10 Powerful Facebook Ads Strategies for Better Results and Fewer Costs | Facebook Ads Guide

11 min readApr 23, 2020

Even though Facebook has made tweaks to its ad serving algorithm and improved itself over the years, leaving any potential competitor far behind; effective strategies remain the most important factor for every advertiser to get better results through Facebook Advertising Campaigns. We discuss various strategies here, whether you want to improve customer targeting or finally nail your retargeting campaigns, there’s something in here for you!

Each strategy here is tried and tested by us with our campaigns and that of our client’s.

So, go ahead browse our list of Facebook Ad strategies and get those creative juices flowing!

Basics First

Focusing on reaching your audience through multiple platforms can raise your brand's perceived value. There are 5 Levels of customer awareness that you need to focus on:

Unaware: At this stage, the audience is unaware of their problem and also unaware that there exists a solution for their problem i.e, your product or service.
Problem Aware: Here your audience is aware of the problem they have but are unaware that there can be a solution for that problem, in the sense, they treat it as a process that they must go through and cannot bypass.
Solution Aware: Your audience has understood that the problem can be solved and there exists certain products or services that can help them either solve the problem or bypass that issue.
Most Aware: The loop is closed here. Your audience has found your product and understand that your product is the best fit for solving the issue that they are facing — They will buy from you at any given opportunity.

Each level of awareness about your customers dictates the strategy that will be required to get their attention, engagement or sale. Here a notable difference in customer behaviour is to be noticed. Ads that target ‘Unaware’ and ‘Problem Aware’ section of the audience are better shown on Smartphones and Handheld devices. Whereas, audiences in the more heated sections should be targeted on Desktop Devices. For example, mobile ads should highlight the problem people have and the solutions that are available. By the time people get to most aware, your desktop ads should focus on validating why your product is the best option available.

Strategies that work

1. Create A Strong Pay-Per-Click Strategy To Increase Revenue And Site Visits With Facebook ads, you pay every time someone clicks on your ads — pay-per-click (PPC). A strong Facebook advertising strategy takes this idea and gets more people to click on ads. The more clicks your ad gets, the better your chances of funnelling people to your site are, and therefore the higher your revenue potential from that ad. A strong Facebook advertising strategy uses more than one PPC strategy so that even if one underperforms, there’s another one in place to compensate. One example of a strong PPC strategy is A/B testing. When you create your ad, use Facebook’s split testing feature to test ad visuals. Visuals are a powerful communication tool. 75%-90% of ad performance can be attributed to visuals.

To measure the performance of your visuals, keep the ad copy the same in both versions swapping only the images. Whichever ad performs the best — gets the most click-throughs and purchases — that’s the one to run with. Also, test variations of the “winning” ad to see if things like image placement or graphics drive up clicks even more.

2. Incorporate Facebook Messenger ads Since Facebook introduced Messenger, the platform has grown to one of the most powerful ways to reach and interact with audiences. Add to that the fact that customers expect instant answers to their questions — and Facebook Messenger offers customers a direct link to you — and you have an open channel to offer really targeted ads. The main difference between this type of ad and other ad types is the call-to-action. Instead of guiding customers to a Facebook page or website landing page, Facebook Messenger ads invite customers to start a conversation.

You can set up pre-programmed responses based on popular questions or comments customers you receive. This way your ad works to engage customers and offers them the information they need quickly. Consider this, over 2 billion messages are sent between Facebook Messenger users and businesses every month! With this much communication, it’s no wonder customers expect a quick response.

3. Find The Right Frequency Balance Nothing’s worse for a customer than seeing an ad over and over and over again. Over time, the ad loses its effectiveness because customers either ignore it or get frustrated by it and avoid the brand. The most effective ads don’t appear more than five times to the same customer. Any more than this means you’re heading towards a higher cost-per-click (CPC) and lower click-through rate (CTR).

To avoid this headache, decide on frequency specifications during ad creation. Set the frequency by telling Facebook how many times an ad should show up for each customer, let’s say five times. Then set the action. This tells Facebook what you want it to do once five views have been reached. Set this to “turn off all ad sets” so that the ad stops showing for each customer once the limit’s been hit.

Your Facebook advertising strategy should guide customers and create an experience that encourages them to complete a desired action, such as buying something or giving you their email address. Experiment with different frequencies to find the balance between a comfortable CPC and CTR for your campaigns.

4. Maximize Conversions By Targeting Brand Aware Audience

Just because your audience finds your brand doesn’t mean they’re aware of what it does or how it solves their problem. In order to maximize conversions, use ads that target a “warm audience.” These are people who are familiar with your brand and what it does. They might have encountered your product in passing when someone mentioned it, but they haven’t tried it for themselves yet.

Maximize the conversion of warm prospects by creating custom audiences based on engagement. For example, target people who’ve liked posts on your Facebook page or left comments on your Instagram pictures.

From there, all you have to do is use your copy to get these folks to convert and buy. For example, keep it short and sweet, use conversational language and use buzz words like “benefits” or “guarantee” to guide people to convert. Because they’re already familiar with what you do and offer and have shown some interest through engagement, this is the easy part.

5. Create Evergreen Facebook Ads

Depending on your business, you might decide to run ads weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. But even though your ads run frequently, it doesn’t mean that you have to start from scratch every single time. This is time-consuming and not required. A better approach is to take “old” ads and repurpose them to make them more engaging.

To help, there are three evergreen strategies that you can choose from: Awareness Campaigns: These campaigns target people who are most likely to engage with your brand. Facebook awareness campaigns are designed to share your brand story with this audience. To get started, include product highlights like new features. Use your awareness campaign ads to increase engagement and sales. Lead Generation Campaigns: Once people know who you are, the next step is to get their information, like an email address. To do this, offer value to your audience, so they are engaged with you and receptive to further communication — think e-books, webinars, and free samples. Conversion Campaigns: Use conversion campaigns to take these leads you just collected and convert them into sales. Here’s where you close the deal with a super targeted value proposition: exactly what makes you better than the competition.

Once you’ve chosen your evergreen strategy, make any necessary tweaks to already-made ads. You might be surprised to find how much you can get out of an old favourite with just a few minutes of work to set a new campaign and CTA.

6. Create Buyer Personas In order for any Facebook advertising strategy you choose to work, you have to know your audience. We’ve all heard the Meredith Hill saying, “When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one”. It’s true — not everyone in your audience is going to care about what you have to offer. It’s harsh, but it’s the reality. A better approach is to create a range of personas based on ideal customers. This will help you create targeted ads that resonate with people. Each persona should include details about customer needs, demographics, and psychographic attributes — things like values and opinions. This is the foundation for forming buyer personas. Pro tip: Don’t create buyer personas based on assumptions. Do the research to make sure that the personas you’re targeting actually care about what you offer. Once you analyze the data you’ve captured — by using, for example, an analytics tool like Amplitude to learn how people use your website and products and then compare the findings against each other — segment your audience based on shared characteristics, behaviours, and expectations. When it comes to Facebook ads, use this information to refine your Audience Insights.

On the left, you can create custom audiences by entering the data you’ve already collected — for example, audience location, age, and gender. In this example, age and gender are segmented, and you can compare where your audience falls (in blue) to the rest of users on Facebook (grey area). Click save at the top of the screen to save the resulting data to Power Editor. This simplifies the ad creation process because your ad — using Power Editor — will pull from these buyer persona audiences to help you create specific ads for specific groups. Bottom line: you get more bang for your buck.

7. Create Internal Checkpoints To Define The Limits Of A Campaign

If your Facebook ads are the engine that helps drive your marketing forward, then your Facebook advertising strategy is the mechanic that says when the car is good to go. Just like with engines, you need to stay on top of the metrics you track — like CPC and CTR — to see how they interact with each other or to spot problems. Just as mechanics will check out different parts of an engine to ensure it’s working properly, your strategy should include checkpoints that define the limits of your campaign. For example, let’s say CPC is out of proportion with CTR — that is, you’re spending a lot on your ads, but barely anyone is clicking through to your landing page. There’s a problem that’s been identified and needs to be managed.

Set up a list of limits for the metrics you track and convert them into “if this, then that” scenarios. This way, you create a manual of sorts to help solve problems quickly when specific triggers appear. For example, in our CPC vs. CTR scenario, you might:

Run a new ad with a new copy that focuses more on the problem your product fixes vs. all of the features it offers. Adjust your audience in follow-up ads. It’s possible that targeting is off, so the “wrong” people are seeing your ad and not reacting. Adjust the length of your campaign. Perhaps it didn’t run long enough so it didn’t reach as many people as it could have.

Checkpoints ensure that you make these adjustments in a timely manner so that your ads are as successful as possible. Not doing anything means you end up wasting time and money.

8. Focus On Facebook Lead Ads Your ads shouldn’t hinder your audience’s experience while using Facebook. For example, people scrolling through their news feed might see an interesting ad. But because they don’t want to leave the platform, they scroll past it instead of clicking it — usually thinking they’ll return to it later. Whenever possible, use Facebook lead ads to keep people in the app. When people see an interesting ad and know that they won’t be forced to leave Facebook, they’re more likely to sign up for your product or service because it happens in the app and not on an external site.

By keeping people in the app and offering a pre-populated form, you improve user experience and increase the chance of capturing leads. There’s no need for your audience to leave the app. Facebook lead ads have the potential to boost conversions because they don’t force users to abandon what they were doing in the platform before seeing the ad.

9. Incorporate Social Proof Into Facebook Ad Design The whole reason most people log onto Facebook every day is to see what their friends and family are doing. Facebook makes it easy by offering features that let you see what your friends have “Liked” or where your friends are hanging out. It’s this drive for social inclusion that lies at the center of social proof. When you incorporate social proof into your advertising, it minimizes the fear people have of trying something new and unfamiliar. If you’re trying to get leads, use phrases like “join 100,000 people who’ve already said yes.” This shows people new to your brand that other people are using it and enjoying it. As a result, potential customers are more likely to want to try your product. Wherever you can incorporate authentic content from people who really love your product, including things like top ratings on Yelp or Amazon, you build that implicit social trust with your audience.

10. Incorporate Video Ads Where Possible Whether it’s a live video or uploaded content, video on Facebook is becoming more popular. It’s a great way to get people to stop and take notice, and the proof is in the numbers. Facebook generates more than 8 billion video views every single day. And that number continues to climb. Use video in your ads to explain the story behind your product. Use this as a chance to be creative so that your ad stands out and is memorable. Facebook now offers a tool called Creative Apps that lets you use any of your brand pictures and videos to tell your unique brand story.

Use Creative Apps to make your videos and pictures more engaging. For example, you can access the following design apps to supercharge your videos:

Legend — lets you choose unique text fonts to incorporate over videos or pictures

Videoshop — this is a video editor with enhanced video editing capabilities

Quik — lets you animate text and manage the transition between pictures or videos

Hyperlapse and Boomerang — lets you create time-lapse videos and short loop videos

Vidlab and Piclab — lets you create slideshows or video mashups and add elements like filters

You know your audience best so experiment with different features until you find the combination that leads to the most conversions, click-throughs, or sign-ups. Keep in mind that your audience will likely watch your video without sound so make sure that the images and video you use are easy to understand. For example, use the Legend app to add a little text to further clarify your message.

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That’s all for now. If you need help with your paid ads, contact us at Mercle Consultancy we are always happy to help grow your business.

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