Hi guys! (a.k.a awesome people who bothered to read my blog)
I’m Steve, a university student from UNSW Sydney. With my team, I’m building software which allows marketers to map and execute customer advertising journeys across social media networks through simple drag-and-drop (free beta, check it out here: www.flobox.io) as part of a university program (https://incubate.org.au/).
Through this program we were required to complete customer development and hence my journey started in speaking to 100 advertisers. Prior to that I worked in marketing in another start up and worked extensively with Facebook/ Twitter ads. Hope you enjoy the read.
Lastly — I am also creating a Facebook group for anyone interested in eCommerce and Facebook marketing. Join here.
INTRO
I know what’s going through your mind. Why use Facebook advertising? Why pay for something that you can get from posting on your Facebook page?
The answer I give to almost everyone is: as long as the conversions you get from each customer (LTV) exceed the cost (CAC), you should run Facebook advertisements till the cows come home.
To calculate these numbers, check out this article: http://ad-spend-calculator.qwilr.com/
For those people who’ve read that article and understand that Facebook advertising is a goldmine as long as you control your costs then read on…
P.S. This is my attempt to condense Facebook advertising theory into 3 core rules after interviewing around 100 advertising agencies.
RULE #1 FIND YOUR FACEBOOK ADVERTISING AUDIENCE
No, I don’t mean the audience you have in your business plan (or head). One thing people have to understand is that the Facebook conversion audience (a.k.a people who actually buy products on Facebook) is probably different from the your overall purchase audience. They may be the same but for 70% of the accounts I look at, the audiences are distinctly different.
How do you find these people-unicorns?
You test.
That’s right, you split test your audience. Simply, this means you create several audiences in Facebook and run ads from them. This brings me to exhibit A:
In this section, you define who you want to advertise to. Maybe it’s 20–25 year old males in California or 60–70 year old grannies in China who speak Spanish. The possibilities are endless. There is a general rule though: only change 1 variable at a time. I’ll show this below:
As you can see here, my original audience is highlighted in red with a conversion rate of 1.9%. By testing different variations, I was able to increase conversions significantly (audiences highlighted in green). I recommend only spending $10 per audience to test. Once you have find your “tribe”, go ape sh*t (for compliance reasons, I needed to sensor that).
RULE #2 ALWAYS A/B TEST YOUR AD CREATIVE
If you want to create an advertisement on Facebook, you need to show something to your new found audience. Getting that image from Google Images isn’t good enough. I would recommend www.canva.com, it is super easy to create engaging content from their platform.
HOWEVER, DO NOT FALL INTO THE TRAP OF ONLY CREATING 1 AD COPY.
As before, you need to test test test (or in this case A/B test).
Chances are unless you have god-given content creating abilities, your designs aren’t going to be a 100% fit with your audience. You need to test 3–4 ad copies to see which performs the best. Once you’ve established that, allocate all your budget to the best performing ad.
I’ve drawn a little diagram to help you out:
RULE #3 ALWAYS GET UP RETARGETING
If you’re not retargeting then…you’re missing out on $$$.
Get acquainted with installing Facebook/ Twitter pixels for all your websites. Seriously. Here is a good guide on how to do that: Facebook Pixel Guide
Retargeting allows you to (you guessed it) target people who’ve clicked on your website from Facebook or Twitter. Simply it works like this:
- Your website is typically stored on your servers. When someone goes onto your website, content/images is downloaded from your servers and loaded in the person’s browser. Think of a server as a magical place where your website’s images/content/code is stored.
- If you install a Facebook or Twitter pixel, you have essentially just included an invisible square image on your website. No one can see this.
- When someone goes onto your website and content/images start downloading from your servers, the invisible square is also downloaded….but from Facebook and Twitter’s servers.
- Facebook/ Twitter is able to recognise and record the downloads and match that information with their user base.
- Done! As soon as Facebook/ Twitter have identified who has accessed your website, you can target them!
Simple three tips right? If you’ve read this far, you’ll realise that creating awesome campaigns are hard work. At flobox, we’ve created software to condense all those steps into one page.
Behold:
If you’d love to try this software, head over to www.flobox.io to sign up. We’re in a free beta at the moment!
Much love,
Steve
