6 Tips For Effective Facebook Ads

I know many of you have been thinking about using Facebook ads so today we’re going to go over 6 tips for effective Facebook ads. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but if you’re currently advertising on Facebook pretty much the entire newsfeed is maxed out to capacity.

Which means there’s more competition for those ads, meaning the prices get driven way up, which is why it’s so important to keep certain things in mind when you’re running ads.

Some things just work better than others and when you follow these tips you’re going to see higher engagement rates and lower cost per click.

Facebook Changes

We saw more changes with Facebook in 2018 than we ever have before thanks to that Cambridge analytic incident that came up which made people really stop trusting that Facebook is a safe environment.

Facebook had to really compensate for that and they put a lot of new policies in place because of that. One of the main things you’re definitely going to want to concentrate on in Facebook this year is positivity.

After all that stuff that went down with Facebook and Cambridge analytica they really want people to know that they want people to use the Facebook platform for good meaning.

If your ads tend to use a lot of negative language and stir up a lot of negative emotions Facebook is going to stop showing those ads and if you know anything about marketing this really flies in the face of what we know.

To make for a really compelling ad you usually need to bring up and then agitate a pain point that your customers are likely feeling just to make them care about what it is you can do for them.

A good example of this might be if you’re an accountant. You’ve talked about how people really dread doing their own taxes and even mentioning what could possibly be lost doing them yourself.

It could be owing more money or even being audited and since people are just more hardwired to want to avoid bad things than to run toward good things this tactic usually works pretty well.

Facebook Wants Positivity

For better or worse Facebook owns the platform and it’s their right to decide what they want and they basically don’t want you to stir up those negative emotions or use fear-based marketing.

At the end of the day they want people to feel empowered and uplifted using their platform so the fear-mongering isn’t going to be as effective as it once was.

If you want to advertise on Facebook nowadays you really have to emphasize the positives of what your business can deliver and not really talk about those potential negatives at all.

Talk about those potential positive outcomes that people can get from either working with you or consuming your content and use images that show happy emotions not negative ones.

Facebook Social Proof

Next I want to talk about the idea of social proof. If you can get an ad that gets lots of likes, comments and shares on it that is really going to save you from paying crazy costs per click.

Not only will those shares, likes and comments get you some serious organic reach as a result but it’s also going to drive down the paid cost as well. Shoot for ads that bring out a positive emotion in people and really make them feel something.

You can do this by going inspirational in your marketing or telling a story or even using humor. Nowadays with Facebook marketing it’s not enough to just sell the features and benefits of your service.

You really want to take people on an emotional journey with you, tell a story and overall just relate to your audience. 1 way to do this effectively is by using a well structured customer testimonial where they talk about the positive outcome they got by using your service.

Neilpatel.com has a good article breaking down How to Use Social Proof to get Better Results from Facebook

The Facebook Customer Experience

Next you’re going to want to optimize for after the click. Facebook really cares about the entire customer experience, everything from them seeing your ad for the first time all the way through receiving your product, service or digital download.

While they can’t see everything that happens in that entire process there are definitely a few things that they can see and pay close attention to.

So let’s say they click on your ad and your page is really slow to load or they get to your landing page and then they immediately hit the back button to go back.

Facebook can tell that and it’s a really negative signal to Facebook saying that your page doesn’t deliver on the promise of the ad and if that happens enough Facebook is just going to stop showing that ad because they want to deliver a positive experience.

So best case scenario, they might still show the ad but just charge you way more for it and worst case they’ll just stop showing it completely.

Facebook is starting to take a lot of other things into account on the platform particularly with your Facebook business page. Ratings and reviews you’re getting they’re looking at and if you’re responding to people’s comments and questions on your business page.

They tend to deliver ads at a lower cost per click for those businesses that have higher engagement rates and that’s also why brands that do regular Facebook live videos tend to get better deliverability and lower ad costs as well.

Facebook’s New Ad Format

Next up I want to talk about instant experience ads, formerly known as canvas ads. Facebook’s ad format is new and much improved over the original.

It’s simply an ad format that once people click on the button they get all the details of your offer including video images and even the ability to fill out a form and rather than this all being on your website which might take a lot longer to load this all happens on Facebook.

Since Facebook wants to keep people on their platform as long as possible they’re likely going to show this ad at a much lower cost because they know that they’re not sending people off to your site.

The other benefit is since it actually does load so much faster than the typical external website you’re likely to get way more eyeballs on your offer.

Since they’ve switched from canvas ads to the new instant experience ads they’ve got more templates for you to choose from so you can really choose the look more than you ever could before.

Look-Alike Audience

Next I want to talk about probably my favorite feature in all of Facebook advertising and that is the look-alike audience. With costs rising like they are it’s more important than ever to really dial in your targeting and Facebook look-alike ads are probably the best way to do that.

It’s my favorite way to find new customers based on your current customers and again thanks to Cambridge analytica Facebook has taken away quite a few of the other powerful targeting options which is all the more reason to really use this one to its full extent.

So here’s how it works basically. You’re just going to upload a spreadsheet of your current customer list or it could even be just an email list of people who have interacted with your business or downloaded some kind of a content piece on your site.

Then Facebook matches those email addresses with their member profiles and since Facebook has so many data points on its members based on their demographics, what they read, like, and watch, they start to find all the commonalities between all the people on your list.

Once they figure out what that list of people has in common they can go out and start finding other new audiences that share the same similarities and then show your ad in front of those people.

Since that creates so much relevance between your ads and that new audience it’s really going to increase the engagement and drive the cost down.

Learn more about: How Facebook Messenger Bots Can Grow Your Audience

Facebook Vertical Video Ads

The next thing that’s working really well in Facebook Ads now are vertical video ads. One of the keys to getting a Facebook ad to perform well is to get people to actually stop scrolling and pay attention to it.

Why use a horizontal video that takes up a tiny amount of screen space when you can be much bigger and much bolder just by turning the camera around.

Vertical video has proven to be much more engaging, resulting in more likes and shares and comments than horizontal videos or square videos and you can use that on Facebook ads as well as Instagram ads which is obviously owned by Facebook as well.

6 Tips For Effective Facebook Ads – Conclusion

I hope these 6 tips for effective Facebook ads has given you a better grasp on what you should be doing in the future to see better results with your advertising efforts.

I want to hear from you and I want to know which of these tactics are you excited to put into practice or are you already using any of them with any success. Let me know in the comments below.

If you have any questions leave those down there as well and I’ll answer as many of them as I can. Make sure to share with your friends and don’t forget to check out some of my other posts that will help you get started in your online journey.