Almost every social media platform has its own fully integrated advertising system, from Facebook to LinkedIn, brands can utilize these advertising tools to help them achieve their marketing objectives. Having said this, Facebook still reigns supreme in terms of features, insights, and audience. As a business, Facebook is an ideal place to start into social media marketing. However, it also depends significantly on the type of industry a business is in and the target audience of the business. Just because Facebook is an excellent platform for social media marketing does not mean all brands are using it and could use it effectively. Many end up wasting marketing budget and throwing valuable resources down the drain because they have no strategy in mind or simply do not understand how to use it.
It is no secret that paid advertising is becoming an essential part of a business’s social media campaign. If one has tried paid advertising, one will come to realize that composing the perfect Facebook ad takes time and practice. Every campaign is different, and so are the ads that go with it. Also, every audience has different needs and react differently to advertising messages and visuals. Here are some tips for improving the conversion rates and lowering the cost-per-click for Facebook advertising.
Understand the Audience
The priority for brands before capitalizing on social media marketing is the creation of marketing personas to target the needs of the customers. Relevancy is the key to success, and the audience they choose will affect how much it costs.
Facebook’s Audience Insights is one of the tools brands can use to learn about specific audiences before targeting them. It functions by mining available data on Facebook and showing exactly who are the target market; this includes aggregate information about geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more. The more customer insights brands have, the better they are equipped to deliver meaningful messages to people.
Be Consistent
Brands have to ensure the tone, branding, marketing message and images on the ads need to match the message on the landing page. Landing pages allow brands to maximize their Facebook advertising efforts by educating prospect before converting them. For instance, if the ad is promoting the sale of sports products, then that is what the people will be expecting from the landing page.
In recent years, Facebook has also introduced Facebook Canvas, a full-screen ad experience built for bringing brands and products to life on mobile. As consumers are spending more time on mobile, they expect brands to deliver fast, frictionless mobile experiences. And those expectations will only become increasingly demanding as more and more consumers rely on mobile in their micro-moments. Facebook Canvas provides brands an alternative to achieve any objective by giving them a fully customizable digital space on which they can use to build multimedia stories at the same time ensure consistency in their marketing message.
Have a Clear Call-To-Action
A good ad is one with a clear call-to-action. Before creating an ad, brands have to define their campaign objective, whether to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to a website or connect people to their page. The campaign objective will determine a call-to-action that helps to increase conversions and make the ad stands out from the crowd. Studies have proven that the inclusion of a call-to-action button can improve click-through rates by up to 3x.
Schedule Ads
Ad scheduling is one of the functions brands can use to get maximum impact for their advertising efforts. By understanding the target audience, brands can effectively engage and convert them by putting ads at critical micro-moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped.
Learn from Insights
Data is useful in any campaign, whether digital or traditional. By gathering useful information, brands can make data-driven decisions that can impact their social media campaigns. Learning from past campaigns will help them see what worked for them – and more importantly, what did not. From the targeting strategy, audience, marketing message to the visuals, Insights is a powerful tool that can help brands get the most from their marketing budget.
Use Professional Images and Optimize the Ad Sizes
According to HubSpot, content with relevant images can receive up to 94% more views than content without. Brands should use professional images that can capture their audience’s attention and drive conversions. Other than this, they must also take note of the recommended ad sizes so that their Facebook ads will look best wherever they are seen.
Here are some websites where brands can purchase professional stock images:
- Shutterstock: http://www.shutterstock.com/
- 123RF: http://www.123rf.com/
- Getty Images: http://www.gettyimages.com/
- iStock: http://www.istockphoto.com/