Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog. Today we will be discussing advertising on Facebook. Within this blog you will see an overview of Facebook advertising, how Facebook ads work, how to create Facebook ads, viewing your advertising data, implementing best practices, and a conclusion.

An Overview of Facebook Advertising

Facebook ads have become more common each day, and I bet many individuals see at least 1 or 2 Facebook ads each day. This shows how much companies are depending on Facebook ad and why they are important. Because of Facebook huge platform and enormous amount of followers around the world, this becomes a social media platform that every huge company wants to use.

It is important to set an objective, this is because you will then have a goal in which you want to achieve (Adams, 2019). An example would be to create greater awareness of the specific company and to make people come to your website.

Megan Adams (2019) in her video shows all the different targeting options and why they are important. Examples include:

Location
Demographic
Interest (this would be all of the same hobbies or pages your target market has in common)
Behaviours

All these targeting options are great to have in mind, because they will allow you to create an ad that targets the right people. This will also increase the amount of people who will be more likely to click on your ad.

How Facebook Ads Work

Facebook uses a specific ad structure, this structure is how Facebook organizes your ads (Adams, 2019). The structure includes three levels, first is campaign, second is ad sets, and the third and final is ads (Adams, 2019).

The campaign is the first level in the structure, this is the objective of the whole specific ad, for example it could be to show off how amazing our new product is and all its benefits (Adams, 2019). After the campaign comes the ad sets. The ad sets are where you select who you are targeting, the ad placement and the bid setting (Adams, 2019). You can create multiple ad sets, each one with a different target and goal. After you create your different ad sets you can then go into the final level the ads. In this level you will create ads for each specific ad set you include (Adams, 2019).

How to Create Facebook Ads

Now we will discuss how a Facebook ad is created. First you will need to identify your primary audience (Adams, 2019). As I mentioned earlier it is important to choose your audience wisely because it will increase the amount of interaction with the ad. For example, if you are advertising a new cellphone you will target an audience that are interested in that specific devise, you can target individuals that follow you company’s own Facebook page.

To make sure you have the correct audience in mind it would be extremely helpful to use the targeting option mentioned earlier. For example, you can target people who have the same interests and behaviours you specified when creating your ad. They can have an interest in technology for example. Or they could have liked your page in the past or would have shared a post as well.

After you choose your audience then you should start to budget your ad. This is where you choose how much you will pay for your ad. If the company is new and small you, then the company should have a small budget and the opposite is true as well (Adams, 2019). Keep in mind if you choose a very small budget such as $5 you will not be able to see your ad being posted multiple times (Adams, 2019). It is important to allow your audience to see your ad multiple times, this will allow them to remember what your ad is about and its importance. It is preferred your ad seen between 3 to 5 times per person.

After you specify your budget then you can choose your ad placement. This is where you place your ad in Facebook. You can choose which type of devise you wish to advertise on, for example you can choose website, cell phone app or even the Facebook Messenger app (Adams, 2019).

View Your Advertising Data

After you created your ad you can see specific data about your ad. For example, you can see how your ad is doing and how much people are seeing it (Adams, 2019). You can see who is looking at the ad, the gender and age. Megan Adams (2019) describes that you can look at the time in which my ad was shown, and the different locations it was distributed to. We can also observe the amount of people who interacted with the ad and that went to the website for example. After you analyzed your data you can update your ads for the future. For example, you can now place your ads at the best times and at the best placement within Facebook. You can also look at the best location where the ad is performing the best and then place it there. For example, the ad could be performing better in Canada than the USA, so then you focus more on Canada.

Implement Best Practices

Now we can go over some practices that will improve the effective your ad has on people. During the video Megan Adams (2019) explains some important tips to write a great ad. First you need a call to action. A call to action is what you want your specific audience to do, it could be to click on your ad, it could be to buy your product, or it could even be to share the post with your friends. The second tip is to use a simple but eye-catching picture (Adams, 2019). The image should be relevant and should speak to your audience. A great picture can drag your target audience in and let them engage. I personally always engage with an ad that catches my eye with a great picture or video. Another tip from Megan Adams (2019) is to have someone else review your ad before posting it. This allows you to see a different perspective and will allow you to identify a problem that you didn’t know need fixing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, today we looked over why Facebook advertising is important and how we can create a great ad. We discussed the overview of Facebook advertising, how Facebook ads work, how to create Facebook ads, viewing your advertising data, and implementing best practices. Bellow you can see a real-world example of a great ad on Facebook. The ad below is about creating awareness for the new type of editing from Adobe, which is called Adobe Stock. I believe this ad is an excellent example because it checks off many boxes. Such as it includes an enticing picture that drags the audience in. The ad also includes a call to action which is go to their website to learn more. The ad also does not include too much text and get straight to the point. At the end you can see why I choose to talk about this ad. This ad uses many of the tips and guidelines we talked about today, and that is why it is an effective piece of advertisement.