With approximately 250 million unique visitors each month, Facebook is the second most visited website on the internet, just behind Google. What does that mean for your advertising efforts? Facebook offers substantial exposure for your ads, if done properly. Below we list five important facts you should know about Facebook ads before you launch your next campaign.
They Are Essential
For all but the biggest of brands, ads are a necessary cost of doing business on Facebook. On January 2014 Facebook announced the latest round of revisions to their front-page algorithm. Among the changes, lower visibility to status updates by business pages. As Facebook continues to trend towards lower organic page growth, paid ads become necessary for making sure your content is being seen.
They Grant You Access To A Huge Market
Facebook reports that there are over 1.23 billion active users on the website every month. Even after targeting your ad to a very specific demographic, you will likely still be left with thousands, if not millions, of potential customers.
They Must Be Correctly Targeted
Due to the high number of click farms and spammers on Facebook, it is very important to spend time targeting your ads. Lack of targeting can lead to an ad that seems very successful, but is actually drawing spammers to your page.
To ensure that your ad is being shown to the correct audience, make sure you have selected the appropriate targeting options. Targeted interests should be only those that are very relevant to your page. In order to avoid spammy “likes”, it is best to only target ads in known “click-farm free” countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Australia.
They Should Be Rotated
One of the keys to maximizing ad effectiveness is to change your ads every two or three days. Any longer than that and your ad will start to loose effectiveness and annoy users that have seen the ad more than once. Even if the content you are advertising does not change, it is a good idea to change the accompanying copy or photo.
They Must Be Monitored
As powerful as Facebook ads can be, it is easy to waste money if you are not keeping an eye on your analytics. Remember to keep a careful eye on your ad campaigns to determine which ads are successful, and which ones should be halted.
Are you running Facebook ads yet?