Social media ads or targeting are forms of advertisements with high potential and relatively low costs for businesses, which makes them quite popular.
Facebook ads, in particular, offer the option to reach potential customers on its namesake platform, on Instagram and Messenger, as well as on other apps with the help of Audience Network.
Through the Business Manager platform on Facebook, many businesses have got a one-stop online shop for their advertising and marketing needs.
Since the platform has such a wide reach, many businesses that frequently run Facebook ads have seen increases in sales and conversions with a lower acquisition cost.
But running successful ads isn’t always a given. In fact, a recent ads study by Socialinsider has shown that 4% of ads are rejected by the platform.
The visibility and reach may help independent businesses to level up their playing fields and those who want to compete with large companies with larger budgets, but only if the ads have a clear, data-based strategy behind them.
Just as with a regular content strategy, if you want to conquer Facebook ads fully, you will need to have a deep understanding of how these platforms work from every dimension: placement, creative types, objectives, etc.
Here are 5 data-based steps to ensure your ads will return the desired results:
1. Set the Right Campaign Objective
If you are planning to place a social media ad, the first step involves setting the right campaign objectives for your business ad on social media.
Define a clear result you’d like to obtain from the ad. There are several aspects to consider such brand awareness, conversions, event awareness, website clicks, or simply growing your social profiles.
Unsurprisingly, conversions and brand awareness are typically the goals for most brands.
Creating Ads to Drive Conversions
The above-mentioned study showed that around 26.94% of ads have chosen conversions as their objective.
However, 24.19% of the total ads are targeting post engagement whereas 22.64%look for only link clicks.
Event responses, brand awareness, store visits are more likely to be less important objectives since ads with these aims sum up for about only 2.03 percent of the total.
Once the campaign objective is chosen through the Ads Manager, you get to choose to place the ad according to your wish.
The placement options may vary from Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, or Audience network that extends Instagram and Facebook ads across many high-quality applications.
The preferred platforms are Facebook (45.2% of ads) and Instagram (35.6 %).
Facebook is also the platform with the most power to drive those conversions, having by far the highest click-through rates out of all available options.
The average CTR for Facebook stands at 3.90%, with a median value of 2.52%, while CTRs on Messenger, Audience Network, and Instagram are under 1%.
Creating Ads With Brand Awareness in Mind
Conversions are not the only objectives to be kept in mind, you need to also give utmost priority to brand awareness.
In this case, placing ads through Audience Network might be the better option, as these are the ads that are shown more frequently to users.
On average, one user is shown an Audience Network ad 1.75 times.
2. Keep Track of Your Budget
Ad spend is the estimated sum of money that you spend on the ads or campaigns during their schedule.
Typically, an average ad spend on a video is around $157.15 which is also the highest amount. The second highest would be the share ad spend which is around $146.16.
This means that brands tend to invest a majority of their budgets into these two types of ads.
But just because these are the more popular options, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best strategy for everyone.
Correlate Between Budgets and Results
If you want to invest more in Facebook advertising, you need to have a better understanding of the CPM or cost per mille and CPC or cost per click values.
The Facebook ad has a relatively low average CPC of around $0.33 and the average CPM is $5.82.
On the other hand, Instagram ads have recorded the highest CPC with an average of $0.98 but CPM is $5.33.
Messenger ads recorded an average CPC and CPM values of $0.52 and $4.15, respectively whereas Audience Network ads recorded an average CPC and CPM values of $0.52 and $4.47, respectively.
However, whether you are more interested in CPM or CPC depends on the campaign objective of your business or brand.
Worth mentioning, if you want to reach out to more people and create brand awareness, the CPM or cost per mille is also an important metric to keep track of, as it affects the way you spend your budget.
On the other side of the spectrum, cost per clicks is crucial data for conversion-based campaigns. Together with the click-through rate, this will offer a pretty clear idea of where your strategy should be heading.
3. Keep Track of How Social Context Affects Ads
In 2020, the same study recorded an average CPM of about $5.31 for all channels available, while the CPC was $0.43 on an average.
There was a significant decline in November 2019 in both CPC and CPM but they have been gradually rising since March 2020.
These dates are not arbitrary. If you consider the coronavirus lockdown, you can draw the conclusion that brands chose to invest in ads more once quarantine and social distancing started.
The reason is obvious: more people were tuned in online, spending more hours on anything digital, social media included.
4. Pick the Right Channel for Your Objectives
With all the above data it becomes more obvious that some channels have the power to bring in better results than others.
If your budget is wise, you can maximize your options and opt for all channels.
But if you’re working within a limited amount, it’s advisable to rethink your strategy so that your money is funneled towards the channel that serves your objectives best.
Data shows that this is a frequent oversight when creating ads, as 27% of them do not have platform targeting implemented.
Not targeting your platforms can lead to higher ad spend or poorer results, so make this a priority for your next ads.
5. Take a Risk on Your Ad Creative Type
Choosing between images, videos, shares, or page ads also affects the campaign results. It is essential to make your ads creative, but the way you structure your message also weighs in.
When it comes to the most popular creative types used in ads, the number is aligned with the ad spend: brands are willing to advertise and share their posts – 45.94% of the ads, including boosted posts. They’re followed by video ads which are 25.56% and photo ads with 21.02%.
However, if you measure their effectiveness by looking at the click-through rate, the data suggest that this strategy might not be the best. Clear and simple status ads seem to entice more people.
Despite only amounting to 3.46%, status ads seem to be more convincing. Of course, the fact that they are few and far behind might make them stand out more. And in such a competitive playground, that’s exactly what brands should aim for.
6. Analyze Campaign Performance
It goes without saying: analyze, assess, reassess.
It is quite evident from the above-mentioned data that monitoring the social media ad performance or especially your Facebook ads performance is likely to go beyond glancing at the ROI now and then.
There is no doubt that metrics like CTR, CPC, CPM give you sufficient knowledge to understand if your efforts are going in the right direction and make necessary changes in order to improve performance.
Ads Library or analytics apps are your best friend.
If you see your budget running low with not much to gain from it, have another look at placement and creative types. If all fails, you can always stop your ad and create a better-stronger one for the remainder of your budget.
How do you choose to create social media ads? Let us know what is your main campaign objective and which platform you prefer.
Cake pops in shape of Facebook button like it -DepositPhotos
