Is Facebook Advertising Worth It?

Actions
Is Facebook Advertising Worth It?
Srdjan Kali

Glopinion by

Srdjan Kali

Nov 14, 2019

Are you interested in seeing how your competitors go through Facebook advertising?

Are you still thinking about whether this type of advertising is profitable or maybe you already invest quite a lot of money on Facebook ads? Either way, you probably asked yourself at some point: Does Facebook advertising really work?

This is a perfectly reasonable question, no matter how familiar you are with paid advertising on social networks. Fortunately, there is a short and simple answer: “Yes, Facebook advertising works - incredibly well.”

However, instead of staying focused, we wanted to explore the reasons why Facebook advertising should be included in every business's digital strategy.

 

How does Facebook Advertising work?

Facebook advertising allows you to target specific audiences who are likely to be interested in your products and services by leveraging the huge wealth of data Facebook has about its users.

First, you identify the goal of the campaign or what you want your Facebook ads to really achieve. This can be to:

  • Drive traffic to your website,
  • encourage visitors to download your application,
  • generate leads, or
  • Increase in sales.

Once you've identified the goal of the campaign, you tell Facebook who your ads should be displayed on. Facebook only shows your ads to people who are interested in and belong to the demographic that interests you. Facebook has thousands of custom audience parameters, allowing you to create incredibly accurate audience segments for your campaigns. You can also create a custom audience by sending existing customer data, which allows Facebook to create a lookalike audience (or an audience similar to your target audience) based on the parameters you select.

Then you create the ads you want them to run. Facebook ads are visual and aligned with how people use Facebook, especially mobile devices - there are definitely no small text ads here. Once you've done all that, use data and analytics to evaluate the performance of your ads, and then optimize your ads according to the results you get to improve all aspects, from reach to click rate. What does it mean? Here is a specific example.

Let's say you wrote a text and created a visual for a Facebook ad, and now follow what happens. If you see that most of the audience is 30-35 years old and the rest is much smaller, it would be wise to stop showing ads to an audience outside of this box so that you do not waste your money. This is just one example of optimization, which means you can modify other parameters as needed, such as demographics, interests, and other parameters.

 

How Facebook works

The Facebook algorithm uses the auction system to determine which ads will be displayed to users. However, there are several elements that are unique to Facebook advertising, and the first of these is the concept known as competitive value.

The competitive value of a Facebook ad is the sum of the advertiser's maximum bid - how much an advertiser is willing to pay each time a user takes the desired action - and the actual quality bids, that is, how much engagement the ad brings to Facebook and what user experience it provides to the audience. While the precise methodology of Facebook's algorithm is a closely guarded secret, Facebook acknowledges that factors such as clicks, likes, and shares, as well as general ad feedback, are included in this algorithm.

 

Why has Facebook reduced the organic reach of posts?

If we look at the period of several years ago, we can see many names that have developed their own business with the help of this network and for free! The reason for this success is that the number of Facebook users, more specifically business pages, used paid advertising very little.

The total amount of money invested by all the pages on the Facebook network was not even close to today. However, the news of good profitability of Facebook advertisements quickly spread and more and more businesses began to invest their money. Today, organic reach is almost inconceivable. However, it's also not enough to just give money to this network to manage your results on its own.

The situation has become much more complicated and this is the main reason why many business owners want to leave this part of the business, namely Facebook advertising, to experienced marketing agencies.

 

How many people are actually on this social network?

Facebook has a global audience of about 2 billion users - about a fifth of the planet's total population. Understandably, this statistic is one of the most fascinating, and for good reason. No other social network is close to Facebook's penetration!

There are two main reasons why user growth is so important to advertisers.

The first is that the larger the audience, the more detailed the advertisers can target the same. Unlike traditional billboard ads, the emphasis of paid social media advertising is on finding the right people rather than finding as many people as possible.

As Facebook's user base continues to grow, a larger potential audience that advertisers can target based on demographics, personal interests, shopping behaviors, life events, and thousands of other criteria can improve the ROI of Facebook advertising campaigns.

Another reason why Facebook's growth trajectory is so important is that, whether you use Facebook personally or not, the platform is still strongly aligned with changing spending habits and adoption of consumer technology, such as mobile devices. According to Facebook data from this report for 2018, the number of daily active users accessing this social network via mobile devices was approximately 1.3 billion.

 

Where is your target group?

This figure of 2 billion users applies to the whole world and to all spoken areas. One part of this audience is certainly yours. Let's say there are about 600,000 people in Serbia who are interested in your product. Hey, 600,000 people! Do you think it's small?

No, it's enough to even narrow down the audience that your ad will appear on. However, as we said, the Facebook advertising campaign has become real science.

 

What do you need for a successful ad on this social network?

To create a campaign, these are the basic things you need to pay attention to:

  • A well-designed visual (image) that will make your audience pause and look at your ad in so-called scrolling.
  • The text that additionally wants to convey the value of your business. So, it is not enough to write: “We have the highest quality food in the city. Visit our restaurant. ”People do not come to Facebook to shop, but to have fun, see what their friends, relatives do, where they travel, maybe watch some funny video… And you have a job to sell them your products and services. The word "Buy" is definitely not enough.
  • Properly Selected Advertising Goal Target - Suppose you did the previous two steps properly and it was your turn to select a goal. If you wanted to reach as many customers as possible, then your goal is by no means as many likes. Why? Even though it seems illogical, there is an audience on Facebook that often likes posts and this social network recognizes it. However, are they really buyers or is your advertising campaign one in a row that they will just like? Likes collection doesn't mean anything to you. That's why you choose sales. Then your ad will appear to those customers who buy frequently. And that's a big difference!
  • When selecting a goal, it is important that you properly target your audience. You need to know your customers well in order to harness the power of targeting. This is why, before the ad itself, a so-called "avatar" or an ideal customer is created. If you know all its weaknesses and flaws, as well as its interests and where it comes from, you will have much better results in an advertising campaign. You know who you're talking to.
  • Budget - How much to invest in Facebook advertising? Unfortunately, there is no precise answer to this question. However, as this method of advertising becomes more expensive, you should take advantage of current opportunities and invest more in your budget.

The Facebook advertising campaign for these 5 steps seems quite straightforward, right? Well .. And it's not quite that simple. Facebook has a lot of rules that you must follow in order for your ad to be successful. So, all of these steps must fit into the rules of this social network. For example, did you know that the image itself must contain less than 20% of the text? Yes, this is just one of the rules. If you don't follow the rules, no success!

It takes time to master all these skills, such as design, copywriting, advertising and more. Not only do you learn, but you can also create, track, and further test and optimize your campaigns. In fact, at marketing agencies, a whole team of professionals does this job full time.

 

Comments (0)

You must Register or Login to post a comment

1000 Characters left

Copyright © GLBrain 2024. All rights reserved.