Go Beyond The Boost With Facebook Ads Manager
What does this even mean? Well, paid social media is categorised in 2 ways:
1. The boost function
2. The ads manager.
The boost
When posting an organic message on Facebook you have the option to boost this message (when on a business account). This will make sure that people out of your organic following will see your post. However, there is a problem with this. You are not in complete control of who sees the post and who does not. Facebook will automate this for you. You can give it a light targeting option, but this is only a fraction of what the platform can do for you and your business.
The ads manager
Then there is the ads manager. This is a platform behind Facebook that controls all of the paid content on Facebook/Instagram. The difference between this and the boost button is that you have complete control of who sees the ad and who does not. There are a lot of advanced options that will make your ads convert better like, retargeting ads, look-a-like audience, and campaign objectives.
Knowing a platform like Facebook Ads Manager well can open a lot of doors for your business. Let me break down 3 of the tools that I just mentioned.
Choosing a campaign objective
When running a campaign, you want to optimize towards some type of goal. Choosing a campaign objective helps you do this.
There is awareness, consideration, and conversion. or as I like to call it; TOF, MOF, and BOF. (Top of the funnel, middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel)
Brand awareness and reach are the options for the TOF prospects. These ads will reach people that might not have heard of your business yet but are interesting prospects. Reach will make sure that your ad will be seen by a lot of people. Brand awareness will make sure that your ads will be shown to people who might be interested in your brand.
Traffic, engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, and messages are the MOF prospects. These prospects know your business and have an interest in your brand.
Getting them to view a video or make them sign-up for an email list can distinguish the prospects who are potential converters.
Conversions, catalog sales, and store traffic are the BOF prospects. They have engaged with your brand before and have a high chance of converting. Running retargeting ads is a good way to let these prospects convert.
Retargeting ads.
These types of advertisements work well when your prospect is at the end of the buyer’s funnel. Let me give you an example:
A prospect (potential client) is looking through your website trough an ad or by organic search. The customer is about to sign-up for your e-mail list but gets interrupted by a call. The prospect eventually forgets what he or she was doing, and leaves the sign-up page. Through a retargeting ad the prospect will come across an add saying ‘hey I think you forgot to sign up for our newsletter’ the prospect remembers and will sign-up after all.
This technique can apply to all types of ads. In Facebook ads, you will be able to set-up these ads through your Facebook pixel. This works like a cookie function. The pixel will generate all sorts of action within your landing page or a website. When getting more info, you are able to look for patterns and see where your clients fall off the wagon. And make them see the ad again trough retargeting.
Look-a-like audience
This is also a technique you can apply when you are in the lower buyer’s funnel. But it will be applied to new prospects. Let me explain; When running a conversion ad, you will generate data through the pixel, this data is saved within your ad account. When running a look-a-like audience ad you are able to search for other prospects that look like the prospects who already converted (or who almost converted). It is personally one of my favourites, because using this technique for a longer period of time, your PPC (price per click) will drop, and your conversions will increase tremendously.
Your new employee in training
Facebook Ads Manager is like a new employee, the more information it gets, and the longer it runs, the better it will perform. This is why boosting your ad is a waste of money. It will not learn, it will just consume and run with what it already knows. Within ads manager, you have all the control, and it will save the information you have gathered in your previous ads, which allows you to make the future ads perform better.
So, is boosting a complete flop?
No. Boosting can still be used as a proper promoting tool, just not in the way we discussed. You can use the boost tool to communicate with your clients in the area. This tool will make communicating with your clients for non-promotional purposes easier.
E.g., There is a roadblock that will not allow people to visit your store, so you write a message and boost it to everyone that lives around the area.
Want to know more about the Facebook Ads Manager? Send me an e-mail to floor@floordigital.co and get a free consultation call.