Brett McHaleIf you’re like a vast number of marketers out there, you could be under the impression that advertising on Facebook (or any other type of social media) is limited to branding and customer engagement.
If you’re living in this matrix, it’s time for a wakeup call.
Let’s take a step back and look at the situation a little differently. What if I told you…
You have access to hundreds of millions of users, their locations, interests, behaviors, countless other targeting capabilities, not to mention the ability to reach them at any given hour of the day, for a whole lot less than any other available advertising medium of equal scale.
It’s a marketer’s dream, and telling someone 25 years ago that this user information was so readily accessible would be similar to showing Jurassic World to a filmmaker in the 1930s trying to mold a T-Rex out of clay.
If you know how to use it properly, Facebook can be one of the most powerful advertising platforms for driving your business forward. Ignoring the lead generation capabilities of these ever-maturing platforms is like refusing to use Marshawn Lynch on the one-yard line.
In this post, I’ll outline the steps necessary for using Facebook for lead generation, and show you how to effectively and affordably reach your target market. I also suggest you read my similar post on using Twitter ads for lead gen if you haven’t already.
(God that never gets old. #FreeBrady)
Effective Facebook Ads for Lead Generation: Account Structure
Facebook’s core ad structure is quite different to that of Twitter. You have campaigns, ad sets, and ads. To get started, click “Create Ad” in the top right-hand corner. You will be taken to the campaign layer of the creation process.
Campaigns
Campaigns are the “outer shell” so to speak. The campaign of your ad dictates the ad’s objective.
For the purpose of lead generation, I would recommend the “Increase conversions on your website” option. This will ensure that leads who are completing actions on your website will be able to be tracked and you will be able to monitor the performance of your campaign accurately.
The next steps involve inserting your destination landing page URL (the one where people will be taken once they have completed the desired action) and generating a tracking pixel.
When you generate your tracking pixel, be sure to specify the type of conversion being tracked and the naming convention:
Once the pixel is generated, email it to yourself and you can copy and paste it into your destination landing page. The can be done with an HTML block (if you’re using a service like Marketo) or it can be placed between the and tags.
Ad Set Targeting
The next two parts of your lead generating efforts are extremely important. First is the targeting of your ad set and second is your ad itself. These two go hand-in-hand where you want to hit the “sweet spot” with the audience that you are targeting. The language, messaging, and most importantly, the creative element, should all flow into one smoothly operating lead gen machine.
At first glance, the targeting interface looks simple enough. You have all of the demographic options available to you including languages, locations, gender, and age. It’s the layering and how you can mold audiences from this basic information that makes Facebook ads so special.
If your target market is rather broad you can add specific interest and behaviors and you will be able to construct your audience depending on how granular you’d like to get by adding several of each.
My suggestion for most businesses, however, would be to start by building out a “Custom Audience” with either existing or potential customers. Custom audiences can be built by importing a CSV/Text list into Facebook, or by placing a pixel on your website that will allow you to remarket to those who already know and might be interested in you.
To create a custom audience through a list of names, phone numbers, or email addresses. Simply go to the “audience” section of Ads Manager:
Once there, select the “Create Audience” button in the top left corner:
Select “Custom Audience”. Next you will be able to upload a list based on the type of audience or create a pixel that can be placed on your website that will create an audience out of your visitors (highly recommended).
Both options can and should be used IN ADDITION to your other targeted interests and behaviors.
However, I strongly recommend you create “lookalike” audiences to expand your reach. By creating a lookalike audience, you can instantly target users who “look like” those users you uploaded into the custom audience or your website visitors. It’s like using your existing friends to set up dates with the people you want to meet, just creepier!
This is a highly successful strategy when coupled with interests and behaviors that align with your desired audience. It allows you to find similar users to the ones you’ve uploaded, while simultaneously filtering them down into the interests and characteristics most valuable to you. To start out, I suggest keeping the lookalike audience as close to the original as possible. The larger you make the size of the audience, the further you deviate from the target and the individuals become less “alike.”
It’s also key to remember that you can create multiple ad sets per campaign. This will allow you to test and experiment with different targeting combinations and file down the best performing audiences (you can save them for future use as well).
Effective Facebook Ads for Lead Gen: Pricing
You have the option to choose a daily budget or a specified amount over a custom period of time. When it comes to the delivery of your ads you have the option to select automatic or manual bidding:
I suggest using automatic bidding, especially if you’re just starting out. It will instruct Facebook to bid for you in a way that will maximize what you can get for your budget.
You can also choose which times you want your ads to run. This could be advantageous if you are targeting only one specific time zone or you have the data to support that your desired audience is only active at certain times.
Ad Offers
You’ve made it to the last leg of the race and it’s important to not lose focus here. All that time and preparation comes down to how well you can execute on the News Feed. Now that you’ve got your target audience on the ropes it’s time to knock them out. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Unfortunately, Facebook advertising isn’t the Wild West and there are rules. In fact, it’s a little bit closer to 1950s America and if you’re ad’s dress shows too much ankle, you will be shunned. Before you start creating anything, you’ll want to be familiar of all of the restrictions Facebook imposes.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Ad Image
The recommended size is 1200 X 627. This is because there are a few different ways Facebook can promote your ad and it will resize it accordingly.
Facebook will not show your ad if it has more than 20% text on it.
To check the text density of your ad, use this handy tool. Too many words? You’ll have to get creative and trim it down.
The Ad Copy
Text: 90 characters
Headline: 25 characters
Link description: 500 characters
Once you’ve jumped through these hoops, it’s a best practice to make a few variations of an ad with different copy to test against each other. Facebook will automatically favor the more successful ad and you’ll be able to optimize your ad sets accordingly.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Facebook Ads
With the website conversions campaign structure, the primary success of your ads rely on the metrics of conversions in relations to costs. You will receive a Cost per Conversion figure once your ads start yielding results, and this will allow you to see which ad set, and which individual ads, are converting for a better price and at a higher volume in relation to their peers.
Some other key performance metrics to be aware of include reach, frequency, click-through rate, and relevance score:
Reach is the amount of people that your ad is being served to. Your reach is reliant on the ad’s performance, its objective, the size and activity of your targeted audience, and subsequently how much budget you are willing to allocate. In Facebook, you pay to play.
Frequency is something that you should be monitoring as your ads mature. The frequency is the average number of times your ad has been served to each person within its respective reach. You’ll want to refresh your ads once your frequency reaches 3 to 4, as this shows that your current ad has reached exhaustion and, in theory, your CPC will begin to rise as conversions stagnate. You may notice that you are unable to spend your daily budget – this means it’s time to refresh.
Relevance Score is similar to AdWords’ Quality Score in that you get ranked from 1 to 10 and it will reflect costs. The higher your Relevance Score, the lower your costs.
Relevance Score is calculated based on the positive and negative interactions an ad is expected to receive based on different factors related to your objective (i.e. conversions). When your ads compete against each other you will find that the domino effect of engagement (clicks), click-through-rates, and conversions will have a direct impact on Relevance Score. It also goes to show how important ad copy is.
Keep in mind that you shouldn’t be basing decisions on any single metric. You should be making your decisions based on the overall performance of your campaigns in relation to how much you’re spending and what your goals are. If you adhere to the advice above you will find that driving leads through Facebook can be EXTREMELY cost effective. Stay on top of your ads and let the leads flow through.
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