This means bringing in new people from the same audience segment.

You can do that with Facebook’s Lookalike Audience feature. This allows you to target new people who are similar to those who have already interacted with your page, website or ads (or even your competitor’s pages and websites).

  • To create a Lookalike Audience:
  • Click on the “Create Audience” option on the left-hand side of your Ads Manager dashboard.
  • Click on “Custom Audiences” and select “Lookalike Audience” under Custom Audiences:
  • Select an existing custom audience as your seed audience and then click Next:

Select age, gender, country, and language targeting options and click Finish: This will result in an audience that looks like those who have already shown interest in what you’re selling!

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#12 Use Custom Audiences From Your Website To Retarget People Who Have Visited But Haven’t Purchased Yet

The next step is to use the lookalike audience feature to target people who are similar to your website visitors. You can upload a list of your own customers for Facebook to analyze and create lookalike audiences from, or you can use their automatic algorithm.

Once you have created a custom audience of people who have visited your site but haven’t purchased yet, it’s time to advertise directly at them with an ad that gets them excited about what they saw in their browser window!

Learn how to create your first Facebook advertising campaign!

It’s important to know that you’re constantly being tracked as a Facebook user. In fact, you can’t even browse the newsfeed without being tracked by Facebook. When you click on an ad and visit the website of its creator, Facebook will record this action and serve up more relevant ads.

The many options available through Facebook Ads Manager make it easy to target based on different factors like age, gender, location and interests. 

However, it’s important not to get too granular with these settings or else your campaign will cost more than necessary while having little effect on sales or engagement rates.*

Once you’ve set up your campaign structure and an objective with a goal you’ll be able to start targeting people who fit into those parameters with specific types of ads (such as link clicks). You’ll also need some budget allocation so that your ads can run over time!

Conclusion

By now, you should have a good idea of how to create ads with Facebook Ads. The next step would be to measure your results and figure out how you can improve on them by running more ad campaigns. 

After that, it is all about scaling up your marketing efforts and trying different types of advertising! For example, you may want to try using Instagram ads instead of Facebook ones as they seem more relevant for my business type (e-commerce).

Further Reading

Here are some additional resources to enhance your understanding of Facebook advertising:

Sprout Social’s Guide to Facebook Advertising Strategy: Learn effective strategies to create compelling Facebook ad campaigns and engage your target audience.

Mastering Facebook Ads: A Comprehensive Guide: This comprehensive guide by Shopify offers insights into creating successful Facebook ad campaigns that drive traffic and conversions.

Facebook Paid Ad Checklist: 20 Essential Checks Before You Run a Facebook Ad: HubSpot provides a checklist to ensure your Facebook ad campaign is optimized for success.

FAQs

How do I create a successful Facebook ad campaign?

Creating a successful Facebook ad campaign involves defining your target audience, crafting compelling ad copy and visuals, and optimizing your campaign based on performance metrics.

What types of ad formats can I use on Facebook?

Facebook offers various ad formats, including image ads, video ads, carousel ads, slideshow ads, and more, allowing you to choose the format that best suits your campaign goals.

How can I target my ads to a specific audience?

You can target your Facebook ads based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and even custom audiences. This helps ensure your ads are shown to the most relevant audience.

What is the Facebook Pixel, and why is it important for advertising?

The Facebook Pixel is a tracking code that helps you measure the effectiveness of your ads, track conversions, and optimize your campaigns for better results.

How can I determine the success of my Facebook ad campaign?

Monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and return on ad spend (ROAS) will help you gauge the success of your Facebook ad campaign.