What’s the best way to reach a target audience online?
The answer is hidden in plain sight…
Facebook Advertising!
The internet is a BIG place. It’s full of social media platforms and different search engines. And all of them have advertising programs.
But none of them can match the power of Facebook Advertising. The cat is out of the bag now.
Facebook is alive and well with over 2 billion users.
It’s still the KING of social media despite the appearance of newer platforms.
But the number of users isn’t the only thing that makes Facebook stand out in front as the best advertising platform. The advertising capability of Facebook is a major advantage itself! We’ve shown this with the 5 Steps to Facebook Ad Success.
And it doesn’t end with the number of users, or even the advertising features. Facebook can also be automated to do ALL the heavy lifting.
This means that super-effective targeting can be done on auto-pilot. Hello automatic profits!
Anyone can set up an advertising campaign with just a few clicks of the mouse button and about 10 minutes of their time. Then Facebook takes over with its targeting capabilities and refines that campaign to make sure it is reaching the right people.
Let’s take a look at how this is possible…
The Data Goldmine
Think about what a person can do on their Facebook account. They can:
- Update their status
- Comment on their friends’ posts
- Like and Share posts
- Join groups
- Like pages
- Include personal information on their profile—interests, relationship status, employment, age, location, behaviors, and more
And Facebook has access to ALL of this data. Data that was voluntarily and willingly provided by every Facebook user out there!
In fact, the data Facebook has is a marketer’s dream. Just 20 years ago, marketers would have killed for this information. And it would have cost companies a lot of money and time to gather even a fraction of the data Facebook has.
And this data is now openly available to internet marketers, making their advertising more targeted and effective than ever. In fact, it’s so effective and so many people are advertising on Facebook, that Facebook is running out of news feed real estate.
Facebook is actually looking for new places to show ads!
And they are finding them in places such as:
- Instagram Stories
- Video ads
- Facebook Messenger
- Facebook Marketplace
This means that massive new opportunities are popping up now, and there will be even more in the future.
Clearly, Facebook Advertising is a must for any internet marketer. But to be successful, they have to know how to use it effectively.
How To Maximize Facebook Ads
Facebook Advertising is incredibly powerful—but only if a marketer truly takes full advantage of the targeting features.
The key is to practice, learn how to successfully navigate Facebook Advertising, and get good at targeting and testing. By leveraging these features, an internet marketer will become skilled at putting the right ad in front of the right people.
Plus, the entire process can be completely automated!
Fortunately, this is easier that it might appear. There are five simple steps any internet marketer can follow to make the most out of their Facebook ads.
1. Install The Facebook Pixel
The Facebook Pixel is one of the most incredible tools offered by Facebook Advertising.
This pixel is a simple, yet powerful piece of code that can be placed into the code of any web page. It automatically tracks and tags activity on “pixeled” pages. This allows marketers to track and optimize audiences for campaigns.
How does the Facebook Pixel work?
The Facebook Pixel tracks the behavior of any visitor on the web page where the pixel is installed. Pixels can also be triggered by a specific action on a page, such as opting into a form.
Facebook will group these visitors according to the actions they take. From there, we have the ability to automatically advertise to that group of people.
For example, a Facebook Pixel can be installed on a blog post. Facebook will have this information saved. With this, a marketer can then run Facebook ads to the people who visited that specific blog post.
Plus, marketers can define custom audiences based on their own preferences!
The actions people take on websites are called events. The Facebook pixel tracks nine standard events that are related to Custom Audiences, conversion tracking, custom conversions, and conversion optimization. The standard events are the ones that are most commonly tracked by marketers.
But sometimes marketers want to track unique actions. For this reason, Facebook Pixel allows them to create custom events!
Plus, the Facebook Pixel allows marketers to keep databases of people who took certain actions on their website. Examples of actions that can be tracked include:
- People who visited the site within the past 24 hours but didn’t take any action
- People who visited a certain page on the site
- People who visited the site within the past 120 days, but did not return in the past 20 days
Just think of the targeting and retargeting options the Facebook Pixel opens up!
2. Run Conversion Ads
The Facebook Pixel also makes it possible to run conversion ads. These are ads with the objective of making a conversion, such as getting a lead or a sale.
To make this work, the Facebook Pixel needs to be added to all landing pages associated with the ad. This can include:
- Opt-in pages
- Sales pages
- Checkout pages
- Add-to-cart pages
- Registration pages
As the ad runs and people visit the website, Facebook collects this data. Over time, Facebook can optimize the targeting because it knows which people are more likely to take action.
For example, let’s say that an ad drives people to an opt-in page. If the pixel is put on that opt-in page, Facebook will know every time a person visits that page. And it will know every time someone actually opts in.
Then Facebook will compare that conversion event with the other people who have landed on the opt-in page and calculate a conversion value. This will provide a good return on investment for the ad.
Plus, it allows the marketer to really optimize their ads. This way, they can show the ads to the people who are most likely to respond.
3. Retargeting with Custom Audiences
Retargeting is crucial for success in online marketing. I’d go as far to say that it’s necessary for real, long-term success.
Most of the time, a visitor to a site won’t take action the first time they visit. But that doesn’t mean they NEVER will. For most people, it’s more of a “not yet” than a straight up “no.”
Without retargeting, all of this money is left on the table!
Here are some powerful retargeting statistics:
- Retargeting ads get a CTR (Click-through Rate) that is 10 times higher than that of display ads.
- Retargeted visitors are 70% more likely to convert.
- Ad response to retargeting increases by 400%.
- 30% of consumers react positively to retargeted ads.
Here’s an example of retargeting. A visitor goes to an opt-in page, but doesn’t sign up. It’s likely they at least considered signing up though. In this case, the pixel would track them and Facebook would advertise to that person again, giving them another chance to opt-in.
By just looking at the stats above, it’s easy to see how much more likely that person will be to opt-in now.
Retargeting can also be used in other ways…
If someone watches a certain amount of a video ad and then stops, another ad can be shown to that person.
Or specific ads can be created for people who took certain actions. This goes back to the blog post example. If someone read a blog post on a certain topic, they can be shown a targeted ad for a product related to that post.
Retargeting also allows a marketer to focus on people who took some kind action—people who opted in, made a purchase, registered for a webinar, or any other action. Ads can be shown to these people to keep them moving forward, like a digital bread crumb trail. In fact, this is the whole point of retargeting.
Retargeting is designed to allow the marketer to guide people along the sales funnel!
The possibilities that retargeting opens up are truly endless
4. Lookalike Audiences
What if we could target a new audience that was as similar as possible to our custom audience?
There is a good chance this audience would be responsive, right?
If the Facebook audience is large enough, it can act as a source audience. From it, Facebook can create a “Lookalike” audience.
What does this mean? It means that Facebook will choose an audience that only slightly deviates from the “source” audience.
In other words, Lookalike Audiences are audiences created by Facebook based on people who are most likely to like a particular brand.
The amount of deviation from the source audience—such as 1%, 2%, or 3%—can be chosen by the marketer. The ideal is 1% because an effective Lookalike audience shouldn’t be too different from the source.
Here’s some good news for everyone. A custom audience needs only a few hundred people in it for Facebook to create a Lookalike audience.
And Facebook does all the work!
This is nothing more than an automated retargeting system!
Here is an example. A marketer has a custom audience that has visited a Thank You page. And if they visited the Thank You page, that means they opted-in.
Take a look at the path Facebook takes in the diagram below.
Facebook collects the data from the custom audience that opted in. Then it finds people that only deviate from this custom audience by 1% or 2%. Facebook sends that new Lookalike audience an ad that encourages them to opt-in.
The ones from the Lookalike audience that end up on the Thank You page become part of the custom audience. And Facebook continues to create a Lookalike audience from the custom audience as that audience grows.
It really is that simple!
5. Breakdowns
The metrics that the Facebook provides are unparalleled. No other ad platform allows marketers to target in this way!
The pixel allows a marketer to see precisely who is taking what action on a page. And this allows them to refine the ad for specific groups of visitors who are responding well to the ad. For example, a marketer might be running an ad and find that women have triple the click-through rate (CTR) as men.
In this case, it would be a lot more effective to run an ad just for women.
There are a number of essential metrics that any marketer should pay close attention to when running an ad. These include:
- Relevance Score—This is a rating from 1 to 10 that estimates how well people are responding to an ad. Obviously, the higher the better.
- Frequency—This is the average number of times the ad was served to each person. As a general rule, this should be kept lower than 5.
- Positive Feedback—This is an estimation of how many people are responding well to an ad.
- Negative Feedback—This is an estimation of how many people don’t want to see an ad.
- CTR—Click-through Rate. The higher the better. This is a good indicator of how effective an ad is. It is calculated by the dividing the results by the impressions and multiplying that by 100.
- CPM—This is the average cost per 1,000 impressions.
- CPC—Cost per click. This should be no more than $1 per click. The lower, the better.
Take Advantage Of The Opportunity Here
The power of Facebook advertising is unbeatable!
The amount and detail of data that Facebook offers to marketers is incredible. This is personal and behavioral data that Facebook users willingly provide and it is a goldmine!
Plus, the retargeting options they offer has not been matched by any other online advertising platform. And this is all thanks to the Facebook Pixel. Facebook allows marketers to:
- Run conversion ads
- Retarget with custom audiences
- Target Lookalike audiences
- See a detailed breakdown of metrics so they can refine their ads and campaigns
There simply isn’t any better way to reach a target audience than by using Facebook advertising!
But it is critical to create advertising campaigns and ad copy that will ensure the ads will be as effective as possible.
And we want to help with that!
We’ll also help with really understanding the specific ins and outs of Facebook retargeting.
Our FREE FB Bootcamp is designed to help anyone build a successful online business. And Facebook advertising is an integral part of this.
Anyone who is serious about building a successful online business MUST attend this FREE FB Bootcamp.
We’re looking forward to helping as many people as possible. So don’t delay success any longer.
Sign up now!
