Facebook advertising continues to be a platform underdog in connecting advertisers to their desired audiences through social media. More than two billion people utilize Facebook’s capabilities every month — so no matter what type of audience you want to reach, you will find them through Facebook.

When properly used, Facebook can help advertisers raise their brand awareness, attract new customers and convert interested customers lower in the funnel.

It’s important to understand the platform’s ad format types and targeting options in order to get the best results. Let’s take a look at Facebook ads best practices.

Facebook Audience

Facebook is one channel you can use to interact with your target audience. But how do you know you’re reaching the right people? Ad campaigns are made up of ad sets that share settings for how, when and where an advertisement will run. The choices made at this level give options to choose audience characteristics like location, gender and age.

Using different audience targeting allows an advertiser to create different ads for groups related to different business goals. Ultimately, Facebook allows you to speak to an existing customer differently than you would to people who have never heard of your business before.

Facebook ad targeting offers three audience selection tools for smart ad targeting:

Core Audiences

Core audiences can be leveraged for reaching potential customers who are unaware that you exist. This targeting option lets a user define audiences based on their location, demographics, interests, behavior and connections.

Custom Audiences

A Facebook custom audience is a great way for engaging with people who have already shown interest in your business, whether they are returning customers or people who have used your application or visited your website.

Lookalike Audiences

A lookalike audience is popular among advertisers because they are fast and effective in connecting users with people likely to respond to your ads. Once a Facebook advertiser has a source audience, then their ads will reach people with common interests and traits.

Facebook Pixel

The Facebook pixel is a piece of code you can add to your brand’s website that leads to greater impact on your overall Facebook ad campaign. After adding the pixel to your website, when someone visits your website and takes any action, the Facebook pixel is then triggered and reports this action. Even if you’re not ready to engage in some of Facebook’s advanced pixel strategies, it is highly encouraged in an ad campaign.

This is a great way to record tracking as well as beginning the steps to retargeting. Facebook pixel set up can automatically create a custom audience of people who visit your site. With the pixel, you’ll be able to show people targeted ads for items they have previously viewed on your website.

Creative Learnings

If an advertiser wants to use video, images, words or a combination of all — there’s a Facebook ad format that fits everyone in digital marketing.

In the past year, a Facebook video ad held user attention 5 times more than static images alone. Campaigns using static plus lightweight video also achieved 17% higher conversion lifts. In addition to other stats, the number of advertisers using video in direct response campaigns across Facebook platforms and Facebook posts increased 3.8 times. These social video trends show no sign of stopping — so, now’s the time to integrate video into your social advertising strategy.

Format Options for Facebook Ad Creatives:

Photo
Video
Messenger
Stories
Carousel ad
Slideshow
Collection
Playables
Instant Experience

Although there are many Facebook ad types available, Facebook suggests utilizing dynamic ads when moving forward with campaign structure in 2021. Dynamic creative saves an advertiser time during ad creation, improves performance, delivers different versions of creative and generates the best performing ad copy combinations.

Dynamic creative will automatically deliver high-performing combinations of assets to Facebook users. The ad type is then served across placements to explore the performance of each creative element within the given target audience. Dynamic creative ads can be applied to Conversion, Traffic, Video Views, Reach, Brand Awareness and App install campaigns.

Test

It’s essential not to make assumptions about what will work and what will not in your Facebook ad campaign. Each time advertisers try something new, they should test it against previous data so they can see whether or not they’re making improvements to the social media metrics and goals that matter most.

A/B testing is also a great way to test small variations in marketing materials to determine which is most effective with your particular audience. Over time, advertisers will gain insights about what strategy works best for them on Facebook, helping them refine their Facebook campaign objective and goals.

Track & Optimize

Advertisers can measure how well their Facebook advertising strategy is performing in the Facebook Ads Manager dashboard.

How can I view Facebook measurement?

Ads Manager can monitor your campaign performance, view reach and demographic breakdowns, as well as review your ad spend over any period of time.

Are my ads being seen by the right audiences?

Facebook measurement is based on people. The breakdowns analyze data so users receive a high-level view of their audience demographics. Advertisers can also compare current audiences with future audiences they would like to reach.

Which parts of my marketing campaign are driving an impact?

Attribution is the process of assigning credit to the marketing touchpoints along the customer journey that lead to a conversion or desired action by a customer. When advertisers understand which of their ads get credit, they can better measure the impact each of their ads has and make decisions for future campaign budget optimization and planning.

Have an upcoming Facebook campaign? Check out our paid social services and contact us today.

Facebook Ads Best Practices for 2021