4 things to consider before starting Facebook ads

In order to succeed, it helps greatly to have a plan. Facebook advertising is no exception. Here are 4 things to think through before starting your Facebook ads.

Target audience

Facebook gives you the ability to choose who to show ads to based on what they have shown interest in, what Facebook pages they like, their demographics and many more other options.

So think of a list of things your potential customers are interested in, the more detailed the better. For example, let’s say you sell marketing automation software and you are trying to reach marketers who are already using some form of marketing automation software. Most marketers will be interested in “lead generation” or “lead management”, but only marketers who are using marketing automation software will know “lead scoring”. The point is to be as accurate in your interest specification as possible.

You can also specify the Facebook pages your potential customers might visit e.g. Marketo.

Also, you gathered from your sales team that most of your existing customers are between age 35 to 45 so you can note this down to be specified when you create your Facebook campaigns.

Goals

For most clients, the main goal is direct response i.e. getting a visitor to perform desired actions on the website, normally in the form of submitting an enquiry. Facebook also gives the objectives of promoting your Facebook page and to promote your posts. So you want to be clear on what your goals are so that you can measure the success of your campaign.

Key performance indicators

With the goals being established, you will be able to say whether your campaigns have been successful.

Goal: Number of enquiries
KPIs: Clicks, Enquiries received

Goal: Promote page
KPIs: Page Likes

Goal: Promote posts
KPIs: Post Shares

Budget

Facebook requires a minimum daily budget of US$5, which means a monthly budget of around US$150. Let’s say your goal is to get 30 enquiries a month, with an average cost per click of $0.50. On average, you might expect 1 enquiry out of 50 visitors. Hence each enquiry will cost you 50*$0.50 i.e. $25.
To reach your target of 30 enquiries, the minimum budget will hence be 30*25=$750 monthly. Now we can see how defining the goals will enable you to determine the KPI and then the budget for your advertising campaigns. If the budget is too high, you will then need to revisit your goals and adjust accordingly.

What other things do you think of before starting a campaign? Feel free to comment below!

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Eng Yeow is the principal trainer at emarsity, he possesses over 6 years of experience in the major online advertising platforms.

About the author

Eng Yeow possess a vast and diverse digital experience with 10 years of programming background at Singapore Technologies and Agilent Technologies. His keen interest in running a digital business saw him moving on to digital marketing where he started up a comparison shopping site and advancing to data analytics tracking campaign performances and strategizing for online business performance.

Since then he has been a dedicated SEM consultant with over 6 years of experience –helping MNC and SME brands successfully drive leads to their websites and online campaigns. National Instruments, Fuji Xerox, Autodesk and e2i are some of the clients who have also engaged his expertise to conduct SEM corporate classes for their marketing teams.

An NTU graduate, Eng Yeow is a certified SEM professional with Google and Bing ads. He also possesses vast experiences in major online advertising platforms which include Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook and LinkedIn.