Make sure to start every advertising campaign with a goal.
Ask yourself, “What do I want to achieve with this ad?”
You need at least $25 to run a worthwhile Facebook advertising campaign. So make sure to invest the right number of dollars.
There are 3 types of main advertising goals: awareness, consideration, and conversion.
Many small businesses are using digital ads effectively to make money. Criquet Shirts, for example, had a 91% increase in purchases using Facebook ads. Neon Retro Arcade in Pasadena, California, saw 17 times more business with digital ads compared to print marketing. And Blue Steel Jewelry saw 3 times more customers after their first digital campaign.
There are over 3 million businesses advertising on Facebook today (you’ll learn more about how to launch your first FB campaign in this post). That means there’s a good chance your competitors are already sharing Facebook ads, and attracting attention from your potential customers. Are you familiar with your competitors’ ads? How do your own ads stack up?
When it comes to effective ads, there are a few best practices that can help you stick out from the crowd. This may be obvious, but make sure you have a Business Facebook Page. If you don’t have one, and you need help setting it up, use this tutorial. You’ll also need to make sure you have a modest budget. In order to use Facebook ads, there is a daily minimum budget of $5 for automated bidding. Therefore, $25 will allow you to run a week-long campaign, which is the minimum amount of time we recommend in order to see results. You should view this as an investment.
Setting an Advertising Goal
You must first ask yourself, “What do I want to achieve with this ad?” This requires figuring out two things: your campaign goal, and your target audience.
In terms of goals, there are only three main advertising goals: awareness, consideration, and conversion.
An awareness goal is an attempt to spread the word about your business. You might want to get people to engage with your posts, or to like your page. Or you might just want people to be able to recognize your new up-and-coming brand. Your intent here is not to sell your product; it’s to get people to know who you are, or what you’re selling.
The next type of goal is a consideration goal. As the name suggests, the point of a consideration goal is to get potential customers to start thinking about your product as a solution to one of their own problems. Thus, you might create specific ads to send people to your website, to raise attendance at an event, or to collect leads for your business.
The final goal is a conversion goal. This is the most straight-forward goal–here, you are trying to make money. So you might create an advertisement to get people to claim your offer, or to get people to go to your store.
It’s important to assess your current situation and select a marketing goal that makes the most sense. For example, if you are a well known business looking to promote a new product, then you might focus on conversion goals since you already have good brand awareness.