By Jared Asher, December 15, 2017
With Facebook’s constant algorithm updates, it seems like it’s becoming harder than ever to create customer engagement.
We are now seeing a radical decline in Reach from our Facebook posts, as such, Facebook is now encouraging us to spend more money on Advertising to create engagement. The old days of free social media marketing is long gone.
So this is the million-dollar question isn’t it…
Does Facebook Ads actually work?
Let’s take a look…
Firstly, there’s a common myth that surrounds Facebook Ads, and that is people think they are able to just create an ad and sell their products and services and expect a positive result immediately.
Wrong.
Facebook Ads rarely produce sales immediately.
Secondly, you need to have a clear-cut strategy before you begin advertising.
This means you need to know your ideal objectives and outcomes long before you start driving traffic.
In simple terms, advertising is like driving a car to a destination you’re planning to arrive at. Without a clear destination in mind, you’re driving a car for the sake of ‘driving a car’, there’s no clear outcome or end destination. Which is a waste of time…
This is exactly the same principle as how Facebook ads work (or any advertising for that matter).
Therefore, before you showcase your products or services, you need to understand your market needs, and target audience, and your outcomes.
Facebook Ads work best when you have one of these 3 objectives in mind:
- Build your e-mail list by giving away something highly valuable for free.
- Driving traffic to your website so that people can read a blog post or get a freebie.
- Creating engagement from your Facebook community.
If you look closer, you will see that these three goals are very similar.
To put it simply…
We are using Facebook Ads to attract our target audience to get them onto our e-mail list.
When we sponsor our posts, each post should have the motive of getting them to our website where they get to know us more and get on our e-mail list (if they aren’t already).
Facebook Ads Targeting
One of the great things about Facebook Ads is that you can create your ads specifically to your ideal target audience.
Example: Your perfect customer/client is a 25-35 year old male, from Sydney, Australia, who likes surfing and travel, you can specifically target your ad right to this person, and create a ‘look-a-like audience that matches this particular audience.
One thing that is different about Facebook Ads is that you can’t target “buying” words like you can with Google Adwords.
If someone is searching for “best deal on surf boards” you know that they may be looking to buy surfboards soon. That is why selling a product or service directly from a Facebook Ad is more challenging.
You are going to be more successful by focusing on list-building and then using your e-mails to sell your products.
Facebook Ads and The Funnel
If you look at it like this, advertising is the link between you and your customer/client. Therefore, Facebook advertising should be used to create awareness with your audience, not generate sales. The conversion of your sales would mainly take place somewhere else like your website, for example.
I’d suggest you use most of your Ads budget on getting people connected to your e-mail list. You can do this by providing a highly-valuable offering your audience wants or needs.
The great thing is that you can measure exactly how much it costs to get someone onto your list. This is called ‘lead acquisition cost’.
By using a Facebook Conversion Pixel on your website (including every page in your marketing funnel) and you can measure when someone opts in to your e-mail list right from the Facebook Ad. Using Facebook Reports you can get detailed information on click-thru rate, cost per click (CPC), cost per conversion, and more.
Another wonderful thing about Facebook Ads is that they can go “viral” if you are offering something really good. They can get shared, people tag other people to have them see the ad, and when people interact with the ad in some way, their friends can see that activity. This is all FREE advertising for you.
Offering a free trial of a service or product can be a great way to use your Facebook ads.
Conclusion
So to answer the question: Do Facebook Ads Work?
Yes… if you have the correct strategy.
Facebook Ads work best when you are focusing on lead generation or driving targeted traffic to a website. The question is…
What can you do with your website traffic that produces results?
The best thing is to get people onto your e-mail list, then market to them consistently. Over time, sales will come, once you have established a relationship with them.
Here’s 5 steps you can use to make Facebook Ads work for you:
- Focus on sending traffic to a freebie that you offer to get people onto your e-mail list.
- Set up Facebook Website Conversion ads so that you can precisely measure the cost for each optin.
- Look at your reports and analyse which ad performs best for you.
- Use your e-mails to sell your product or services.
The bottom line is that Facebook ads absolutely work if you focus on building your email list. Sometimes the cost per conversion can be higher (depending on your offering or your niche). By split testing your ads, and trial and error, you can bring that cost down and achieve your desired results.
Good luck!
ps. if you need help refining your strategy feel free to contact us today and we can organise a strategy call to discuss your ideas.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jared Asher
Jared Asher is the Head Marketing Strategist and General Manager for Web Traffic That Works.
Jared’s business career began in 2001 when he left school to become a Dj at the age of 17.
Coupled with studies in small business management and marketing, Jared quickly learned business and PR skills which played a big role in his music career, and lead him to achieve a international status, headlining clubs and festivals with some of the most prestigious global DJ’s and Producers in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom – within a period of 5 years.
Since then, Jared has been working with small business owners and expert practitioners with building online brands.
To date, Jared has consulted and mentored a total of 352 small-business owners, expert practitioners, and musicians.
In one recent project, ‘Ezy VA – The Worlds Smartest Outsourcing Solution’, Jared helped scale the company globally, earning a 7-figure plus annual revenue, operating in over 28 countries, and building a team of 212 permanent staff & managers – within a period of 18 months.
