In this guest piece, Sparcmedia marketing manager Vivian Castelino provides his top pieces of advice on how to make the most out of your next Facebook advertising campaign.

Facebook is a great platform to prospect for new customers due to its sheer audience size and reach. Australia currently has over 17 million active users, making it the most popular social network in the nation where seven in 10 Australians are on Facebook.

For marketers, Facebook provides a high level of audience targeting based on the users’ demographic, behavioural data and a range of ad formats which include image ads, video ads, lead ads, carousel ads and canvas ads.

In this article, I’ve listed my top 10 tips for Facebook Advertising success to help you make the most out of your next Facebook advertising campaign.

Be clear about your objectives

Identify your intended goals, before starting your Facebook campaign. Facebook offers a variety of tools to meet different marketing objectives along the awareness, consideration and conversion funnel. Campaigns can be created and tailored to reach your audience no matter which stage of the customer journey they are in.

Understand your audience

Does your audience use certain products or are fans of a brand (perhaps a band)? Type it out – Facebook might have an audience on it already. Facebook is a powerful platform that allows for more refined targeting among demographics, interests and behaviours than other social platforms. Facebook targeting can be as customised as you like, or if you are just starting out, you can browse and select from pre-defined categories. Be sure to check the potential reach figure to make sure there is an audience to show your campaign.

Use your audience, use your site

Your website is a valuable resource for your Facebook campaigns. Adding pixels allows Facebook to record visitors to your site where you can generate re-marketing lists to specifically target people interested in your service. You can also set up dynamic re-marketing showing personalised ads for people who had visited different parts of your site.

Use your audience, use your customer lists

Do you have an existing customer list; subscribers or previous customers? Facebook allows advertisers to upload contact lists of emails or phone numbers on to the platform for targeting.

Facebook Audience Insights

Research with audience insights report

The Audience Insights report is a useful tool that allows you to analyse audiences taken from your Facebook page, website or customer lists. The report can compare differences in your audience to the general population as well identify categories and locations related to your audiences to guide further targeting.

Creative

Ads on Facebook perform best when there is minimal text on the image. Text on the post should be engaging, highlight the key features of your service and have a clear call to action. The appropriate amount of text depends on the type of ad you are running. Lead ads, for example, can have more text it is expecting direct input from the viewer.

Example of a Facebook carousel ad

Creative types

Consider trying out different creative types to increase engagement in your campaign. Standard feed ads provide a seamless experience. However, carousel ads tell a story over multiple images and canvas ads on mobile offer an immersive experience, taking over the full screen to share your message with multiple components.

Automate with rules

Rules can automatically make changes to your campaign when certain conditions are met, such as impressions, CTR, results, frequency or reach. This assists in managing budgets as well as capitalising on opportunities as they arise (e.g. adjusting budgets for better performing strategies). You can apply rules to a campaign, advert set or at an advert level.

Segment and experiment

Successful Facebook campaigns run multiple advert sets to test different audiences. The most responsive audiences might be not the one originally envisioned. Things to keep in mind when testing are your budget – ensuring which advert set has enough spend/reach to have examinable results (but noting overall budget goals) – and avoiding targeting overlapping audiences at the same time (wasted spend reaching the same people).

Similar principles apply to creative testing – a couple of creatives at a time per advert set is ideal. Rotating creatives over time also act against fatigue, where audience became indifferent seeing the same ad.

Monitor metrics

Regularly review key metrics and find what factors contribute to the results. One metric to monitor particularly is the Relevance Score – this is Facebook’s estimation of how well your target audience is responding to your advert. This is determined by factors such as clicks and engagement with the advert and whether it has received any negative feedback, such as people reporting to not see the ad.

A high Relevance Score is beneficial as it enables you to reach more of your audience for less cost. Be aware that Relevance Score can shift over time if, for example, the audience has been overexposed to it.