With the constant growth of social media, especially Facebook, it is not at all surprising that many more companies are choosing to invest in advertising on these networks.

We mention Facebook because it is currently the social network with the most active users in the world, so it is very easy to reach that audience that you love so much.

Furthermore, thanks to the recent acquisition of Instagram, being able to advertise on both social networks considerably increases the opportunity to reach the target audience that interests us.

It doesn't matter if you are an independent person, a small or medium-sized business, or a large company, everyone can access this tool and achieve the digital marketing objectives they are setting.

This is why we want to talk to you about Facebook Ads, what this tool is, how it works and a step-by-step guide on how to create an ad campaign.

What is Facebook Ads?

Facebook Ads is a platform or tool where you can run advertising campaigns on the social network for multiple objectives: from increasing your followers to attracting quality traffic to your website or application.

If you have already used online advertising tools, such as Google Ads, it will be quite familiar and intuitive for you to start creating campaigns that impact social networks.

Like any online advertising platform or tool, you will be charged every time someone interacts with your ads, but the cost is quite affordable, making it a good start for those who want to increase their visibility but don't have enough budget to advertise on other media.

The best thing about Facebook Ads is that, thanks to the acquisition of Instagram, it is possible to advertise on both social networks from the same platform, which considerably increases the probability of reaching the target audience and making the most of our budget.

Advantages of Facebook Ads

1. Define a detailed target audience: Thanks to the data stored on each user's social network, we can define and segment a detailed and qualified target audience for our ads. The great advantage is that, as it is the social network with the most active users in the world, we will find our target audience there.
2. Ease of viralization: Facebook is very likely to have viral content, and you can take advantage of this attribute to make your content reach many more people. Thanks to the sharing option, people can help you get your ads in front of more users, which also represents a saving in your budget.
3. Opportunity for interaction: Since it is a social network, your potential clients will be able to ask you direct questions in the ad, for this reason, another communication channel is created where you can resolve all their doubts; so, you should be aware of your ads and what they write in them.
4. It is an economic tool: Like any online advertising tool, on Facebook Ads you will only be charged for each click on your ads. Also, as we mentioned above, thanks to the possibility of sharing your ads, you will be able to reduce costs and make better use of your budget.
5. Measuring results: Facebook Ads has a whole metrics section, where it gives you detailed information on how your campaign is working. This is important to know what is good and what is bad and in this way make the relevant changes to maximize your ads.

How to create a Facebook Ads campaign

Step 1. Enter the interface

We will go to our business profile and in the drop-down menu we will look for the option that says manage ads, this will take us to the “Business for Facebook” page and we will click on the “create” button.

Step 2 we select a goal and name for the campaign

In this step we will select the objective for which we want to carry out our Ads campaign. The objectives are the final results that we want to obtain with our campaigns, in total there are 11 objectives divided into 3 categories:

Recognition

These are objectives that seek to make something specific known, it could be a product, a service or the brand itself.

• Brand recognition: As the name suggests, it allows your brand to be more recognized by reaching the people who are most likely to be interested in it.
• Scope: This objective aims to get your ads in front of as many people as possible.

Consideration

These objectives seek to generate greater interest in your brand and make them want to know more about it, inviting them to search and investigate further.

• Traffic: This objective aims to bring quality traffic. This traffic can be brought to your Facebook page, website, app or a Messenger conversation.
• Interactions: Set this goal to measure how people interact with your post: Likes your Page receives, responses to events or requests for offers.
• Installing applications: If your main goal is to get people to install the app you just developed, this is the goal you should select.
• Video playback: If you are developing a video marketing campaign and you want more people to see and play your video, this is the objective that can help you.
• Lead Generation: This objective is designed for campaigns that seek to generate leads or expand their databases with a form.

Conversion

These goals are designed to target people who have actually shown interest in your products and are willing to purchase them.

• Conversions: This objective seeks to measure the conversions you make on your website. A conversion is a specific action that we want users to take when they visit our website: it can be a registration, requesting a quote, asking for more information about a product or service, downloading a book or manual, etc.
• Catalog Sales: It allows you to set up ads that show your product catalog aimed at people who are actually looking for something equal or similar to what you offer.
• Business visits: This objective is especially designed for people who have a physical location (store, warehouse, company or service point), so that people who are nearby can go and visit them.

Each of these goals can help you achieve something, remember that you can only set one goal per campaign, if you want to meet 2 goals (for example), you will have to create two campaigns, each with one of the goals you want to achieve.

Finally, you must give your campaign a name that describes what the campaign is about or is easy to remember. You will also see two activation options: A/B Testing, which is used to make different combinations and find the ad that works best, and Budget Optimization, which will optimize your budget as your ads develop. Finish by clicking on the “continue” button.

Depending on the type of goal you select, you will be asked to fill out or approve more fields in the following steps, but in general, you will always be asked to configure audience, location, budget and calendar data (which are the next three steps in this article).

Step 3 Segment your target audience

This is where we will define the target audience, or the audience we are interested in having our ads reach.

In this section, two options will appear: “Create audience”, in which we will define some segmentation variables, and “use saved audience”, which will be audiences that we have already created and saved that we can use.

When we create a new audience we must fill in the following information:

• Place: From which part can they see our ads, we will select the country that interests us (for example, Colombia) and then specific places such as cities, (for example, Medellín), we can also define the reach radius of our ads (the minimum value is 17 km and the maximum value is 80).
• Age: What age range can view our ads? The minimum age is 13 years and the maximum age is +65.
• Sex: If we want our ads to be seen only by men, only by women, or by both.
• Language: Our ads will only be shown to people who have their profiles set to the same language we select.
• Detailed segmentation: This is where we can improve the segmentation of our audience based on the information they add to their profiles. Select the data you think is necessary to reach your target audience.
• Connections: allows you to reach people who have some kind of connection with your app, website or Facebook page.

If you think this group you just created could be useful to you later, click the “Save this audience” button.

Step 4 define the location of our ads

In this step we will define, within the Facebook spaces, where our ads will be displayed. There are two options:

• Automatic Locations: Facebook is the one who decides where our ads will appear, always thinking about obtaining the greatest visibility.
• Edit locations: Here you manually choose where you want to appear and you believe that is where you can get the most visibility.

We recommend leaving the first option selected.

Step 5 Define a schedule and budget for your campaign

Here we will define the budget and the period of time that we want our ads to be seen.

• Optimizing for ad delivery: Facebook will take care of delivering your ads to the people who are most likely to interact with them. You can choose from 4 options: Visits to the destination page, clicks on the link, impressions and daily unique reach.
• Cost control: Facebook will always try to spend the entire budget, always prioritizing getting the most clicks. If you want to have control over what you want to spend, you can define it here, although it is optional.
• Budget and schedule: We will give an investment value, we can define a daily amount or select the total budget so that Facebook distributes it according to our calendar, for which we will select a start date and an end date.

Step 6 define your ads

This is where we will decide what format our ads will have and add all the written and visual content.

• Identity: The name under which our ads will be displayed, we can also select if we want to advertise on Instagram.

• Format: How your ad will look, it can be a sequence, a single video or image, or a collection.

• Multimedia content: Here you will add all the visual content of your ad, that is, images or videos.

• Links: Here you will write the descriptive text of your ad, the link where your ad will be directed, and if you want a visible ad where people can click.

Once you have everything set up, click confirm and watch your ad get approved for display.

Running Facebook Ads campaigns is very simple and can bring you great benefits in your digital marketing strategies.

And at Gulupa Digital we can help you create successful advertising campaigns on social media.

Get in touch with us and let's talk about your next campaign.