Name: Facebook Marketing
Rating: 3.9 (60 reviews)
Author: Greg Brooks

What’s in it for me? Discover how to get phenomenal, profitable results when advertising on Facebook.

Have you ever viewed a product on a website such as, say, Amazon, and then, a bit later, logged into Facebook to find that the exact same product is being advertised to you there too?

Coincidence? Hardly.

This phenomenon gives you a glimpse into the immense targeting power wielded by Facebook. Combine that with its size – over 1.2 billion active accounts – and you’ll begin to see that if you have even the slightest interest in marketing, it’s essential that you understand how to advertise on Facebook. And if you run a startup company or dream of founding one, there’s no way around it – you need to read these blinks.

These blinks both teach you how to set up basic Facebook advertisements and give you advanced tips that you’ll find nowhere else, information that will help you acquire new customers profitably via Facebook.

You’ll also learn

why adding a random image of The Incredible Hulk can be good for your ads;
how anyone can become their own graphic designer; and
what the Holy Grail of Facebook marketing is.

Facebook is an unparalleled marketing opportunity – so use it!

Although Facebook has become a ubiquitous way to share vacation photos and connect with far-flung friends, it’s not just a social network. As you may have guessed from seeing ads pop up in your newsfeed, it’s also a powerful marketing platform – and your company should take advantage of it.

To that end, here are a few eye-opening reasons to seize this opportunity: First, there are over 1.2 billion active accounts, which means you can reach a whole lot of people through just one channel.

Additionally, Facebook offers unparalleled targeting capabilities, allowing you to get really specific about who sees your ads.

For example, a car dealership could specifically target local males between the ages of 35 and 45 who earned more than $125,000 per year and had an interest in high-performance automobiles. The specificity ensures your ads only get served to potential customers.

And here’s the final reason to consider advertising on Facebook: it’s cheap. Generally speaking, Facebook offers low costs per click (CPC) – the price you pay when a potential customer clicks on your ad. For most Facebook ad campaigns, the CPC is under ten cents, making this a ridiculously cheap and effective option compared to other advertising channels.

And yet, many companies still aren’t advertising on Facebook. Why not? Well, although there are many different excuses, here’s a common one: “Since I never click on the ads myself, I don’t believe they actually work.”

Well, guess what? As a marketer, you need to change your perspective: It’s not about you, it’s about your customer! And all the evidence suggests that oodles of people are clicking on Facebook ads. How else can you explain the fact that, in 2013, Facebook earned $7 billion from advertising sales alone? Those billions of dollars represent a cornucopia of clicking…

Use the Power Editor tool to create Facebook campaigns, ad sets and ads.

After that pep talk, you’re probably ready to go launch some Facebook ads. Great! However, it’s first important to know how Facebook advertising works.

For starters, it consists of three layers. The highest layer is called the campaign. If you wanted to advertise a vacuum cleaner, for instance, you might set up a campaign called “Power Vacuum 2000.”

Selecting and editing eye-catching images for your Facebook ads is crucial – and luckily, you can do it yourself!

When you’re scrolling through a Facebook feed, what would compel you to stop and actually look at an ad? Why, an image, of course! So, how can you make your own ad images as effective as possible?

Selecting surprising, emotional images is the way to go. In particular, images that depict people experiencing powerful emotions are often extremely effective. This is especially true of photos of smiling women, perhaps because they lead the viewer to wonder, “Why is she smiling like that? Could this service make me equally happy?”

To create the best ads, it’s important to track performance and use split testing to compare different variations.

Right now, your mind is probably swimming with potential ideas for ad copy and images. Out of all of these ideas, some will work, and others won’t. But how to identify the winners?

To start, take advantage of Facebook’s tracking pixels – that is, snippets of code that you can add to your website. This feature allows Facebook to track users who visit your site, purchase your product or perform some other kind of action.

Target your ads by defining your ideal users and taking advantage of Facebook’s custom audiences.

Although having great ads is important, targeting your ad sets is where the magic of Facebook advertising really happens. So, how can you take advantage of Facebook’s awe-inspiring targeting options?

Start by imagining your ideal customers and taking notes on their defining characteristics: Who are they? What do they do? How old are they? Where are they from? And so on.

Key ideas in Facebook Marketing