It cannot be denied that the sheer number of people in Facebook is seen by marketers as prospects that can bring in the dollars. Of course, Facebook marketing goldmine and there have been stories of businesses who have made it big advertising in Facebook. On the other hand, there are sob stories as well. There are businesses who gambled and fell flat on their faces.
Facebook can be a two-edged sword. It is the best advertising platform but it is also the worst when it comes to user-friendliness. Facebook has big data analytic capabilities to micro-target an ad at a level that is intimidating to a newbie. It also offers not just one type of advertisement opportunity; you can choose between boosted posts and Facebook ads.
Facebook-Boosted Posts:
When you post to Facebook, only a portion of your followers will see the post. Yes, you can tinker when it comes to targeting but you cannot do anything when it comes to the thoroughness of an ad.
- Optimized for engagement – A boosted post is optimized for “likes” and “shares” which may not do the work if what you want is to get clicks on your CTAs. What you want is for Facebook to optimize who can see your ads so you can bring up your conversions. This is why Facebook has tracking pixels that can track conversions and deliver to others who are most likely to convert.
- Limited in terms of targeting – Facebook-boosted posts are limited when in comes to who you can target – people who like your page, friends of these people, people you choose through targeting. While it may seem like a good idea, you have to realize that a “like” from someone does not necessarily mean that person is your ideal customer. Adding their friends may give you nothing because they may not be your ideal customers as well. Conversions happen when we target our ideal customers and get their clones. In boosted posts, you cannot target behaviours or detailed targeting.
In addition to limited targeting, we cannot control where the ads are placed. If we want a link post and the link is not an opt-in form, we will most likely lose the mobile devices users who generally do not like to sign up in a mobile device. It is a fact too that Facebook chooses to deliver the cheapest result instead of the best one. If we are to choose both mobile and desktop for the link post, it may reach 95% mobile and only 5% desktop because mobile is cheaper to Facebook than desktop is.
Facebook Ads:
The ad platform may be scary because you don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars and just get minimal results. The Ad Manager can be intimidating and luckily, there are plenty of tools we can use.
- AdEsspresso ($49 per month for base level) – This is good for Facebook Ad beginners although there is an ad cap of $3000 on the base level and the features are unlimited. In the premium level, the ad cap is at $10000 and there are additional features for $149.
Features:- Simple split testing
- Cleaner analytics
- Intelligent insights
- AdEspresso Academy
- Qwaya (starts at $149) – It has the same features but have an unlimited ad cap.
Features:- Ad scheduling
- Campaign rules
- Rotation
- Google analytics integration
- Templating
- Exporting to Excel
- AdStage (starts at $159) – A great platform for ad management that allows you to manage all ads in the platform such as Bing, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Features:- Same as the others when it comes to creating and reporting.
- Can create reports across all ads
