How do we go about designing the ad sets that form the basic blocks of advertising across a network? In this article, we delve into what goes into designing a successful ad – steps such as defining the goals, defining the objective that the ad is designed to focus on, selection of the right audience and an accurate measurement of campaign performance etc.
1. Identify your business goals.
The first step in the path to a successful ad campaign is to define your business goals. Business goals should be aligned with ad objectives. For example, your business goal could be growing your business, where you will use Lead Generation objective. Or your goal could be to increase awareness, or to reach out to more people, to increase app installs, or to drive conversions, sales or store visits. Some examples of business goals and the ad objectives that should be used alongwith.
Demand Generation goals could use Traffic/Video views objective
Customer Aquisition goals could use Lead Generation/Conversions/App Installs objective
‘More transactions’ goals could use Conversions/Product Catalog Sales/Store visits objective
2. Identify your target market/audience
I have elaborated on the types of audiences in Facebook marketing in one of my other articles. Essentially, will you target existing customers (whose details you have), or new customers with this campaign? The more data you have about your existing customer, the better you will be able to target additional customers. Spend some time in analyzing existing customers and identifying common traits. Identify which markets you want to focus. Ask yourself if you would like to utilize data residing in your CRM to remarket to existing customers. And any other factors, including offline, that you use in other campaigns.
Custom Audiences (sub-segment of existing customers based on certain criteria)
a. Use CRM data, Pixel or SDK to build custom audiences.
b. Use existing segmentation to segment Custom Audiences
c. Segment custom audiences on where they are on the purchase journey (based on web pages they have visited), and design marketing campaigns specific to each segment.
d. Identify and reach people based on surveys they have filled or videos they have viewed.
e. Use campaigns in combination with email campaigns
f. Remarket to people who abandoned their cart with custom messages, cross-sell, upsell to recent customers.
Lookalike Audiences (new people who match the profile of your existing customers)
a. Use seed lists specific to the business goal you want to achieve
3. Measuring success of the campaign
What defines the success of your campaign? How are you keeping track? You can make use of ad tracking software like Hyros (see review https://serp.co/reviews/hyros/) to understand what ads are getting you sales. Also, defining the KPI’s and when possible, putting a value on them helps define the success of the campaign. For example, putting a value on customer conversion or app install will help you arrive at the Return On Investment on each ad set/campaign.
Implementing ‘Pixel’ and ‘SDK’, essentially piece of code for Website/mobile app, enhance your capability to measure conversions, understand cross-device behavior, target audiences with superior chances of conversion, and enable retargeting customers who have taken a certain action on your website, such as added an item to cart but not bought it.
Measuring Campaign Performance: You can measure campaign performance on the following three parameters or outcomes:
i)Audience Outcomes – How you reach your audience
Questions that it helps answer: How many people did your ads reach? How often?
Did the ads reach intended audience? Across devices?
ii) Brand Outcomes – How media spend impacts brand objectives
For example, did the ads generate brand awareness?
iii) Sales Outcomes – How media spend impacts sales objectives
For example, did the ads contribute to ROI?
Did the ads result in sales/leads/installs?
4. Use existing creatives available on your website etc without resizing or reformatting efforts.
5. Use custom audiences to target existing customers residing in your CRM. This audience has the best chances of success as they already are interested in your products or services.
6. If you have a product catalog, use Facebook’s dynamic ads solution that can automatically create ads based on your product catalog and people’s behaviour when visiting your website or app to buy or check out these products.
7. Upload all your store/office locations to Facebook Business Manager, so you can create ads with objectives focussed on increasing footfalls.
Total Value of an ad
Facebook ad placement is decided on ‘Total Value’ of an advertisement, which in turn depends on three factors:
1. Advertiser bid
2. Estimated action rates
3. Relevance and Quality
In short, if a user is likely to click on your advertisement, and is likely to have a positive experience on your website, the right bid is likely to place your ad on the Facebook network.
Automatic vs Manual Bidding for Ads
Facebook, like Google Adwords, suggests a $ bid amount in case you are setting it manually for the ad. Automatic bidding automatically decides the bid, and maximizes reach at the best price.
Ads – the basic terms
- Placement – Where your ad will be placed. A variety of options are available, such as ‘In-stream videos’, ‘Feeds’, ‘Instagram stories’, etc.
- Format and Creative : Creative is the artwork itself. The format is how the ad is placed. Options include image, video, carousel, collection and slideshow.
PS: Understand that this is a dynamic marketplace with thousands of companies bidding for these ad placements, and each tweaking to optimize their ad performance. Every ad campaign needs tweaking along the way to get the best performance.
