Facebook Ads on a Budget!
It’s my understanding that since the internet became “the internet”, the question has constantly been, How can I make money online? Or in other words, How can I get rich online? The truth is that there is no real “easy” or “fast-lane” way to get rich anywhere. Even popular entrepreneurs like Pat Flynn or Ryan Moran from “Freedom Fast Lane” had to put in serious work before making millions online. Is it possible to make a fortune online? Absolutely. Have I personally made a fortune online? For several clients yes.
More details about my story will come later, but first, I want to help you take a first step into getting your business growing online by utilizing a small budget. One of the most important elements of starting a successful business is to take baby steps and this article should help you by allocating a small budget into Facebook Advertising. Testing the market in your niche through Facebook will teach you innumerable lessons that will help you make decisions to grow your business.
What is Facebook Advertising?
Facebook advertising allows businesses to place custom ads or content targeting a specific audience, with costs varying based on the reach and engagement the ad receives. Facebook ads can appear in your target audience’s newsfeed or the right column of Facebook on desktop, as well as newsfeeds on mobile. The #1 social media in the world created a revolutionary way to deliver ads by delivering them in a more natural and less obtrusive way.
When you choose to advertise on Facebook, you’re provided with the opportunity to hone in on your audience, which gives you a chance to gain insight about your current and potential customers. Facebook sits on data from millions of people and allows you to improve your ad targeting for a more efficient and effective advertising experience. There are several ways to advertise through Facebook and not all apply in a generic fashion.
Best practices while utilizing Facebook’s advertising platform
Always determine your objectives before you start: It’s important to know the purpose of your Facebook ad before you decide on a budget for advertisement. Each business has a different goal or key performance indicator (KPI). It’s the right time to advertise after deciding the outcome that is most beneficial for your business and one that will return the most for your investment. Understand whether the aim is to increase for brand awareness, conversions, video views, etc., each action made by your audience on your Facebook ad costs money, so make sure you solidify your objectives before making those investments. Having a clear plan before allocating money to your campaign will increase the chances of success!
Be specific on your audience targeting: Facebook houses millions, if not billions, of data points. There are several categories to pick from and Facebook has been working on its targeting options for years. Targeting should be based on your consumer or customer persona (make sure that your business has a clear consumer persona). Take the time to get very specific in your audience targeting to ensure your ad will appear where the people you want to see it will be.
Rotate your ads regularly: To avoid ad fatigue, rotate your Facebook ads regularly. This means that when people start to see your ad too many times, they get bored of it and stop clicking. Unfortunately, when your clickthrough rate starts to drop, Facebook penalizes you, driving up your cost per click (CPC) which makes likes, comments, and clickthroughs more expensive. This affects both acquisition and engagement campaigns. To avoid this, rotate your ads every 3 to 5 days. One easy way to start this process is by picking different images on your ad. It is wise to test different types of ads but if you are only working on a small budget, then it’s usually best to start with only a few ads.
Choose your budget the right way
After you’re done choosing your target audience, you can then choose how much you want to spend on your ad. Your business should have a plan on the money being spent on advertising. Digital marketing has allowed marketers to set real goals and to expect a certain amount of return on investment based on data. Make sure your ad spend is efficient and effective. The ad budget you set is the maximum amount you want to spend.
If you choose to have a daily budget, the amount you enter will be the maximum amount you’ll spend each day. If you do lifetime budget, the amount you enter is the maximum you’ll spend during the lifetime of your ad. I recommend starting on a daily budget. Choosing a daily budget will give you an idea of the results you get based on your budget. Each way to advertise through Facebook costs vary by a goal. Clicks out of the Facebook app or site into a different one costs more and it might not be the best option. Data over the years has shown that users do not enjoy leaving a social media platform so stick to ads that keep a user within Facebook.
What will you ad look like?
The actual creation of the ad is the fun part of advertising through Facebook. Choose your images, headline, body text, as well as placement of the actual ad. You can have up to 5 images, and the headline text can only be 25 characters. Facebook also shows you a preview of what your ad will look like as you are creating it. The process is easy and fun, which is what Facebook is trying to do to attract marketers and business owners of all levels.
How to advertise on a budget?
Advertising on a budget is about patience and testing. The reason why I manage several business pages on Facebook is because it takes time to dissect data. This data is then transformed into future strategy for better ways to target an audience. This can be a time consuming and frustrating process for a business owner. I personally enjoy learning about users through data so that I can learn from them. Every campaign I manage starts by getting a decent number of users liking a page. I then analyze that data in order to move to boosted content posts and Facebook dark posts. Baby steps are necessary in order to make bigger and wiser decisions online. The beginning stages are what help you eventually move into campaigns with budgets of thousands of dollars and then in turn make millions of dollars for your business.
Reference:
Marrs, M. (2014). 45 Fabulous Advertising Tips and Magic Marketing Tips. Wordstream.
Retrieved from http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/01/30/facebook-advertising-tips
Moon, G. (2014). 5 things you should know before jumping into paid advertising. Kissmetrics.
Retrieved from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/paid-internet-advertising/
Torr, D. (2015). A beginners guide: How to advertise on FB. Hootsuite. Retrieved from
