subject: Comprehensive Facebook Advertising Strategies [print this page] With 500 million users and still counting makes Facebook today, without doubt the ultimate social media networking website. With the correct strategies applied you could advertise on Facebook and tap into a potential gold mine of traffic and sales for your website. Within this article we shall discover some of the essential tasks you must perform to succeed with an ad campaign on Facebook.
Tip 1: Create Targeted Ads - With Facebook advertising it is possible to create targeted ads, so they will only appear to certain groups based on age, gender, hobbies etc. For example you wish your ads to target single mothers, you will need to configure your ad to only appear if a user's profile states they are a female, single and also a mother.
Tip 2: Maximising your click through rate - To minimise your costs you will have to ensure your ad campaign is not only reaching your target market but also optimised for your 'Click through Rate'. As a rule your overall CTR should not fall below 2 %. If your CTR does happen to fall below the 2% minimum, you could be at risk of having your ad automatically paused or removed by Facebook. To avoid this you should check your click through rate on a daily basis and if needed redesign your ad.
An option for keeping your click through rate above the 2% minimum is to test different ad variations to evaluate which is more beneficial within your industry or niche.
Another option to consider which could impact your CTR is the time of day your ads appear. You can specify within the ad settings when your ad will appear. It is possible to adjust your adverts settings so your ad will only run at certain times or specific dates if required. You should pay particular attention to your target countries time zones, and ensure your ads run at peak times.
Tip 3: Stay within the Advertising Guidelines - It is very important to understand Facebook's advertising guidelines. Facebook are flexible with the content they allow within the ads, however you must ensure your ads do not display any offensive images or text.
Tip 4: Setting your maximum bid - One of the most important tasks to perform is to set up your daily maximum bid. Please note the higher your bid the more exposure your ad campaign will receive. To start with you may want to consider a lower bid then increase over time when needed.
Tip 5: Cost per click or Impression based ads - It is possible to create your Facebook ads as Impression based adverts or CPC based ads. CPC ads are charged every time a user clicks on your ad, impression based ads are charged by the amount of times your ad appears on a page, regardless of how many times your ad is clicked. There are advantages for both systems, however if you are new to Facebook advertising you will be probably better off with CPC systems for the time being.
