Why You Need Facebook Advertising: The Basics

Near the end of 2012, the world's biggest social network, Facebook, became the world's most closely watched young organization. Because of this, the shareholders needed proof the site could produce as much revenue as it does likes and shares.

If you’re new to Facebook advertising, or if you've played around with it a bit, you might think it’s too confusing or maybe even pointless. You may even believe Facebook advertising doesn’t work.

But believe me when I say, it does work, is not pointless and it's a fantastic marketing tool because everyone is on Facebook.

While there are many rules and guidelines for advertising on Facebook, it doesn’t have to be confusing. With a little help, you’ll get the hang of it.

Who Are You Targeting?

Since everyone’s on Facebook, why not target everyone?

Wrong answer! If you spend tons of money on Facebook Ads targeting an audience of everyone, most of those people won’t care. But don’t feel bad, it’s not a personal attack on you.

The fact of the matter is your ads are not relevant to everyone. By serving your ads to everyone, not only will you waste a lot of money but it's also likely that people who are not interested in your offer will see—and mark—your ads as spam. This hurts both your business and your pocketbook.

Add to that, the percentage of people engaging with your ads will be fairly low which does little to nothing for your ROI.

Instead, you want to whittle the audience down to people who have already shown an interest in you and your business, like people who are subscribed to your blog. By sending ads to a more niched audience, your engagement and ROI will increase.

Where Are You Sending Them?

Getting people back to your site when they click on an ad in Facebook is a common goal. With this, people get to know a little more about your company, find out about a sale you are having, or possibly sign up for a free offer.

Because of this, your landing page needs as much attention and effort as the Facebook Ad. The copy on the page, and your website, needs to be clear and concise and look good.

Avoid crazy colors like light text on a dark background which is hard on the eyes. And don’t clutter up the page as too much on a single page confuses your visitors.

Clearly point out what you want the visitor to do and keep buttons easy to see. Also, don’t point the ad to your homepage.

Create a specific page with an article or a vlog or something that engages your visitors. Don’t forget, getting them to click on something, anything, is your first goal. Because once they do, you can make them other offers and retarget them.

Another way to give them value is to offer a content upgrade in exchange for their name and email address. The content upgrade should be related to the content they originally clicked to see. Things like checklists and case studies, or an ebook work well as content upgrades.

What Are You Boosting?

You don’t have to have a sale or a launch coming up if you’re ready to start using Facebook Ads. Sometimes it’s a good way to get traffic to your site or likes on specific posts.

Using Facebook Advertising in this way is a great tool in building brand recognition. But be sure you are being recognized in the way you want.

If you boost low quality posts or flood their news feeds with nonsense, visitors will see you as a spammer rather than someone they can trust and give their business to.

It’s Not All About “Likes”

If your business is new and you want to promote your new endeavor, using ads to get more like to your business page is good.

However, once you're a little more established, consider what all the likes you’re paying for are doing for your ROI. Probably not much.

At this point, you should start targeting potential leads and customers, people who will visit your website. You don’t want people to “like” your page and never come back, do you? I didn't think so.

A Piece of the Puzzle

Using Facebook Advertising is an effective way to grow your list and fill your webinars. But you need to be sure the other pieces of the puzzle are serving your audience as well.

High performing ads don't mean anything if what you offer new visitors holds no value for them. A freebie isn’t worth much to a reader if it doesn’t give them a quick win. Or if your Call to Action isn’t easy to see or unique, nobody will click on it.

At this point, you can probably see how Facebook Advertising fits into your business model.

Can you see how it all fits together nicely to give a complete picture? This is, however, only the tip of the iceberg.

There are several key pieces to creating an effective and lucrative Online Funnel. You need  a simple, straight-forward step by step system that tells you where and when  place your pieces to get top dollar results.