Facebook might seem like an ancient social media platform, especially when compared to newer networks like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. But don't underestimate the power it holds in terms of advertising.
Facebook has existed for so long that it’s become the go-to method for older adults to stay in contact with family and friends. Besides posting regular life updates and checking in with friends, Facebook, with over 2.91 billion active users monthly, remains one of the best advertising platforms for your business to reach millions of people from across the globe.
The entire process might seem complicated if you’re new to the Facebook ads game. Luckily for you, this guide aims to answer all your vital questions with all the tips you need to successfully launch a Facebook video ad campaign.
How Do Facebook Ads Work?
Facebook runs one of the most sought-after advertising platforms, and they have devised a method to keep everyone satisfied.
By running mini auctions, advertisers can compete for ad spaces with the winner making payments to have their content displayed to their desired audience. These charges usually vary according to several factors which include your ad audience, placement, and your target country.
For example, running an ad in the United States would mean higher rates due to a more competitive market. And your charges could be doubled or even tripled when you target a specific audience that is more in demand. For example, running your ads during the Super Bowl when a larger audience is watching would be infinitesimally more expensive than running an ad at 1 pm on a work day.
The best way to find what works for you is to test different campaigns and optimize them according to your discovery.
Setting up Facebook Ads Account
Before creating or running your Facebook ad campaigns, you must first set up your ad account in the ads manager.
Visit Facebook Ads Manager, select your account and click Settings from the top left menu. Fill in all required information accordingly, and then complete your payment settings. Once you’re all done, you can move on from this section and focus on your audience.
Research your audience
Your Facebook video ad might flop if your audience research is not done right.
To research your audience, you must answer some simple questions such as who are the big competitors in your niche, what kind of print does your ideal customer read, what websites do they frequent, where do they live, and what makes your audience unique?
These questions will help you carve out a very specific audience from the more generic crowd interested in sports, music, or film.
You can also use Facebook Audience Insights to analyze your audience. Enter your seed audience in the sidebar, and then go through the page likes to see what your audience has shown interest in. This information will help you create an ad that could generate more potential interest.
Launching your first campaign
Before you create your campaign, you must first outline a clear objective. What do you want people to get from your ad? Do you want people who would click on a link, or buy a product, or do you just want to share the link to your website?
On Facebook, you can select one of eleven different campaign objectives;
- Brand awareness
- Reach
- App installs
- Traffic
- Video views
- Engagement
- Conversions
- Messages
- Store traffic
- Lead generation
- Catalog sales
Once you select your objective, you will go on to building the rest of your campaign which includes setting up a campaign name, budget optimization, and auction buying.
Now, you're ready to create an ad set from where you can set your budget, choose your audience, and control the entire ad.
While filling out your ad set, you can get very specific with location and choose the region, country, or continent that you want to target. There's also the option of leaving out certain areas if that's what you want. You can also fine-tune your demographics by inputting certain behaviors such as showing your ad to only people who have shown an interest in furniture.
You can narrow down your preferred audience even further. If your business specializes in beds rather than general furniture, you can save money by showing your ads to only people who are interested in beds specifically. And if you want to get even more specific, there is an option for that.
Publishing your Facebook Ad
You can get creative with your ad and include an image or video that you want to use. You can also add primary text to tell your readers what your ad is about, an attention-grabbing headline, a description, and a call to action.
You can play around with other options such as adjusting the language so your ads are automatically translated. As you make changes to your ad, you can see what it looks like in the preview screen.
Once your ad is checked and approved by the platform, it will be published automatically to your target audience.
The aftermath
Your ads are out there and you’re counting on Facebook to do its magic, but your job isn’t over just yet. You can keep an eye on your ad from the Ads Manager Dashboard. From here, you can see its status from when it’s published to the results.
Pay attention to the reach, conversion rates, performance and clicks, date, etc.
Facebook still reigns supreme when it comes to users and reach, so it only makes sense that you would take your video ads there to meet your target audience.
Before giving Facebook marketing a trial, you should do a test run on the ads manager, find out if your target audience is actually on Facebook, and get a good idea of how the entire process works. What are Facebook video ad specs? How much does it cost to run a video ad for a specified period? Don’t forget that publishing your video ad is simply the first step in a long learning process.
Now it’s time to follow these steps and see great success with your Facebook video ads.