Facebook has proven to be an easy way to reach your audience, no matter what business you are in. And the paid ad options are no joke either, with sophisticated targeting and budgeting options. Facebook ads let you pick the people of your interest and lure them in. But if you are a business owner with a busy job, this level of sophistication may annoy you a little bit. Which is what the point of this guide is – to help you with tips for Facebook ads as a local business by efficiently targeting and budgeting.
So, without any further ado, let us do a deep dive into the same!
What are the Benefits of Facebook Ads for Local Businesses?
Facebook ads offer a myriad of options for a small business owner to spend as little as possible and yet reach a variety of audiences that you might otherwise not have access to. So much so that 93% of marketers use Facebook advertising regularly in their campaigns.
But what are the actual benefits that we keep boasting about? Let’s take a look:
- Measurable results: One of the major drawbacks of any other conventional marketing strategy is its inability to show the results. Take print advertising, for example, there is no guarantee that you are getting back the amount you invested there. But with Facebook ads, you get to see a clear breakdown of the people who clicked, converted, and purchased from you. Thus ensuring transparency.
- Flexible budget: With other forms of advertising, the advertiser sets the price. So if it is out of your budget, then there is nothing you could do about it. But with Facebook ads, you can spend as little as you want and still get to run ads and get a good ROAS. And unlike traditional marketing strategies, you pay only when a user interacts with your ad.
- Improved awareness: And since you set the budget for your ads, you can run as many as you want. The more touchpoints with your customers, the better the brand recall and awareness among your local audience.
- Ability to target: With traditional advertising methods, there is no possible way to pick and choose the target audience and show ads only to them. But with Facebook ads-including advanced formats like Facebook AR Ads you can hyper-segment your audience and improve your chances of conversion.
- Goal specified ad settings: You can modify the settings of your ads based on the end goal that you have, such as store foot traffic, generating brand awareness, and so on.,
How To Set Up Facebook Ads For Local Businesses?
So, now that you are familiar with the benefits of Facebook ads for your local business, you are eager to tap into them. How do you do that? How do you set up Facebook ads?
Well, here are the exact pointers on how you can set up a Facebook ad:
- First, visit Facebook Ads Manager and connect your Facebook account to it.
- Once on the home page, click on the “+create” option. As discussed in the end goal option above, now it is time to choose the objective that you want your ad to focus on. This can be anything from Awareness to app promotion.
- Now, select the budget for the ad or campaign. If you are choosing a campaign budget, then you can either set up a daily limit or a lifetime limit. This feature provides you with the ability to run ads based on your budget limits. Once that is out of the way, click on the “Next” option.
- On the next page, you can choose the number of times you want people to see your ads. This is an amazing feature since it allows you to reduce ad fatigue in your audience.
- In here, you can also modify the audience you have selected. If your business does not have a clear buyer persona, then you can use Meta audience insights to find out your ideal audience persona and feed that into your ad manager. There is a small slider option on the right side that allows you to check whether the intended audience is too small or too wide. There is also the Advantage+ option offered by Meta, which allows you to use AI to find the relevant audience for you.
- Click “Next” when you are done.
- Now this last page is where you upload your creatives, preview the final, and set up tracking. Once you are satisfied with the final outcome, hit “Publish” and you are done. Once the ad is published, keep monitoring the results from time to time and make adjustments as required.
6 Targeting and Budgeting Tips To Make the Best of Your Facebook Ads
Now that you have your ad up and running, let’s figure out where you might not have given your best efforts. Targeting and Budgeting are the most sophisticated features in Facebook Ads Manager and often leave the reader completely confused, especially when trying to interpret Facebook Ads statistics. If you had a similar experience when setting up your ads, then these 6 tips for Facebook ads can help you get it straight:
1. Utilize the Power of Facebook Pixel
The first of the tips for Facebook ads is to have the Facebook pixel set up. If you do not have Facebook Pixel set up, then you are losing out majorly. Because Facebook pixel does your job for you and finds out new leads you might have missed out on.
Facebook pixel is a small piece of code that, when embedded into your site, allows you to track users. You can then use your Pixel data to create lookalike audiences who can have similar characteristics to your site visitors and thus have higher chances of interacting with your ad.
2. Facebook Custom Audience
For people who don’t know, Facebook ad audience targeting option is no joke. With Pixel, lookalike audience, and custom audience, you can target almost any set of people you want.
And one common set of people to retarget is the people who have watched your posts and videos. It is often common practice to segment people who watch more than 50% of your video into a group and target this set in your next set of ads. This is what is called a custom audience.
3. Try out different bidding strategies
Setting up the right ad budget can be crucial for the success of your ad. Because, with a smaller budget, you might not be able to reach your intended audience. And with a high budget, you might be burning through more money than you need to.
To hit the nail on the right budget, you need to experiment with different bids and find the one that works best for you.
4. Try Boosting Your Best-Performing Posts
If you think boosting posts that are not performing as well and offering them a little help, then you are taking a counter-productive approach. If and when you choose to boost a post, pick the best-performing ones.
Boosting a post offers a myriad of benefits for the local business owner. If you are short on time and do not have the expertise to run a Facebook ad, then boosting a post can come in handy for you.
By boosting your post, you can get insights into your user behavior and find customer preferences. Although experts might argue that you are giving up on your targeting options, this level of simplicity is what makes it perfect for a busy business owner.
5. Upload your Existing Customer Details
If you are not sure how to target the right customers for your ad, then your existing customers are your key. If you already have an existing database of customers that is collected from other sources, then Meta offers you options to upload them.
Once you upload the details to your Ad Manager, you can then create lookalike audiences based on these customers. When creating a lookalike audience, Meta will go through your customer list, find common attributes, then find people with similar attributes, and then make a list of them. This lookalike audience is another segment of leads you can target for your ads.
6. Don’t go wide
If your strategy regarding targeting is to focus on as many people as possible, then stop right there. There are almost 3 billion active users on Facebook, and no matter what product you sell, you cannot attract every single one of them.
And by casting a wide net, you burn through your budget quicker and might not reach your target audience in the process. So, try to narrow down your target audience based on what you know about them.
A pro tip is to have a slightly broader audience in case of brand awareness ads and to have a narrow audience when choosing conversion-type ads.
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The Final Takeaway
Running Facebook ads can become easy with consistent efforts and practice. However, creating an effective ad that can hold the attention of the audience requires design experience and an understanding of user behavior. With Predis AI, you can still create stunning visuals without design experience by leveraging AI and our library of pre-made templates. So, sign up today to get your free account!
