More than 2.23 billion people visit Facebook every month, and that impressive number means that Facebook Ads has become a staple of digital marketing.
How can you calculate your Return on Investment when it comes to Facebook Ads, and do so in a way that means maximum profit for you?
Analyze your Facebook ad reports to make sure you’re targeting the right audience.
It’s a basic tenet of marketing: you have to understand your target audience and what is likely to appeal to them. Here is an article about the eight questions you need to be asking when marketing to Facebook users.
Once you have answered questions about who your audience is, it’s time to find them.
In Reports, break down your audience by age, gender, conversion device, destination, and time, among other basic options. (Geo-targeting is particularly effective.) You can break down behavior, like recent purchases. Once you’ve done that, you can see the number of users in that category for you to market towards. You also have the option of inputting your current customer list, both to exclude customers you don’t need to market to, and to target specific sections of your list.
Between all these options, you can layer them to target the most specific niche you can imagine: a single person. (For more information on niche marketing, check out this hilarious story from Adweek.)
Don’t panic if your ads aren’t converting.
Sometimes, after they run Facebook ads, people are tempted to act on the numbers they get within 24 hours. They will immediately turn off ads that aren’t meeting their expectations.
Instead, wait until your ads get some reach (like 1,500 people, advises Jason How) and then make your decision about which ads are working and which ones aren’t.
Remember to calculate ROI in an effective way.
You can’t tabulate the Return on Investment of your ad campaigns based on your number of website clicks alone—those aren’t actually making you any money when you’re trying to sell a product.
For example, say that you spend $10 on three days of ads to sell an ebook that’s $20. (Your monthly digital ads budget, according to Hubspot, should be about 10% of your total advertising budget.) You might get 500 website clicks, but how many of those people actually bought the book? Maybe only 25. So that’s $500 of income from $10 of ads. Is that a ROI that you’re happy with? It’s up to you to decide.
Therefore, you need to measure conversion in a meaningful way, like by sales or email sign ups. Facebook Ads will help you do this by selecting an objective when you create your campaign. Instead of choosing something like “Send people to your website,” which is great but doesn’t make you any direct income, choose something like “Get installs of your app,” which will bring in the cash.
Then, run the campaigns with a strong ROI again. Remember to always keep experimenting!
Direct your clicks to a strategic landing page.
Believe it or not, taking your new fans from Facebook to your homepage might not be in your best interests. Your homepage is probably a hub from which they can access a bunch of different things on your website—like an about page or a shop—but it’s not necessarily the best way to make conversions.
Here are some things to consider when making a landing page for users who click through from Facebook Ads:
- This is their first impression of your business, so make it count! The ad that took them there might have piqued their interest, but this is where your business can truly shine.
- Make it simple and distraction-free, so that users can focus on what you want them to do.
- It needs to be relevant to users. Ideally, it should be tailored for the ad that users clicked on. If you’re selling all types of kitchenware and your ad shows off a knife set, your landing page should bring them right to that knife set.
- Include a prominent CTA (Call to Action) to give your users a prompt on what to do next. This means there should be one single goal!
- Using social proof (also known as testimonials) can really give credence to your bold claims about your product.
- Remember to test landing pages! You should be constantly experimenting to find out what is best for your niche.
Format correctly: keep headlines five words long and less than 25 characters.
If your headline is too long, it won’t show up in its entirety in your post—and that’s a no-no. To make your headline as effective as possible, pare it down so readers can see the whole thing. If a word or two is left off at the end, what kind of impact are you really making? Not a great one, that’s for sure.
That’s not to mention, of course, that these headlines need to be clear, engaging, and relevant.
While we’re at it, here are some more numbers: according to studies, ad text should be about 20 words long and ad descriptions should be less than 15 for maximum effectiveness.
Consider your Call To Action (CTA) carefully.
Facebook has a bunch of Call to Action choices for your ad buttons. Certain CTAs, like “Learn more,” have been proven to convert. However, if you’re trying to stand out from the crowd, a unique call to action (one that’s used seldom) can set your ad apart. Always experiment!
Make great use of video ads.
Facebook users spend triple the time on video than they do on text or images. That means that your video content needs to be A+.
While you may have misgivings about appearing on social media unedited, it’s extremely profitable to use Facebook Live. Viewers will stick around three times longer for a live video than a pre-recorded one, so there’s plenty of opportunity to reach out and make an impression to build personal rapport. Additionally, Live videos often have a low production value, which is forgiven by viewers with the understanding that they’re done on the fly. If you have a low budget, this can be a life-saver! Remember to save your Live video so that fans can watch it later, too.
What are you going to do differently to increase your Facebook ROI? Let us know in the comments below!