The following drew me in on the “Facebook for business” advertising website: Most online advertising reaches only 38% of its intended audience. Facebook’s average is 89% (Nielsen OCR, August 2013). For someone who has her BA in advertising, this left me agape – this type of targeted return was pretty much unheard of just a few years ago!
Target, target, target
Facebook provides a platform for creating targeted ads, based on drilling down into countless user demographics, with can attract likes, comments and shares. Individuals can be reached based on interest, location, behavior, connection, age, gender, education and more.
Select a campaign goal
When you build an ad on Facebook, you’re prompted to enter your ad goal – do you want to boost traffic to your website? Promote your Facebook page? Encourage people to claim an offer? Attend an event?
Hypothetically, let’s say I wanted to boost “likes” of my KUcumber Nutrition Communications Facebook page. Facebook invites me to name my campaign effort. How about “Everybody likes KUcumbers” – all set! I’m then prompted for brief account information, i.e. time zone, currency. Next steps involves defining my demographic targets – how about women, ages 25-65+, with a BS in dietetics, who are interested in organic food? (Apparently 22,569,050 Facebook users have liked pages related to organic food, for what it’s worth. Not bad.) A Facebook odometer will inform you whether your selection for audience is too broad, too specific or just about right.
How much?
I am then asked how much I’d like to spend on a daily basis for my advertising, as well as duration, which corresponds to approximate reach. You can opt for spending just $5 a day as a starting point. There are options to optimize your ad based on “page likes,” “clicks,” etc. Design your ad with images, text and voila, a fairly straightforward process – and your ad is complete.
Is it worth it?
An interesting Mashable post posed this question to ten entrepreneurs, and their responses ranged from “it’s pretty affordable on the conversion rates and relatively easy to use,” to “a very affordable way to grow our email lists,” to one individual seeing a “200 percent ROI.” Overall feedback was positive from all entrepreneurs polled. Advice from the entrepreneurs focused on honing in on your targeting – be sharp about it – and doing some rigorous ad testing.
Perhaps you’re interested in giving this Facebook ad thing a whirl. You don’t know whether the return will be worth the investment until you try, right?
What has your experience been with creating Facebook ads? Please share!