Maximize Your Facebook Social Ads Campaign

The highly precise demographic targeting available within the Social Ad platform is widely documented as one of its most unique and appealing characteristics, but Social Ads can still be painfully irrelevant to even the “right” consumers without proper consideration. Many creators of Social Ads seem to consider their work to be done once their ads have made their way to a carefully filtered audience; somehow, delivering a compelling message has become an afterthought. The powerful targeting potential and “self-serve” nature of the Social Ad platform has resulted in the ubiquity of ads that fail to consider their actual relevance to the consumers that ultimately view them. Any advertisement, no matter how accurately it may be targeted, may still underperform for a host of reasons as old as advertising itself. Here are five principal features of a successful Social Ad:

A compelling headline. Pique interest, pose a question, but above all get to the point. The headline will be all most users will read.
The product or brand name. Users are understandably skeptical of ads that fail to inform them of where they will be taken when they click.
Advertise a benefit, or reason to try/buy. Why should the user click this ad in the first place?
Including a relevant graphic. A logo or product shot may serve most brands well. Irrelevant images of celebrities, etc. may not (remember you’re paying for those unqualified clicks).
Stay in Facebook. Ideally, clicking through your ad should take the user to a Facebook property you have created (such as a Facebook Page or application). Facebook pages have a surprising amount of flexibility in terms of the amount and variety of content that can be presented – from there, you can direct users to visit your site. This has the added effect of helping to validate your product or service once you develop a core base of Fans of your page.

Besides the elements critical to the success of an individual Social Ad, much more is required to effectively manage an entire Social Ad campaign. We’ve been running Social Ad campaigns for our clients since the platform was created, and have garnered a number of lessons from the field. Here are a few of the most important considerations for any Social Ad campaign:

Diversification. Particularly when launching a new Social Ad campaign, it is extremely valuable to run a variety of ads highlighting different headlines, images, features and benefits – then see what sticks.
Constant adjustment based on results. This is the complement to #1: let consumers identify for themselves which ads are most effective – they do this simply by clicking on ads they find more compelling. The nature of the Social Ad platform makes it extremely cost effective to make performance-based adjustments on the fly.
Only one feature or benefit per ad. Social Ads are constrained to extremely short copy. It is usually advantageous to run separate ads for different features or benefits; this has the added benefit of attracting unique groups who might be attracted to the same product for different reasons.

The bottom line: executing a successful Social Ad campaign requires careful planning, constant adjustment, and, above all, a well-crafted and impactful message.

If you enjoyed this post, please take a moment to share it: