Social Media Advertising - Your questions answered

In this blog, we answer four burning questions about social media advertising, including insights and best practise.

1. What key objectives can be satisfied with Facebook Advertising?

Facebook advertising can effectively fulfill a wide range of key objectives for brands, businesses, and organizations. Facebook aligns these key objectives with the different stages of the customer buying journey: awareness, consideration, and decision. 

Fig 1 - Sellers.A (Hubspot) [2021] ‘The Buyers Jouney’ [Graphic]

In the awareness stage, the primary objectives are to build brand recognition and reach a wider audience, this aligns with the awareness stage of the buyer's journey in that Facebook advertising can help brands become visible to audiences who are actively seeking solutions to their problems or challenges.

The consideration stage of the buyer's journey involves potential customers evaluating different options and weighing their choices. Facebook advertising objectives at this stage aim to facilitate this process by driving traffic to relevant resources, encouraging engagement with the brand, and generating leads. This aligns with the consideration stage of the buyer's journey as it enables brands to provide valuable information and engage with potential customers, helping them make informed decisions and move closer to conversion.

Finally, the conversion stage aims to optimize conversions, boost sales, and increase website/store traffic. These objectives align with the decision stage of the buyer's journey as they focus on getting users that are actively interested in a business, brand, or organization to complete a desired action - such as purchasing a product or service.  

The following screenshots are taken from the Facebook Meta website and provide a clear overview of how each objective corresponds to the different stages, awareness, consideration, and conversion. 

Fig 2. Facebook, Meta. (2023). ‘How to choose the right Meta Ads Manager objective’ [graph]

2. What are the main Facebook advertising formats available?

Facebook advertising allows marketers to use various creative formats in their campaigns. Each format has its own unique benefits, allowing marketers to utilize creative material based on their campaign objectives and their target audience's preferences. Below is a list of the main Facebook advertising formats:

Image Ads: Simple and visually appealing, these ads capture attention and showcase products and/or services effectively.

Video Ads: Engaging users with autoplay, video ads are an effective way to convey brand stories and demonstrations, driving attention and engagement.

Carousel Ads: Showcasing multiple images or videos in one ad, carousels highlight product features, offers, or storytelling. The ability for users to scroll through multiple images or videos increases engagement. 

Slideshow Ads: Offering a video-like experience with less data usage, these ads present engaging image series and messages, suitable for slower internet connections.

Collection Ads: Combining cover images/videos with product collections, these ads create an immersive experience, allowing users to explore and consider various offerings.

Instant Experience: Interactive and full-screen, these ads deliver immersive brand experiences through images, videos, text, and interactivity, driving deep user engagement.

Lead Ads: Lead generation ads involve users submitting their contact info directly within Facebook, reducing friction and improving conversion rates.

Dynamic Ads: Utilizing browsing behavior and interests, dynamic ads automatically promote relevant products, maximizing relevance, click-through rates, and conversions.

Although content will vary depending on audience preferences, the below graph from sprout social shows the current trend of content performance on social media. A helpful insight and benchmark for marketers looking to utilize current trends when creating Facebook ads. 

Figure 3 - Jansasoy.J (Sprout Social) [2023] ‘9 popular types of social media content to grow your brand’ [graph]

3. How can you target audiences when creating a Facebook advertisement?

According to Hootsuite - 2.82 billion people log into Facebook Meta apps per day. With this incredibly vast audience, it is critical for marketers to ensure their ads are targeted and shown to the right people. By refining the target audience, marketers can not only improve the effectiveness of their campaigns but also optimize the cost of their ads, maximizing their ROI.  

Facebook advertising offers marketers a wide range of targeting options to precisely define the audience that sees their ads. Below are some examples of the different ways marketers can target audiences when creating a Facebook ad: 

Demographic targeting: Marketers can leverage demographic targeting to reach audiences based on factors like gender, age, language, relationship status, and more. This targeting option is valuable as it enables marketers to refine their audience based on existing customer demographics. Additionally, when aiming to reach a new audience, marketers can select the appropriate demographics that align with their target audience, ensuring precise targeting and effective campaign reach. 

Location Targeting: Facebook enables marketers to target audiences based on geographic location, including countries, regions, cities, or even a specific radius around a location. This is a particularly useful feature for small localised businesses as they can ensure that their ads are not shown to audiences outside the parameters in which the business operates. 

Interest-based Targeting: Facebook allows marketers to target users based on their interests, hobbies, pages they like, or activities they engage in on the platform. This helps reach people who have indicated interest or affinity towards topics related to products or services specific to their business. 

Behavioral Targeting: This type of targeting allows marketers to reach audiences based on their online behaviors, purchase behaviors, device usage, and more. This helps target users who exhibit specific behaviors or patterns that align with a marketer's campaign goals.

Other ways of targeting audiences in Facebook ads include creating custom and look-alike audiences. 

Custom audiences: Marketers can create these audiences by using two sets of data, their own data sources such as website data, app activity, or customer lists. Or Facebook's data sources which can be seen in the below screenshot. 

Fig 4 - Facebook Ads Manager [n.d] Screenshot of custom audience source in Facebook Ads account manager.

Facebook matches this data with user profiles to target your ads specifically to these groups, allowing you to re-engage existing customers or target a specific set of individuals. 

Look-alike audiences - Using the data from custom audiences, Facebook can create lookalike audiences, which consist of users who share similar characteristics and behaviors to existing customers or custom audiences. This helps marketers expand their reach to new users who are likely to be interested in their offerings.

4. Explain the key elements that make up a great Facebook advertisement.

A great Facebook advertisement comprises several key elements that work harmoniously to captivate the audience, foster engagement, and drive desired outcomes. These elements are crucial for crafting effective ads that resonate with audiences, drive engagement, and achieve campaign objectives.

Quality content

First and foremost, compelling visuals play a vital role in grabbing attention while users scroll through their news feeds. High-quality images or captivating videos that accurately represent the brand or product are essential to make a strong initial impression.

Compelling copy

Equally important is clear and concise copy that effectively conveys the value proposition, and key message, and includes a strong, clear call to action. The copy should be concise and impactful, using persuasive language and highlighting benefits making it easy for users to know what the ad is about instantly. Using a strong CTA guides users on the desired action, whether it's making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or exploring more information. 

Audience targeting

Targeting is another critical element. By tailoring the ad to the specific target audience and addressing their needs, desires, or pain points, marketers can make the advertisement more relatable and engaging. Audience targeting options can ensure that the advertisement reaches the intended audience effectively. This enhances relevance and increases the likelihood of engagement.

Optimizing for mobile

Social Sprout report that 97.4% of Facebook users access the platform via a mobile device. This means that optimizing the ad for mobile viewing is crucial. Ensuring that visuals and text are easily readable and the user experience remains seamless on smaller screens is crucial for maximizing engagement.

User-generated content

According to Tint [online], Consumers rank authentic UGC as the most trustworthy content, with 75.78% of consumers reporting using social media to search for or discover products, brands, and experiences. Incorporating social proof elements, such as customer testimonials or user-generated content, helps establish trust and credibility. Positive feedback from satisfied customers can reinforce the value and quality of the advertised product or service.

Testing

Regular A/B testing and iteration are essential for continuous improvement. Testing different elements like visuals, copy, CTAs, or audience targeting helps identify what resonates best with the target audience, allowing marketers to refine and optimize the ad accordingly.