There are many strong reasons as to why Facebook’s advertising platform is the number one marketing channel for both B2B and B2C companies. In fact, this article could very easily be changed to '600 REASONS Why You Need To Be Using Facebook Ads'.
Mass marketing is a strategy of yesteryear, we have now entered the time of micromarketing. Instead of trying to reach the biggest audience possible, advertisers need to understand who their ideal customers are and tailor their message to precisely those segments of the population. Facebook advertisements are currently the best platform for this.
Here are six reasons your businesses must take advantage.
1) Facebook has the most targeted form of advertising … ever?
Social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk dubbed Facebook advertisements as “the greatest ad-targeting product ever created” – it is hard to argue. You can target your advertising campaign to Facebook users with incredible accuracy and specificity based on age, gender, occupation, behaviours, and online and offline purchasing histories.
So, let’s say for some reason you specifically wanted to target a product to 32-year-old men, who are interested in Game of Thrones and does CrossFit, well ... you could. Facebook really does allows you to get that specific when finding your audience.
To make the most of ad-targeting, it is imperative that you have a thorough knowledge of your ideal customer. The more you know about your potential customer, the higher the likelihood that your advertisement will be relevant and effective. Fortunately, if you need assistance in pinpointing these demographics, there are many free tools available. The Facebook Audience Insight tool can be used to determine the demographic that are best engaging with your brand online.
Consumers expect and demand that your advertising be relevant to them or they will ignore you. We have been bombarded with advertisements since our birth. Throw in the rise of social media and digital technologies and how attention spans are shorter than ever. Our propensity to understand when someone is trying to sell us something has also been developed greatly over the years. It is almost like we have built-in ad-blockers in our brain, allowing us to simply ignore the message.
So, your advertisement must not seem like an advertisement; it should be relevant, valuable content.
2) It offers complete creative and design flexibility
Depending on your campaign objective, there are many different options for you to decide how your ad will look when published on Facebook.
It is no secret that Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm favours video content - most social media channels these days prioritise video content - however don’t be afraid to get creative and split test to determine which gets your business the best results.
Marketers can decide what copy is written on the advertisement, which photo(s) or video, the duration, call-to-action and much more. You can also decide where the advertisement is placed with options ranging from: News Feed, In-Stream Videos, Facebook & Instagram Stories, Audience Network, Messenger and more. Most advertisers receive great results selecting just the News Feed option, but split-testing will determine the best placement for your message.
3) The power of retargeting
Online marketers love retargeting as much as investors love compound interest. You can retarget potential customers based on website visits, engagement, video views, e-mail lists and other pre-existing customer files.
The Facebook pixel is a tool that can greatly benefit marketers who wish to retarget. It is a piece of code that you can place on your website or landing page and use to track prospective customers.
Let’s say Bob has visited your website; he may have even clicked on the sales page but decided not to make a purchase. Bob is now aware of your brand and he may even be interested in purchasing your product, but perhaps the timing just wasn't right or he needed more convincing.
With the Facebook pixel, you can create an advertisement to be shown to Bob and other people just like him through another feature called 'lookalike audiences' (see below) - hopefully prompting him to complete his transaction. You can even get more detailed and segment audiences based on those who have visited specific pages on your website.
4) Lookalike audiences
If you have a customer list – either one created using Facebook’s tracking tools or an existing list of customer e-mail addresses or phone numbers – you can create a lookalike audience.
Facebook identifies the common qualities of people, such as demographic information, interests and behaviour, to find people who are similar to them.
By aggregating the data of everyone who uses the site, Facebook has a lot of information about its users so the lookalikes audience feature is quite accurate and can prove to be an effective targeting strategy for advertisers.
It’s almost like a referral … without the actual referral.
5) All of your customers are on Facebook
Just about everyone has a Facebook account.
Sure, you have the odd exception here and there, but regardless of your customer demographic, chances are the person you want to target is on the platform. Statistics show 79% of all internet users have Facebook, resulting in over two billion monthly users. Almost three quarters of those people log into Facebook every single day and most of check it multiple times. With the increase in video and all forms of content in general, people are also spending more time on Facebook.
Guess who else is on Facebook? Your competitors. By NOT using Facebook advertising, you’re making it easier for your competition to take up this space and take your potential customers.
You need to be where your customers are – that’s Facebook.
6) Facebook advertising is measurable
Facebook's advertising platform allows marketers to accurately track the performances of campaigns and measure return on ad-spend. You can determine cost per lead, impression, clicks and conversions that you are receiving. If an advertisement is under performing, you can kill it or make adjustments in real time.
It is vital to track your ad's performance closely so that you can adjust and refine your audience even further to achieve the optimal campaign results. You will have precise confidence and control of expenditure, down to the cent.