How to get started with Facebook advertising

This story originally ran in the Norwegian business magazine Kapital 9/2014 and was titled “More than [NOK] 1 billion this year.” It focused on how Facebook Ads is becoming big business in Norway, and included good advice for anyone looking to get started with Facebook advertising. Translation by 24SevenSocial with permission by Kapital.

– The future looks bright. Facebook advertising in Norway will probably surpass NOK 1 billion in 2014, of which more than half comes from mobile ads. At F8 – Facebook’s annual developer conference in late April, they launched – among other products – the Facebook Audiences Network. In short, the world’s largest social network is now opening up for advertising outside of Facebook, but with data from Facebook. You can use the targeting in ads on other apps and websites than just the ones Facebook owns, says Alexander Grimstad. -Exciting news indeed!

Grimstad is the VP of Marketing at 24SevenSocial, a company that helps their customers advertise on Facebook.

– Getting started advertising on Facebook is really pretty easy. The easiest, if the company has a Facebook Page, is to publish a post on their Facebook page, and then hit the “Boost post” button below the post. Keep in mind who you want to reach with the post – the better the segmentation, the more relevant results, says Grimstad.

Through Facebook Advertising companies can tailor campaigns directly to the target audiences they wish to reach. Facebook has gone from being a platform that was free for companies, and that gave these companies great reach when trying to reach their fans, to becoming a smart advertising platform.

And it’s not just the people who have clicked “Like” on the companies’ Facebook Page you can reach. Through Facebook’s Ads tools it’s easy to target the ads to all users. The social network has also opened up for uploading customer data, so that companies can find their customers on Facebook, as well as people who “look like” the customers you already have.

Facebook had 70% more ads clicks in Q1 2014 than in Q1 2013. The revenue per visitor went up by 11%. Facebook is now behind 3 out of 4 clicks from social networks to etailers. These are numbers from Adobe’s last Social Intelligence Report.

– The growth in ads clicks is not an indication that consumers have become less critical, or just click on anything in social networks. On the contrary, it reflects a rapid evolution in the ways that brands and consumers meet online, says Håkan Cedell, in charge of the Nordics for Adobe Media Optimizer and Adobe Social.

Alexander Grimstad explains that there are several ways to set up a Facebook Ad.
– You can either do it yourself through one of Facebook’s three free do-it-yourself tools, or you can reach out to someone who can help you get started. Facebook’s three ads tools are Boost Post, Ads Manager and Power Editor. I recommend most people who are venturing out on their own, to start with Ads Manager. It’ll put you in control of the setup, the target segmentation, and the results, says 24SevenSocial’s VP of Marketing.

– How can you measure results?
– This is built into the ads tools. Especially with Ads Manager and Power Editor, you’ll have a clear picture of the return on your investment. You’ll have to take this further along though, into whatever systems you have on your own to measure; be it physical traffic into your store, revenue, or traffic to your website, landing page or Facebook app. This isn’t only about likes, and fun and games any more, it’s about using Facebook to get solid business results. And it works!

Grimstad tells us that it’s hard to give a specific price of advertising on Facebook, but says it’s cheaper than most ads in both digital- and analog media. He’s usually happy with between USD 0,20 and USD 1,60 per website click, but it depends on what’s being sold. He believes anyone who’s new to Facebook advertising, and who manage to set up a thought-through campaign, will discover very interesting results from just a few hundred dollars.

– What types of campaigns do typically get the best results?
– Campaigns that combine solid content with a thorough target segmentation get the best results. We spend a lot of time testing various ads against one another before we invest more money in the one or the ones that stand out with the lowest price per conversion, and the highest amount of conversions. There are fantastic opportunities within the audience segmentation, from demographics to geography. You can even use your customers’ email addresses and target ads to them, or to people whom Facebook see as similar, as they have similar interests and demographics with the customer base, says Grimstad.

24SevenSocial themselves have good experience with Facebook advertising. – Facebook Ads account for the majority of inbound sales leads in both Norway and abroad, which is interesting since we’re a business to business company. The results are good, and we get a lot of value for the money we put in.

– Do you see any disadvantages with Facebook Advertising?
– Facebook needs to build an increasingly large ads inventory, and with the Facebook that we know today, there’s not going to be a lot of space left. Meanwhile, with the steps they’re now taking with acquisitions of companies like Whatsapp and Instagram, and developing an ads network outside of Facebook, the future looks bright for both marketers and Facebook users.

Grimstad recommends beginners to start with boosting a few posts on their newsfeed with the “Boost post”-button. – But consider this something along the line of putting your toe in the water before you jump in. You’ll get the most out of Facebook as an ads platform when you start continually testing and optimizing. That’s how you’ll get to the really awesome results. As with anything else, this is an ads platform that takes some practice on your part, so don’t get disappointed or discouraged if the first results aren’t what you hoped for, says Grimstad.

– Alternatively, find someone who can help you get started. There are a lot of people and companies that claim they know Facebook Advertising, so ask for case studies and references. Challenge them on what they can do for you, how they work, and what statistics they’ll give you access to so that you’ll actually know what you’re getting for your money, he concludes.

Facebook’s ads tools

* Boost posts

Quick fix to increase the distribution of a Facebook newsfeed post. Nice place to start, but this isn’t where you’ll get the best results.

* Facebook Ads Manager

Nice tool with understandable statistics and decent segmentation options.

* Facebook Power Editor

Facebook Ads Manager on steroids. Lets you set up and test large ad sets. Powerful, but complicated user interface.

– At 24SevenSocial, we provide a tool to automatically build Facebook target audiences based on contact info submitted through your landing pages, says VP of Marketing Alexander Grimstad.

[Update from 24SevenSocial: we now offer a do-it-yourself solution for Facebook advertising – read more here.]

– If you run a contest where people submit their email addresses, Facebook ads promoting that contest can automatically exclude everyone who’ve already taken part, and at the same time get a better “aim”, as you target audiences that are similar to to the participants. This is something we’ve seen a need for when working with Facebook advertising, and it’ll save our users a lot of time when they work with advertising. It will of course also contribute to better results.

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