Facebook advertizing is an important way to connect with your audience on the world's largest social network. How large? 2.eighty billion monthly active users large, to be precise.

Sure, that's an impressive number. But Facebook ads are all about getting your message in forepart of exactly the right segment of those people. The people who are nigh likely to actually want your products or services.

If you desire to go the best results, information technology's of import to empathize the different Facebook ad types and targeting options earlier you lot dive in.

In this Facebook ads guide, we'll walk you lot through everything you need to know, from planning your first ad to developing avant-garde campaign strategies.

Bonus: Download a free guide that shows you lot how to save time and money on your Facebook ads. Observe out how to reach the right customers, lower your toll-per-click, and more.

Types of Facebook ads

Prototype ads

These simple ads are a bully way to get started with Facebook paid advertizement. You can create one with just a few clicks by boosting an existing postal service with an image from your Facebook Page.

Paradigm ads may be uncomplicated, simply that doesn't mean they have to be tiresome.

For instance, you might remember domain names are a pretty ho-hum product. But that doesn't finish the Canadian Internet Registration Authority from creating fun Facebook photo ads.

Canadian Internet Registration Authority Facebook photo ads

Source: Canadian Internet Registration Authorisation on Facebook

Video ads

Video ads can run in the News Feed and Stories, or they can appear equally in-stream ads in longer Facebook videos. Video ads tin can show your team or your product in action, similar this quick demo video ad from Abeego.

Abeego reusable beeswax food wraps video ad

Source: Abeego on Facebook

Simply like image ads, video ads tin likewise take a more creative approach, like this one from Tru Earth:

Your video ads don't need to use filmed video footage. You lot can likewise create GIF-like graphics or other animations to capture attention or explain your offer, like in this video ad from IKEA.

IKEA seasonal box GIF animation

Source: IKEA Canada on Facebook

Poll ads

This mobile-simply Facebook advert format incorporates an interactive component by adding a two-option poll to an epitome or video ad. You can add a separate link for each poll selection.

Both you and those who reply volition come across the tally of responses to each poll option.

Jasper's Market poll ads

Source: Facebook

Carousel ads

A carousel ad uses upwards to 10 images or videos to showcase your product or service.

You tin can apply this format to highlight dissimilar benefits of one product, several different products or fifty-fifty use all the photos together to create one large panorama paradigm.

Each paradigm or video can have its own link. In the advertizing beneath, each "Shop Now" button goes direct to the sales folio for the plant in the accompanying image.

Plantsome Shop Now Carousel ads

Source: Plantsome on Facebook

Slideshow ads

Slideshow ads offer an easy way to create short video ads from a collection of notwithstanding photos, text, or existing video clips.

Slideshow ads take eye-catching motion, just like videos, but use five times less data. So, they load well even for people on tiresome net connections. They're an like shooting fish in a barrel, low-impact way to draw attention.

You can build your ad and add together text and music within Ads Manager.

Build slideshow ad in Facebook Ads Manager

Source: Facebook

Drove ads

These Facebook paid ads, which are offered only for mobile devices, permit yous to showcase five images or videos that customers can click to purchase a product or service.

Collection ads pair with Instant Experiences (more on those below) and allow people to purchase your products without ever leaving Facebook. This makes online shopping easy when people are on-the-get.

The primary photo or video tin can do much more showcase a single production. For instance, in this Lee Valley Tools ad, the principal video teaches viewers how to cull the right seeds for their garden. The product images below all point to supplies for planting and saving seeds.

Lee Valley Tools seeds collection ad

Source: Lee Valley Tools on Facebook

Lee Valley Tools explore more garden products

Source: Lee Valley Tools on Facebook

Instant Feel ads

Instant Experience ads used to be called Canvas. They're a full-screen ad format that loads 15 times faster than a mobile website exterior of Facebook.

This ad from Kilne links to an Instant Experience with a video at the top and a carousel below.

Kilne instant experience ads

Source: Kilne on Facebook

Kilne knifes shop now

Source: Kilne on Facebook

Yous can too link a few Instant Experiences together so people accept admission to even more instant mobile content.

Pb ads

Lead ads are just available for mobile devices. That's because they're specifically designed to make information technology easy for people to requite you lot their contact information without a lot of typing.

They're great for collecting newsletter subscriptions, signing someone upward for a trial of your product or assuasive people to inquire for more information from y'all. Several automakers accept successfully used them to encourage test drives.

automakers like Endomoto use lead ads

Source: Facebook

EndoMoto find your car today

Source: Facebook

Because these ads are such a great style to feed your sales funnel, we've got a whole guide to using Facebook lead ads. It breaks downward all the details you lot need to know to make the nigh of this important type of Facebook ad entrada.

Dynamic ads

Dynamic ads allow you to promote targeted products to the customers most probable to be interested in them.

For instance, say someone has visited a production page or placed a production in their shopping cart on your website, just then abandoned the purchase. With dynamic ads, yous can advertise that specific product in their Facebook feed.

This reminds the potential customer to complete the purchase, and can be a very effective Facebook marketing strategy.

Information technology'south not but the product choice that can exist dynamic. The Taiwanese beverage brand Nature Fruit used dynamic ads to manage the language settings for its ads when information technology expanded into Malaysia.

This allowed them to create a single ad that automatically ran in either English language or Simplified Chinese, based on the user'south preferences. The result was a 25% lower cost per add-to-cart.

beverage brand Nature Fruit dynamic ads language settings

Source: Facebook

You need a Facebook Concern Manager account to employ Dynamic ads.

Messenger ads

Facebook Messenger ads give y'all access to the one.three billion people who use Messenger every month. When creating your ad, merely choose Messenger as the desired placement. You lot too need to select Facebook feed.

Here'due south what an ad looks like in the Messenger app:

Jasper's Market ad Messenger App

Source: Facebook

You tin besides run "click-to-Messenger" ads in the Facebook feed. These ads characteristic a telephone call-to-action button that opens a Messenger conversation with your Facebook Page. People tin use information technology to have a i-on-one conversation with one of your salespeople or client service reps.

Stories ads

Mobile phones are meant to be held vertically. Stories ads are a mobile-merely full-screen vertical video format that allows you to maximize screen real manor without expecting viewers to turn their screen.

Stillhouse Spirits Co. ran Facebook Stories ads as part of a campaign to reach U.S. males aged 21 to 40. They specifically targeted the ads to those interested in alcohol, cocktails, hiking and the outdoors.

Stillhouse Spirits Co. Facebook Stories ads

Source: Facebook

Augmented reality ads

Augmented reality ads employ features like filters and animation to permit people to interact with your brand.

For example, the filter could help users see what a shade of lipstick would wait similar on their lips, or how a pair of glasses might fit their face.

Augmented reality ads can also be used to extend your accomplish. The ads permit users to take selfies with the filter and share them on their own channels.

The cosmetics ring essence used mask filters in augmented reality ads to connect with their audition. The mask designs were based on an earlier circular of ads that polled followers on their favorite features.

augmented reality ads cosmestics brand mask filters

Source: Facebook

Over the course of the 2-month campaign, the ads reached half-dozen.5 meg people.

Bonus: Download a free guide that shows you lot how to save time and money on your Facebook ads. Observe out how to accomplish the right customers, lower your toll-per-click, and more.

Go the complimentary guide right now!

How to annunciate on Facebook

If you already have a Facebook business page (and you lot should), you can head straight to the Facebook Ads Manager or Business organization Director to create your Facebook ad campaign. If yous don't yet have a concern folio, y'all'll need to create 1 first.

We'll follow the steps for Ads Manager in this post. If you'd prefer to use Business organization Manager, y'all can get the details in our post on how to use Facebook Business concern Manager.

Stride 1. Choose your objective

Log into Facebook Ads Director and select the Campaigns tab, then click Create to become started with a new Facebook advertizement campaign.

Facebook offers xi marketing objectives based on what yous want your advertizing to reach. Here's how they align with business goals:

  • Brand awareness: Introduce your brand to a new audience.
  • Accomplish: Betrayal your ad to as many people in your audience as possible.
  • Traffic: Drive traffic to a specific spider web folio, app, or Facebook Messenger conversation.
  • Engagement: Reach a broad audience to increase the number of postal service engagements or Page follows, increase attendance at your event, or encourage people to claim a special offering.
  • App installs: Get people to install your app.
  • Video views: Go more people to lookout your videos.
  • Pb generation: Get new prospects into your sales funnel.
  • Messages: Encourage people to contact your business using Facebook Messenger.
  • Conversions: Get people to take a specific action on your website (like subscribe to your list or buy your product), with your app, or in Facebook Messenger.
  • Catalog sales: Connect your Facebook ads to your product itemize to show people ads for the products they are near probable to want to buy.
  • Store traffic: Drive nearby customers to brick-and-mortar stores.

Choose a campaign objective based on your goals for this particular advert. Keep in mind that for conversion-oriented objectives (similar sales) you tin can pay per action, merely for exposure objectives (like traffic and views) you will pay for impressions.

For this case, nosotros'll choose the Engagements objective. From there, nosotros demand to specify which kind of date we want. Nosotros'll choose Folio likes for now.

Some of the options you see in the next steps volition vary based on which objective you choose.

Facebook Ads Manager create new campaign

Source: Facebook

Click Continue.

Step 2. Proper noun your campaign

Name your Facebook advertisement campaign and declare whether your ad fits into whatever special categories like credit or politics.

If you desire to gear up an A/B divide test, click Get Started in the A/B Exam section to prepare this ad every bit your control. You can choose different versions to run against this advertisement after it's published.

Scroll downward a trivial farther to choose whether to turn on budget optimization. This option can exist useful if yous're using multiple ad sets, but for now, you lot can leave it turned off.

choose campaign name and details

Source: Facebook

Click Next.

Step 3. Ready your budget and schedule

At the top of this screen, you will proper noun your ad set and choose which Folio to promote.

Adjacent, you decide how much money y'all want to spend on your Facebook advertisement entrada. Yous can cull a daily or lifetime budget. Then, set the start and finish dates if y'all want to schedule your advertizement in the future, or cull to get in alive correct away.

Proceed in mind that running your Facebook paid ads on a schedule may be the most efficient way to spend your budget since you can choose only to serve your ad when your target audience is most likely to be on Facebook. You can simply prepare a schedule if you create a lifetime upkeep for your advertizing.

budget and schedule

Source: Facebook

Step 4. Target your audience

Scroll down to get-go building the target audience for your ads.

You'll come across the first pick is to add a custom audience of people who have already interacted with your business on or off Facebook. We've got a separate guide to walk y'all through Facebook custom audiences, so here we'll focus on the targeting options.

Start by selecting your target location, age, gender and language. Note that under location, you tin specifically cull to include or exclude cities over a certain size.

As yous make your selections, keep an eye on the audience size indicator on the right of the screen, which gives you a sense of your potential ad accomplish.

You'll too meet an estimated number of Folio likes. These estimates volition be more accurate if you have run campaigns earlier, since Facebook will have more data to work with. E'er keep in heed that these are estimates, not guarantees.

target audience based on demographics and estimated daily likes

Source: Facebook

Now it's time for the detailed targeting. Retrieve: Constructive targeting is key to maximizing ROI—and there's no shortage of means to target your audition using Facebook Ads Manager.

You have ii fields here in which to make your audience as specific every bit you choose:

  • Detailed Targeting: Use this field to specifically include or exclude people based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. You tin become really specific here. For example, you could choose to target people who are interested in both meditation and yoga, just exclude people who are interested in hot yoga.
  • Connections: You tin target or exclude people who have an existing connexion to your Facebook Page, your app or an result you managed. For instance, if you want to attain a new audience, you would select "Exclude people who like your Folio." If you want to promote an offer or new product to existing fans, select "People who like your Folio" to reach people who already know your make. You can also choose to target friends of people who have previously interacted with your make.

Check out these eight essential Facebook targeting tips for more on this subject.

Pace v. Choose your Facebook advertizement placements

Scroll down to choose where your ads will appear. If you're new to Facebook advertising, the simplest pick is to utilize Automatic Placements.

When you select this option, Facebook volition automatically place your ads beyond Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the Audition Network when they are likely to get the all-time results.

One time y'all take more than experience, yous may wish to identify your Facebook ads in specific locations. Your options will vary based on your chosen campaign objective, but may include the following:

  • Device type: Mobile, desktop, or both.
  • Platform: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and/or Messenger
  • Placements: Feeds, Stories, in-stream (for videos), search, letters, in-article, and apps and sites (external to Facebook).
  • Specific mobile devices and operating systems: iOS, Android, characteristic phones or all devices.

Facebook ad placements

Source: Facebook

Stride 6. Ready brand safety and toll controls

Scroll down to the Make Safe section to exclude any types of content that would be inappropriate to announced with your advertizing.

For example, you can choose to avoid sensitive content, and add together specific cake lists. Block lists tin can exclude specific websites, videos, and publishers.

Brand Safety and inventory filter

Source: Facebook

Finally, you can optimize your advertisement bidding strategy and bidding type, and add an optional bid command. If you lot're new to Facebook advertizing, you can starting time with the default options.

If you take more experience, tailor the options here to all-time friction match your budget strategy with your entrada goals.

When you're happy with all your options, take a final wait at the potential reach and conversion estimates. If y'all're happy with what y'all encounter, click Next.

Footstep 7. Create your ad

First cull your ad format, then enter the text and media components for your ad. The formats available volition vary based on the campaign objective you selected back at the get-go of this process.

Y'all can get quite creative hither. If you lot're working with an paradigm, try clicking Turn into Video to create a short animation. Or, click Create Slideshow to build a Slideshow ad with the built-in Video Cosmos Kit.

Video Creation Kit create slideshow

Source: Facebook

Use the preview tool at the right of the page to make certain your advertisement looks good for all potential placements. When you're happy with your choices, click the green Publish button to launch your ad.

Facebook ad specs

There are a lot of details to keep in mind when getting your images and videos ready for Facebook ads. Since these details can change oft, we've compiled them in a separate, regularly updated post on Facebook ad sizes.

We've also got a set of 16 complimentary Facebook ad templates you can use to create your ads in simply a few minutes.

Text and objective specs for Facebook ads

To create the best Facebook ads, you need to keep the recommended character counts in mind. Anything beyond these text limits will be cut off.

You also need to understand which types of Facebook ads work with each of the ad campaign objectives described above.

Image ads

  • Headline: forty characters
  • Link description: 30 characters
  • Body text: 125 characters
  • Campaign objectives: All except video views

Video ads

  • Headline: twoscore characters
  • Link clarification: xxx characters
  • Body text: 125 characters
  • Campaign objectives: All except catalog sales

Facebook Stories ads

  • Text: No gear up character count. Aim to leave 250 pixels text-free at the summit and bottom of the ad.
  • Campaign objectives: All except appointment and store visits

Carousel ads

  • Headline: twoscore characters
  • Link description: twenty characters
  • Body text: 125 characters
  • Campaign objectives: All except engagement and video views

Slideshow ads

  • Headline: 25 characters
  • Link clarification: thirty characters
  • Body text: 125 characters
  • Campaign objectives: All

Collection ads

  • Headline: 40 characters
  • Link clarification: north/a
  • Torso text: 125 characters
  • Campaign objectives: Traffic, conversions, itemize sales, shop traffic

Instant Experience ads

  • Text: Blocks of text upwards to 500 words each
  • Push text: 30 characters
  • Entrada objectives: All except pb generation

Messenger Inbox ads

  • Headline: 40 characters
  • Link clarification: n/a
  • Trunk text: 125 characters
  • Campaign objectives: Traffic, app installs, conversions, catalog sales, messages

Facebook ads toll

How much does it price to annunciate on Facebook? The answer is, it depends.

In-depth research by AdEspresso shows the main factors that touch Facebook ads price are:

  • Timing: The month, day and even hr can bear on advertisement cost.
  • Bidding strategy: Whether yous choose the lowest cost or a specific bid cap.
  • Ad placement: Higher-competition spots price more.
  • Ad relevance: Depression scores for your ad'due south engagement ranking, quality ranking or conversion ranking tin enhance costs.
  • Target audience: College competition audiences toll more.

Keeping all of this in heed, AdEspresso calculated the average price per click for Facebook ads in Q3 2020. Broken down by entrada objective, the average costs were:

  • Impressions: $0.98
  • Reach: $i.03
  • Lead generation: $0.67
  • Conversions: $0.25
  • Link clicks: $0.16

CPC by campaign objective 2020 data from AdEspresso

Source: AdEspresso

Cost per similar was a bit of a roller coaster in 2020. Equally of September, the average was down to $0.15.

Cost per like per month in 2020 AdEspresso

Source: AdEspresso

five smart tips for running Facebook ads

1. Don't neglect college funnel marketing

Information technology can be piece of cake to focus on brusk-term conversions when calculating the value of a Facebook ad campaign. Simply research from Facebook, Analytic Partners and GroupM shows that college funnel make-building ads tin drive sales at a similar charge per unit per dollar spent.

In fact, in health care, make messaging drove more than sales than direct response campaigns for those aged 35 to 54. Yet, direct response collection more sales for teenagers.

graph of brand messaging in health care industry by sales

Source: GroupM via Facebook

There's no one reply about what advertizement objectives make the most sense for your Facebook advertising campaign. That's why you demand to set specific goals early on.

two. Utilise the Facebook Pixel—and get set up for changes

The Facebook pixel is a small piece of lawmaking that can have a large impact on your Facebook ad campaigns. Once you place the code on your website, it allows you to rails conversions, remarket to people who have viewed a product on your site and create lookalike audiences.

Even if yous're not prepare however to engage in some of the more advanced Facebook pixel strategies, you should install it at present. That way yous'll take tracking and remarketing data gear up to get when you are ready to commencement optimizing your Facebook ads.

That said, changes are coming. Apple tree's upcoming iOS 14 changes will impact how the Facebook pixel functions. At that place are a few steps you can have to become fix, like verifying your domain in Facebook Business Manager.

If you work with a developer, y'all might also want to consider using the Conversions API for more accurate tracking of conversions data non afflicted past cookies.

For more details on the changes, check out Facebook's guide to the pixel updates.

3. Experiment with advertizing frequency

Recollect back in the days when anybody watched TV and we could all recite our favorite breakfast cereal jingles? How many times practise you think kids watching Sat morn cartoons were exposed to the same ads for Magic Charms?

It's rare for a new prospect to take activeness the outset time they see an advertizement for a product they've never heard of, or to retrieve a brand name after hearing it just once.

Facebook IQ research shows that while there is no optimal number of exposures for every advertisement (yeah, once more, y'all'll have to test), more exposures practise seem to lead to higher buy intent. But, of form, in that location'south a limit. At a sure point, the benefit of more exposures to the same advert—or related ads— starts to slow down.

graph of advertising and purchase intent

Source: Facebook IQ

Your testing volition show y'all where the plateau is for you. Keep in mind that better quality ads plateau later. That's not actually surprising, right?

Speaking of testing…

4. Test everything

It'southward important not to make assumptions well-nigh what will work and what won't in your Facebook ads. Every time you try something new, you should exam it against your previous ads so you can see whether y'all're making improvements to the metrics that matter virtually to you lot.

The best practices for Facebook ads are constantly changing. But you know what works for your specific audience. And the only mode y'all can keep that knowledge upwardly to appointment is by testing.

Since this is such an of import topic, we've got a whole guide on how to use social media for A/B testing.

five. Track and optimize operation

Closely monitor how your campaigns perform in the Facebook Ads Manager dashboard. If a campaign isn't performing well, put your coin into an ad that is instead.

If you're but starting out, it might make sense to run several ads with small-scale audiences and budgets. One time you've adamant what works best, use the winning advertizing as your primary campaign.

Over time, you'll learn how to improve your Facebook advert conversions. A Facebook meta-analysis shows that ads developed through testing and refining had a 26% lower cost per action.

There are tools to assist simplify—and even automate—this procedure.

Hootsuite Social Advertising is an integrated platform for managing organic and paid content side by side. Inside the dashboard, you can easily pull actionable analytics and build custom reports to testify the ROI of all your social campaigns.

With a unified overview of all social media activeness, y'all tin can hands make data-informed adjustments to alive campaigns (and get the nigh out of your upkeep). For example, if an ad is doing well on Facebook, you can adapt advertisement spend across other platforms to back up it. On the same notation, if a campaign is flopping, you can interruption information technology and redistribute the upkeep — all without leaving your Hootsuite dashboard.

Facebook ad ideas

Ready to go merely not sure what you should promote with your Facebook ads?

Nosotros've put together 3 entrada strategies to get yous started. If you're looking for more than inspiration, cheque out our roundup of great Facebook ad examples.

Facebook advertising strategy 1: Convert a proven slice of content into a video or image ad

Every brand has a few pieces of content that drive virtually of the traffic each calendar month. Adapting that content into a brusque video or image ad tin can be a great way to repackage peak content for the all-time Facebook ads.

To create a video, call back about ways to convey your content's primal messages through short text and images. Then, use 1 of these social video tools to create your video, or create a slideshow video ad in Facebook Ads Manager.

To create an prototype advertizement, try making an infographic from your content's key points. For example, the Hootsuite social team pulled the fundamental details from our mail on social media prototype sizes into this image for Facebook:

The image sizes y'all demand right now! http://ow.ly/p0sf50Dy6w7?

Posted by Hootsuite on Sunday, February 21, 2021

Pro tip: Check out our social video strategy kit for marketers, which has lots of great insights almost what types of video work all-time on social media.

Facebook advertising strategy 2: Bulldoze a direct sale

Yep, we said higher up you should consider using Facebook ads for higher funnel marketing. But if y'all're looking to make straight sales, there are plenty of means to do so.

Pro tip: 1 of the virtually constructive ways to bulldoze sales straight from a Facebook ad is to target people who accept already considered ownership your product.

You could try targeted offers, product recommendations or reminders to complete a buy.

The manner retailer Axel Arigato used video ads, including ads in Facebook Stories, to reach a 98% increase in buy conversions. By expanding their targeted audition, they also saw 2.3 times more than showtime-time sales.

Axel Arigato video and Facebook Stories ads

Source: Facebook

The conversions and catalog sales objectives both drive direct sales. Conversions drives sales on your website or any other location outside of Facebook.

Catalog sales drives sales from your Facebook catalog. You tin can use dynamic ads to connect people direct with products they're likely to desire in your Facebook shop.

Facebook advertising strategy 3: Think beyond the web

You don't have to limit your Facebook advertisement strategy to online sales. With the shop traffic objective, you lot can promote offline purchases, also.

You lot can besides bulldoze people to an online or offline outcome. Use the date objective to increase event responses on Facebook, or the traffic or conversions objectives to sell more tickets.

Or, apply the lead generation objective to get people to your store or dealership to feel your product in person—for example, through a exam drive.

Johnny Walker Taiwan used ads with a click-to-Messenger call to action to bulldoze offline sales. Within the Messenger conversation, users could select their favorite products and ask for directions to nearby shops where they would buy.

Pro tip: Facebook allows you to track offline conversions and then you can understand the effectiveness of ads that bulldoze sales offline. You lot can likewise use this tracking information to build custom audiences of people who collaborate with your brand offline, so yous can target them fifty-fifty more effectively with time to come ads.

Utilize Hootsuite Social Advertisement to easily keep rails of all of your social media activeness — including Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn ad campaigns — and get a consummate view of your social ROI. Endeavor it gratuitous today.

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