It started on Facebook and spread to Instagram… the slow but steady downfall of organic reach on social. The more time goes on, the harder it becomes to get your content in front of people’s eyes for free.
But WAIT! Before you go deleting your brand’s social media accounts and thinking it’s not worth your time, think again. Social advertising is one of the most inexpensive and effective places to invest your brand’s marketing budget.
According to Disruptive Advertising, it’s even more affordable than Google AdWords, especially when ad campaigns are given a high relevance score, which means Facebook believes your ad is a good fit for your target audience, resulting in a lower cost per click.
We’re breaking down how, when and where you should consider spending your advertising dollars below:
Have a strategy behind every ad. Consider the following… who is my target? Will they be a cold audience or a warm audience? IE, do they already know my brand or am I introducing them to my brand? Which stage of the funnel are they in exactly? What is the goal of the campaign? Do I want leads, brand awareness, site traffic, sales, or something else? Don’t create an ad without a strategy.
Choose your ad’s objective for Facebook VS Instagram. Is your goal brand awareness? Reach? Website traffic? Engagement? App installs? Video views? Lead generation? Messages? Conversions? Catalog sales? Store visits? Decide what it is and create your ad based on that goal.
Decide what the goal of your call to action is. Does your call to action drive people to your profile, messages or website? Are you looking to grow followers and engagement or boost revenue?
Select your ad’s format. Consider what will perform best for each specific ad. It could be a single image, a video, a carousel or both. This also includes deciding where you want your ad to be displayed whether this is on the static feed, in stories or in messenger.
Get specific with target audiences. Create specific audiences and target based on locations, interests, age and gender. You should start creating your ad campaign with a strong idea of who you want to target—flesh that out beforehand.
Set a budget and use it efficiently. For clients on our most affordable packages, we set a monthly budget of $100 and boost every single post with roughly $2 to $5 per day. And just that small of an investment can really POWER UP your reach and results.
Evaluate whether your goals were met. What are your impression and reach? How many saves and shares did you have? How much revenue did you capture? What’s your cost per acquisition.
Double down on posts that perform well. Don’t be afraid to put more money behind a post once you see that it is performing well. On the flip side, monitor ads that aren’t performing and tweak them accordingly or even stop them, if need be.
If your ad is rejected, figure out why. You can appeal posts that were not originally approved if you build a strong case. If you win, your post will be boosted ASAP.
