How a Facebook ad can get your page moving

Facebook ads are a great way to get traffic to a particular place and run a lot like Google ads, only better. I say they are better because you can really drill down to who you want to talk to; in fact, there are over 20 different possible combinations to try, which can really give you targeted results.

You can choose who to target by:

1.    Location – within 80km of a city

2.    Demographics – male, female, age group

3.    Interests – just about anything!

4.    Connections on Facebook – target users who are connected to certain criteria.

Once you have decided to have a go with Facebook ads, you need to consider four things:

1.    What is the goal of the ad?

2.    Who are you trying to reach?

3.    What is your daily/weekly budget?

4.    Who is going to monitor the results?

Now you might think that the first one is obvious: you just want more fans, right? Well, not necessarily. It may be that you want more people to visit your website rather than your fan page as you have a sale on soon, or a new collection is launched. In this case, your ad may be pointed straight to your chosen website landing page for visitors to find out more. If your goal is to generate brand exposure and gain more fans to communicate with, your ad will be pointed to your Facebook page rather than your website. The advantage of pointing your ad to your Facebook page is that when your visitor clicks 'like' and becomes a fan, you can then communicate with them through their Facebook newsfeed or by sending them an update. By sending your visitors to your website, unless you have a way for them to interact with your site, that visitor may never return, so you have lost them. Relying on them to join your mailing list may be too much to expect.

So who are you trying to reach, who are your target market? Again you may think this is obvious, but bearing in mind how you can drill down into the Facebook database, you may have a different message for different people.

I'll discuss that next month, along with your budget considerations and how to monitor your results in order to get the best from your Facebook ads. There is a whole lot of extra information within Facebook itself for further fine-tuning. Just click the advertising link at the bottom of your profile page.

Let's say you are a coffee shop in Auckland and you want to create an ad to drive traffic to your Facebook page to generate more fans. Your customers could be split up into three categories depending on age and wants, and so the three different messages could read as follows:

1. Mums: Bring your kids in for a free fluffy and a chocolate fish when you mention Facebook.
2. Students: Take a break from studying and grab a hot steaming mug of creamy latte. Have a chocolate fish on us when you mention Facebook.
3. Older: We are now open until midnight, so call in for a hot chocolate before bedtime and get a free chocolate fish on us when you mention Facebook.

You get the idea? A different message for different age groups, but the same product.What is your budget going to be?You can set it as much or as little as you want to spend, so if you are a small company and only have a budget of $50 per week, then that is a start. Obviously the more you spend, the more impressions your ad is going to get and so the better your chances of it being seen. I am not going to go into too much detail about impressions and click-through rates (CTR) except to say that cost per click (CPC) is more expensive, but you only pay for the clicks through to your chosen destination, and cost per impression (CPM) is cheaper, but you pay each time your ad is shown, so it could work out more expensive. Incidentally, CPM is per 1000 impressions.CPM is better if you are pushing your brand awareness as more people will see it, but I would guess most advertisers pay for CPC.Check your stats daily and watch for any trends. You may then want to stop that ad and start another ad that is basically the same as the previous one, and change one thing on it such as the image, or the heading. Slight changes can make a world of difference, but only change one thing at a time or else you won't know what the successful change was and what wasn't. Again, monitor your results and test another aspect before doing it again. Once you are really happy with the results and how much you are spending, you can afford to let it run for a while. Keep monitoring it though, as you may find the ad will dwindle in time and you need to start the process again.I will look out for your ads in the future.