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BONUS
CONTENT
BRI
ANMEERT
The Complete Guide to
Facebook Advertising
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
4
Introduction
6
Chapter 1. What Is Facebook Advertising
9
Chapter 2. Getting Started: Business Page, Business
Manager, and Instagram
25
Chapter 3. Ads Manager Overview
39
Chapter 4. Facebook Ad Guidelines and Policies
47
Chapter 5. Facebook Pixel Setup
64
Chapter 6. Boosted Post, the Easiest Way to Advertise
on Facebook Ads Manager, and Power Editor
93
Chapter 7. Creating Facebook Ads
96
Chapter 8. Special Ad Types
145
Chapter 9. Business Manager
201
Chapter 10. Analyzing Your Results
251
Chapter 11. Building Your Sales Funnel
233
Chapter 12. Setting Up Remarketing
239
Chapter 13. Mastering Ad Targeting Like the Pros
243
Chapter 14. How to Master A/B Testing
251
Chapter 15. Leveraging Facebook Analytics
255
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Chapter 16. Scaling Your Facebook Ads
266
Chapter 17. Troubleshooting Ad Issues
269
Chapter 18. Understanding the Learning Phase
273
Chapter 19. Understanding Facebook’s Attribution Window
276
Chapter 20. The Psychology of Facebook Ads
279
Chapter 21. Creative Best Practices: Copy, Image, & Video
288
Chapter 22. Managing Your Facebook Page
301
Chapter 23. Messenger Bots
314
Chapter 24. Facebook Resources
331
Afterword
340
Promotions
342
Unlock Facebook’s Hidden Ad Targeting
348
Glossary
349
Submit Your Photo and Get Featured
362
About the Author
363
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Page 2 / 363
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
FREE
FACEBOOK AD
TARGETING GUIDE
Download a FREE Facebook ad targeting guide with over
850 ad targeting options to help ensure you’re targeting your
Facebook ads correctly.
advertisemint.com/complete-guide-facebook-ad-targeting
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Page 3 / 363
Acknowledgements
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It has been nearly five years since I left a full-time marketing
corporate job to create AdvertiseMint and journey into the world
of Facebook advertising. We often joke in our office that working in
Facebook advertising feels like dog years. Every year that goes by
feels like seven years because things move and change so quickly
with Facebook. I understand the landscape constantly changes and
that it can be frustrating when you’re trying to figure things out. I
created this book to teach you how to advertise on Facebook. This book
exists because of the efforts of several people. I want to thank those
individuals who helped make this book a reality.
Anne Felicitas, Editor
Thank you for working hard to meticulously edit the book and to
provide content. You made this book perfect. Thank you.
The AdvertiseMint Team
I’m blessed to work with an amazing team. The office vibe is
somewhere between a championship team and a family. I love what we
have created and the things we accomplish for our clients. You were all
an integral part in completing this book. Thank you.
Our Facebook Representatives
Thank you for the endless explanations, conference calls, and
emails that helped me understand the inner workings of Facebook’s
advertising platform. This book has cutting-edge knowledge of
Facebook advertising because of you. Thank you.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Our Clients
It’s an honor to be entrusted with the task of growing your business. I
am grateful to be a part of that journey. Thank you.
Arnold Meert & Laura Meert
You taught me to always do my best. That wisdom has paid dividends
over my life. This book is a testament to all the ways you invested
in my education, my future, and the experiences that gave me the
confidence to move forward. Thank you.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Page 5 / 363
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
The first day I saw Facebook’s advertising platform in 2014, I
instantly knew it was an advertising revolution. I was impressed by the
massive data Facebook collected from each user, data that it uses for
its never-before-seen laser-precision ad targeting. It was incredible.
After seeing the potential of Facebook’s ad targeting tools, the first
of its kind, I went home that day and created AdvertiseMint, a digital
advertising agency that specializes in social media advertising.
After several years of managing Facebook ads full time, I can
tell you that Facebook advertising is very different from traditional
and other forms of digital advertising. For one, unlike traditional
advertising, Facebook advertising requires constant supervision. When
my grandfather promoted his air-conditioning business in Miami in
the ‘60s, all he did was create an ad in the yellow pages then sit back
and wait for customers—he was done for the entire year. Facebook
ads don’t work that way. With Facebook ads, I have to check on all of
my clients’ accounts and create new ads almost every day. Times have
changed—you can’t use old traditional advertising methods and expect
them to work with Facebook ads.
Additionally, unlike traditional advertising, managing Facebook
ads requires extensive knowledge of social media, technology, and
Facebook’s advertising website, Business Manager, and the dashboard
within it, Ads Manager. However, the results are worth the headache
that comes with understanding Facebook advertising. Whether
you’re the owner of a Fortune 500 company or a start-up launching
a crowdfunding campaign, you will be able to grow and strengthen
your business with Facebook advertising. This book is for people like
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
you, people who want to grow a business but who are confused about
the platform. Before you proceed to the first chapter, there are a few
things you need to know about this book.
1. This book is the updated version
A lot has changed since this book was first published. In addition
to the frequent, nearly monthly updates to its social media and
advertising platform, Facebook had to create drastic changes after
the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which an app misused millions of
users’ data. Among the many changes arising from this event includes
the elimination of third-party data, the merge of Ads Manager and
Power Editor, and the redesign of certain Facebook features.
To accommodate the changes to Facebook advertising, this book
contains new screenshots, new steps, numerous new advise and
strategies, new chapters, and so much more.
2. This book is user friendly
Because advertising on Facebook can be a complicated process, I
wrote this book using language, explanations, and illustrations that
even my mother could understand. In fact, after reading the first
version, she left this review on Amazon “Brian says that this book is
user friendly with explanations and language that even his Mother
could understand. It is true—I am his Mom, and I agree!” Although
Facebook advertising can be a tricky and confusing subject, I promise
that if you stick with me, you’ll be running Facebook ads like a pro.
3. This book is concise
I respect your time. You probably have millions of tasks on your
plate, and reading hundreds of pages may be the last thing you want
to add to your already busy schedule. My editor and I trimmed the
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
content down to only the essentials needed to help you become an
expert in Facebook advertising in the shortest amount of time possible.
I’ve delayed your Facebook advertising lesson long enough. Let’s get
right to it.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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Chapter 1: The Whats and the Whys of Facebook Advertising
CHAPTER 1.
THE WHATS AND THE WHYS
OF FACEBOOK ADVERTISING
Digital Advertising
After the advent of the Internet, ads appeared in the World Wide
Web, the first development of digital advertising and the precursor to
social media advertising. Facebook advertising falls under the category
of digital and social media advertising. Digital because the ads exist in
the Internet and social media because Facebook is a social media site.
With digital advertising, you can better segment your target
audience, instantly reach a wider range of customers on both desktop
and mobile devices, and receive real time data on your result. Facebook
advertising, particularly, allows you to reach your targeted audience
at a lower price that other advertising platforms if you know how to
efficiently manage your ads.These benefits offers a huge advantage
over traditional advertising, which often cannot give you those three
benefits.
When you advertising on Facebook, you advertise on all of
Facebook properties, which are Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and
the Audience Network. Thus, many of the advice you read here will be
applicable to those platforms
Paid Social vs. Paid Search
Many advertisers often ask me whether they should do Google ads
or Facebook ads. Both are powerful advertising tools that help you
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
find and reach your target customer. They are like a hammer and a
saw. If you are building a house, both of those tools are valuable. The
difference between Google (paid search) and Facebook (paid social) is
the audience’s intent. With paid search, you advertise within search
engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and you pay every time a
prospective buyer clicks on your ad or every time your ad is displayed.
A search is the only way your prospective customers will find your ad.
They type the keywords of the desired item or service into the search
engine, and once the keywords match your ad’s, it will appear in the
search results. That is not the case with paid social. In fact, there is no
way prospective customers can search for your ad on a platform like
Facebook. Rather, your ads will appear in social media platforms, an
area where your customers are socializing and sharing content with
friends and family. Unlike the audience of paid search, the audience of
paid social has zero purchase intent.
Although users on Facebook lack purchase intent, Facebook’s years
of user data —interests, purchasing habits, website activity—makes
the platform a place worth purchasing ad space. Because Facebook has
years’ worth of user data, your ads can become highly personalized
and relevant to each user. To see this in action, find a friend who has
different interests than you. If you each open your Facebook app
and scroll through your feeds, you will both see ads tailored to your
interests.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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Chapter 1: The Whats and the Whys of Facebook Advertising
Why Facebook Ads
Here are ten reasons why you should use Facebook advertising to
grow your business.
1. Facebook has a massive audience.
As of 2017, Facebook has more than 2.23 billion monthly active
users—that’s 2.23 billion potential customers. Facebook has not only a
large audience but also the highest user activity. Currently, Facebook
is the most popular social media networking service. Data from Pew
Research Center shows that 70 percent of US Facebook users access
the site daily, and 43 percent of the 70 percent access it multiple
times a day. Additionally, 82 percent of people aged 18 to 29 are active
Facebook users. 1With this many users, you have a higher chance of
reaching your target audience.
2. Facebook has laser-precision targeting.
Traditional advertising on the radio and in print works well if
you want to target a local audience; for example, a radio ad can only
play within the radius of a tower. Similarly, mailbox flyers will only
reach households close to your business. Facebook ads aren’t limited
by those restrictions. You can send an ad anywhere in the world.
Additionally, Facebook advertising has what most forms of traditional
advertising don’t have: specific laser-precision targeting. You can
target an audience with specific lifestyles, behaviors, demographics,
and interests. For example, a company selling electronics can target
single men aged 18 to 30 living within a five-mile radius of 7080
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, in an apartment, with an annual
1
Amanda Lenhart, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, and Kathryn Zickuhr, “Part 3: Social
Media,” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech., February 2, 2010, accessed July 14,
2017, http://www.pewinternet.org/2010/02/03/part-3-social-media/
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
salary of $50,000. By targeting an audience with specific traits that you
define, you can target an audience that is most likely interested in your
business.
3. Facebook is cost effective.
Unless your company is as big as Coke or Nike, traditional
advertising may be too expensive for you. On average, local television
stations charge from $200 to $1,500 for a thirty-second commercial.
Meanwhile, print advertising can range from $500 to $20,000. With
traditional advertising, it’s difficult to internationally spread brand
awareness unless you have a substantial amount of money stowed
away somewhere. Facebook advertising, in contrast, is so cost effective
that even small businesses, start-ups, and mom-and-pop shops can
afford it.
4. Facebook has a powerful audience insights tool.
When you advertise on Facebook, you’ll have access to Audience
insights. Audience insights provide you with real-time information
about the people who interacted with your ad, including their
geographies, lifestyles, demographics, and purchase behaviors. You
can then use the information from Audience insights to improve your
campaigns by adjusting your target audience, budget, and placements.
5. Facebook reaches a huge mobile audience.
According to a Time article, Facebook, Messenger, and Facebookowned Instagram are listed in the top ten frequently downloaded
mobile apps in the world. 2Because more people access social media
through mobile phones rather than through desktops, it’s important
2
Lisa Eadicicco, “These Are the Most Popular iPhone Apps of 2016,” Time, December 6, 2016,
accessed July 17, 2017. http://time.com/4592864/most-popular-iphone-apps-2016/.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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Chapter 1: The Whats and the Whys of Facebook Advertising
that social media companies garner a large mobile audience.
6. Facebook allows you to target loyal customers.
Custom Audience is a Facebook advertising feature that allows
you to advertise to specific Facebook users in your already existing
customer list. Once you upload your customer list, Facebook will
match the first and last names, email addresses, and phone numbers
of your customers from your list to existing Facebook users. Facebook
will then serve ads to the matched individuals.
7. Facebook lets you increase your best customers.
Once you’ve uploaded your customer list to Facebook, you can
target ads to users who are similar to the customers in your current
customer by creating a Lookalike Audience. In doing so, you’re
expanding an audience most likely interested in your business.
8. Facebook lets you advertise on multiple platforms.
Facebook allows you to advertise on its mobile News Feed, desktop
News Feed, and right column. You can also advertise outside of
Facebook, such as through the Instagram feed, Instagram Stories
(because Facebook owns Instagram), and the Audience Network, a
network of partners that allow you to advertise through their apps
and websites. Advertising on multiple platforms allows you to not
only reach a wider audience but also to lower placements costs. For
example, if the CPCs for Facebook are more expensive for your ad,
you can advertise on the alternative options, whether that’s on the
Audience Network, Instagram feed, or Instagram Stories
9. Facebook lets you A/B test everything.
Facebook allows you to test one ad element against another: you
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
can test copy against copy, images against images, audience against
audience, and demographics against demographics. With fast, realtime results, A/B testing allows you to improve and perfect your ad
10. Facebook lets you collect users’ information with Lead Ads.
Lead Ads, which often include a call-to-action button that says
“subscribe” or “sign up,” provide a quick and easy way for users to
give contact information. Once users click the CTA button, they will
be redirected to a mobile-friendly form that automatically fills in the
information they provided on Facebook.
Lead Ads are beneficial because they accommodate users who are
often busy. Not only do the ads allow users to type fewer words, but
they also provide you with accurate information. Most important,
they allow you to connect with an audience that is interested in your
products or services.
There are multiple benefits to Facebook advertising, and people in
business selling products and services aren’t the only ones who need
to use it. Anyone who depends on post engagement and exposure,
such as news websites and bloggers, need to move from organic posts
to paid posts because on January of 2018 Facebook updated its feed
algorithm to reduce businesses’ and brands’ content on News Feed.
It’s disappointing to hear, and you may see the change as Facebook
betraying the people whose revenue it depends on, but the company
made the difficult decision to make users happy. As if the News
Feeds’ overpopulation isn’t hard enough to deal with, the change in
Facebook’s algorithm means you have to pay to play.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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Chapter 1: The Whats and the Whys of Facebook Advertising
What Is a Facebook Ad?
In traditional advertising, there are several types of ads you
can use. You can use TV ads, radio ads, and print ads, just to name a
few. Different ad types also exist in Facebook advertising. There are
sponsored stories that appear in Facebook’s News Feed and Facebook
ads that appear on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network. In this
section, I discuss the different types of Facebook ads.
Ads
Notice the posts on your News Feed that
contain a call to action and a “Sponsored ”
tag? Those posts aren’t organic posts like the
ones from your friends and family. Those
are Facebook ads. Although they are most
noticeable on News Feed, they also appear
on the right side of your feed, in the apps
and websites of third-party partners, in
Messenger, and in Instagram. You can tell
the difference between an ad and a regular
Facebook post by the “Sponsored” tag located
Figure 1.1
A News Feed Ad
on the upper-left corner of the ad.
When you create Facebook ads, you can choose your objective,
budget, target audience, ad format, creatives, and placements. You can
place your ads on Facebook, Instagram, or in the Audience Network,
and you can choose from a variety of ad formats, including Carousel,
single image, and video.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Boosted Posts
Boosted Posts are regular posts that you
post through your business page and pay
to show to an audience with the targeting
that you define. Whereas regular posts only
appear once to your followers’ News Feeds,
boosted posts appear to a target audience
you choose, even an audience that isn’t your
followers. Like an ad, Boosted Posts will
repeatedly appear in your audience’s feed for
the amount of time that you choose. To boost
a post, you must publish a status update on
your Facebook page and pay Facebook to
turn it into an ad.
Figure 1.2
A boosted post
Stories
Stories ads are ten- to fifteen-second fullscreen vertical video ads that appear between
Instagram users’ Stories, videos or photos
that disappear from the Stories bar after
twenty-four hours. Although this ad is only
exclusive to Instagram, you can only create
it in Facebook’s Ads Manager. Much like
Instagram, Facebook, too, has its own version
of Stories, although it is not yet monetized.
Figure 1.3
An Instagram Stories ad
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Chapter 1: The Whats and the Whys of Facebook Advertising
How Facebook Compares to Other Social
Media Platforms
Is Facebook the best social media advertising platform? It’s hard to
say. Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses. When considering
your advertising options, instead of asking which is the best, ask
yourself which platform fits better for your business, which will
allow you to create the type of campaign you want and the type of
audience you want to target. There are a few stats you need to review
to determine which is the best, including the platform’s user base and
the demographics.
Active Users, 2018
Active users are the number of individuals that visit a social
platform monthly or daily. It’s important to compare each social
platform’s number of active users to determine which one is the most
popular, which one buzzes with the most activity. Remember, these
users are your audience. If a platform has more users, you have a
larger audience and consequently a larger group of potential
customers. If a platform has fewer active users, a fewer number of
individuals will see your ad. Here’s a comparison of active users from
the six most popular social media platforms.
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Snapchat
Youtube
Monthly
Active
Users
2.23
Billion
336
Million
200
Million
1
Billion
300
Million
1.8
Billion
Daily
Active
Users
1.47
Bilion
100
Million
6.6
Million
191
Million
187
Million
60
Million
Figure 1.4
A comparison of active users
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Out of six social media platforms, Facebook has the most monthly
active users with YouTube (1.8 billion) and Instagram (1 billion) trailing
behind. Pinterest comes in fourth place, Twitter in fifth, and Snapchat
in sixth
Demographics, 2018
Your choice of social media platform shouldn’t rely on active users
alone. You should also consider the demographics of each platform. For
example, if you sell women’s clothing, you want to make sure the social
platform you choose is mainly comprised of women. If your target
demographic is mostly older women, then Facebook is a better fit for
you than Snapchat. Examine the data below from the Pew Research
Center’s Social Media Fact Sheet.
Figure 1.5 A comparison of social
media demographics
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Chapter 1: The Whats and the Whys of Facebook Advertising
For Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat, their
users are mostly comprised of female Millennials. YouTube is also
mostly comprised of Millennials, but there are more men than women
on the platform. All of the platforms are mostly comprised by college
graduates, except for Snapchat, whose users have some college
education. This may be because most Snapchat users are teenagers
in middle school, high school, and college. While all of the platform’s
users live in urban areas, most of Pinterest’s users come from
suburban areas, which isn’t surprising, considering Pinterest is filled
with DIY home-décor content.
Because each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses,
for example, Facebook is mostly comprised of older users while
Snapchat is mostly comprised of younger individuals, I recommend
using multiple social platforms for your campaign. Often, people who
advertise on Facebook also advertise on Google and Instagram, and
people who advertise on Snapchat also advertise on Instagram. You
don’t only have to pick one. In fact, it may benefit you to choose
Key Facebook Advertising Terms
Throughout this book, I’ll be using Facebook advertising jargon
that you might not understand, words such as “News Feed,” “user,”
and “objective.” These are words that every Facebook advertiser must
know. This chapter is dedicated to a few common Facebook advertising
terms. If, as you read this book, you stumble on a term that isn’t listed
here, you can refer to the glossary.
Audience Network
A placement potion that allows you to place ads in the websites and
apps of Facebook’s partners. Partners include the Huffington Post and
the Cut the Rope app.
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Bid
The amount you’re willing to pay to display
your ad.
Call-to-Action (CTA) Buttons
Buttons that urge users to perform a
desired action, whether that action is to
learn more, sign up, shop now, or call now.
Available on every Facebook ad, these
buttons will send users to a landing page
or, if your ad is a Lead Ad, to a prefilled
form.
Figure 1.6
The CTA button is located on the
bottom right corner of the ad
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
An online advertising pricing method in which you pay for each
specified acquisition (or action). For example, you can choose to pay $5
an impression, click, form submit, or sale. Depending on your budget,
you can adjust the price you would like to pay per acquisition, and
Facebook will adjust your delivery accordingly.
Engagement
The actions that occur on an ad, such as likes, shares, comments, views,
and clicks.
Facebook Pixel
A piece of JavaScript code that tracks web visitors’ actions on your
website.
Frequency
The average number of times Facebook showed your ad to a user.
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Chapter 1: The Whats and the Whys of Facebook Advertising
Native Advertising
A type of disguised online advertising in which marketers create ads
that match the look, tone, and function of regular, unpaid posts. Native
ads, unlike sidebar ads, appear inside the News Feed, among posts
by friends and family. News Feed ads, the hardest Facebook ads to
distinguish from unpaid posts, are an example of native ads. You will
know that a post is an ad if it’s labeled as “Sponsored” underneath the
publisher’s name. Otherwise, News Feed ads look similar to regular
posts.
News Feed
The constantly updating list of posts, status updates, and ads on
Facebook.
Negative Feedback
The number of times users make an unwanted action such as hiding
your ads, choosing not to see your ads, reporting your ads as spam.
Having too many negative feedback will negatively affect your ad’s
performance.
Objective
The action you want users to take when they see your ad. Objectives
include clicks, conversions, engagement, page likes, app installs, app
engagement, and video views.
Optimized Bidding
A bidding option that allows advertisers to optimize a bid and delivery
for a specific objective (or goal).
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Placement
The area where your ad appears. Placement options include desktop
News Feed, mobile News Feed, right column, Instagram feed,
Instagram Stories, Audience Network, and in-stream videos.
Positive Feedback
The number of times your target audience makes a desired action,
whether that’s sharing, liking, or converting. Having a lot of positive
feedback positively affects your ad’s performance.
Reach
The total number of users who saw your ad. This metric counts the
number of users who saw your ad and the number of times those users
saw your ad. For example, if one person saw your ad twice, Facebook
will count that as two users reached.
Relevance Score
A metric that estimates in real time your ad’s relevance to its target
audience. The more relevant an ad is to your audience, the better it’s
likely to perform. Ads with high relevance scores are shown to your
audience more often than ads with low relevance scores. Facebook
represents your ads’ relevance score with a rating of one to ten, one
being the least relevant and ten being the most relevant. Facebook
determines whether your ad is relevant to your audience by weighing
its positive and negative feedback.
Targeting
A set of specific descriptions you use to describe the audience to whom
you want to show your ads. Targeting is usually a combination of
interests, behaviors, demographics, and locations that you define.
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Chapter 1: The Whats and the Whys of Facebook Advertising
User
A person who regularly uses social media networking sites such as
Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, or Instagram. Users are the people who
see your ads.
Winning the Facebook “Lottery”
Before I get into more detail about Facebook advertising, I want
to address a common misconception. I see many new Facebook
advertisers believe this common misconception: Facebook is a magic
platform that instantly generates millions of dollars overnight as
though it were some lottery. This misconception often comes from
business owners boasting about getting great results from Facebook
ads in an attempt to persuade people into purchasing their courses.
Although it is possible to win the Facebook “lottery” (I’ve seen it
happen multiple times), in reality Facebook requires a lot of hard work
to gain large profits. This is the common situation for many Facebook
advertisers.
Finding the customers who will buy from you takes time. Once
your ad is live on the platform, Facebook will find the customers who
it thinks will complete the action you want them to complete, based
on past user data that Facebook collected. The data collected includes
interests, behaviors, and website activity collected from the pixel. For
example, two dog owners are seeing your ad for pet supplies. One dog
owner purchases pet supplies once a month while the other purchases
every day. Facebook will first show the ad to the second person
because that person is a frequent pet supply buyer who will most
likely respond to your ad and purchase the advertised item. Because
Facebook shows the ads to those most likely to convert, the lowest
hanging fruit, you will often see the best results in the beginning of
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your campaign. However, as time goes on, the ad must expand beyond
the perfect match to the less perfectly matched users, those who are
not as likely to respond to your ad.
Because of how Facebook targeting works, expect ad prices, and
consequently, your results, to rise over time. This happens because it
gets harder and harder to find customers who will convert. Not only
that, more and more advertisers are using the platform, increasing
the bidding competition. To resist the false promise of the Facebook
“lottery,” dedicate a specific budget towards Facebook ads and set it to
a short amount of time to ensure you can update and modify the ads as
you see the results change.
To succeed in Facebook advertising, remember that social media
ads are very different. They have elements that are unavailable for
traditional advertising. These elements include the comments section
where customers can write a negative comment based on their
experience. If an ad is boring or serves no value to users, they can click
the “hide this ad” button, which will prevent them from seeing more
ads from you. These elements can help or harm your ads, causing the
prices to increase or decrease. In the same way, if users are seeing
the same ad over and over again, they are most likely to scan past it,
lowering your relevance score and hurting your ad.
When it comes to winning the Facebook “lottery,” my advice
is simple: you should expect a lot of work to succeed in Facebook
advertising. If you’re unable to do all of the work yourself, you should
hire an agency like AdvertiseMint, which brings in an entire team of
account managers, copywriters, graphic designers, and video editors to
do the work for you.
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Chapter 2. Getting Started: Business Page, Business Manager, and Instagram
CHAPTER 2.
GETTING STARTED: BUSINESS PAGE,
BUSINESS MANAGER, AND INSTAGRAM
To advertise on Facebook, you must have a Facebook account, a
Facebook page, and a Business Manager account that you only need
if you’re managing multiple accounts. Although not required, I also
recommend having an Instagram account to run Instagram ads. This
chapter guides you through the process of creating a Facebook profile,
Facebook page, Business Manager account, and Instagram account.
Setting Up a Facebook Profile
Creating a Facebook profile takes less than five minutes, and it is
the first step needed to advertise on Facebook. Facebook requires all
advertising be done from a user account. Follow these steps to set up a
profile.
Step 1: Go to www.facebook.com. Enter the information. Click Sign Up
Use the email that you frequently check because that email will receive
important notifications about your ad campaigns.
Step 2: Edit profile
Step 3: Add a photo
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Setting Up a Business Page
The next step is creating a Facebook page. It’s important to own a
Facebook page because it will be the account that represents your ads.
Step 1: Click Create
Step 2: Choose page type
Choose the page type that represents your entity. If you own a
business or a brand, choose “Business or Brand.” If you’re using your
page to connect with your community, group, organization, team, or
club, then choose “Community or Public Figure.”
Step 3: Add page name and category
Because of Facebook’s branding policy, you’re not allowed to include
the word Facebook in your page name. Doing so will result in an error
message. When creating a page name, don’t write something like
“Facebook advertising agency” or “Facebook ads.”
When choosing your category, write a word or two that best describes
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Chapter 2. Getting Started: Business Page, Business Manager, and Instagram
your page. When you type in the first keyword, a dropdown list of
options will automatically appear.
Step 4: Add a profile picture
Because your profile picture will be the face of your business, use your
logo to help users quickly associate your page with your business when
it appears in Facebook’s search results. The profile picture will also
appear on the upper-left corner of your ads.
Step 5: Add a cover photo
Although your cover photo should also represent your business, I don’t
recommend using your logo if you’re already using it as your profile
picture. Instead, use a cover photo that relates to your business. Your
cover photo must make your page appear professional. Unlike your
profile picture, your cover photo will not appear on your Facebook ads.
Setting Up an Instagram Account
Step 1: Download the Instagram app
Step 2: Sign up with email or phone number
Step 3: Enter full name and password
Step 4: Add profile photo
Step 5: Add contacts
Step 6: Connect to Facebook
Step 7: Go to Settings >> Sign up for a Business Profile >> Create New
Account. Enter email, business name, and password
Step 8: Connect to your Facebook page
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Setting Up a Business Manager Account
If you only plan to manage a single ad account and business page,
you can continue without Business Manager. However, if you will
manage multiple accounts and pages, you must sign up for a Business
Manager account.
Business Manager is the website you will use to manage all of your
assets for Facebook advertising such as pages, ad accounts, Instagram
accounts, product catalogs, and mobile apps. It allows you to create ads
and manage, control, and share ad accounts, pages, and other assets.
Everything you do as a Facebook advertiser—creating ads, analyzing
results, managing your campaigns—you can do here.
Step 1: Log in to Facebook. Go to business.facebook.com. Click Create
Account
Step 2: Add business name
Add a business name for your account. If you are the business
owner, use your business name. If you work for a business, use
your personal name. You can change your account name any time
afterward.
After you create your business account, you’ll need to transfer any
assets you want to manage under that account. The most common are
pages, other ad accounts, and Instagram accounts.
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Chapter 2. Getting Started: Business Page, Business Manager, and Instagram
Adding a Page to Business Manager
Step 1: Click Business Settings >> Accounts >> Pages >> Click Add You
You will see three options:
●● Add a Page: Choose this option if you are the owner of the page.
●● Request Access to a Page: Choose this if someone else owns the
page, but you need access to manage it.
●● Create a New Page: Choose this option if you want to create a new
page.
If you choose to add a page or request access to a page, the next
step will show you a search bar. Enter the name of the page. Select the
correct page and enter the type of role you’re requesting. You have five
roles to choose from.
Page admin
Page admins can manage all aspects of the page. They can create
ads, view insights, assign page roles, publish posts and respond to
comments and messages as the page, edit page details, and more.
Page editor
Page editors can manage almost all aspects of the page. Like the
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
admin, they can create ads, view insights, assign page roles, publish
posts and respond to comments and messages as the page, edit page
details, and more.
Page moderator
Page moderators can create ads, view insights, assign page roles,
publish posts and respond to comments and messages as the page, edit
page details, and more.
Page advertiser
Page advertisers can create ads, view insights, manage branded
content settings, and see which admin created a post or wrote a
comment.
Page analyst
Page analysts can view insights, manage branded content settings,
and see which admin created a post or wrote a comment.
If you link your business page to Business Manager, you won’t
be able to edit your page from your Facebook app. You will need
to download the Facebook Pages app, which has several advanced
features.
Connecting with Your Partner
Sharing Access with an Ad Account
To connect with a partner, for example the person whose account
you want to manage, you must first copy your ad account ID, which
you can find from the Ad Accounts tab in Business Settings (Business
Settings >> Accounts >> Ad Accounts). The ID, enclosed in parenthesis,
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Chapter 2. Getting Started: Business Page, Business Manager, and Instagram
is located next to the account name. After you copied your account ID,
you can send it to your partner, who will then use it to add you to the
account. There are two ways you can connect with a partner: you can
request access (via a business ID or by sending a link) or claim your
partner’s ad account.
Figure 2.1
Where to find your account ID
Option 1: Request Access Using Business ID
Step 1: Click Ad Accounts
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Step 2: Choose ad account. Click Assign Partner
Step 3: Click Connect Your Ad Account Using Your Partner’s Business
ID Instead.
Step 4: Choose account role, enter business ID (ad account ID), and
click Connect.
Admin: Admins have full access to ad accounts and pages. They can
create and modify ad campaigns, assign roles, change settings, and
more.
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Chapter 2. Getting Started: Business Page, Business Manager, and Instagram
Advertiser: Although advertisers don’t have full access to ad accounts,
they can make advertising-related actions such as editing billing
information and editing and creating ads.
Analyst: Analysts can review the performance of your campaigns but
cannot edit or modify them.
Step 6: Click Close
Your partner will receive an alert about access to the account.
Option 2: Send Link
Step 1: Select role, copy link, and close. Send link to partner
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Option 3: Claiming an Ad Account
Claiming an ad account differs from requesting access. When you
claim an ad account, you’re claiming complete ownership of that
account—you’re claiming that it’s yours. People who claim ad accounts
normally claim an ad account that they created, not an account
that someone else created. When you request access, on the other
hand, you’re not taking the account away from the owner. You’re
simply asking for access so you and the owner can work together
on campaigns. If you’re part of an agency or if you’re advertising
on behalf of the account owner, you should request access instead.
Nonetheless, it’s important to learn how to claim an ad account in the
event that you need to do so.
Step 1: Go to Accounts >> Ad Accounts >> Add >> Request Access to an
Ad Account
Step 2: Enter ad account ID . Choose the ad account role. Click Confirm
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Chapter 2. Getting Started: Business Page, Business Manager, and Instagram
Creating a New Ad Account
There might come a time when you will have to create a new ad
account (perhaps your ad account was blocked by Facebook or labeled
as spam by users). Make sure not to create too many ad accounts
because Facebook caps you at four to prevent fraud. Once you create
four ad accounts, Facebook will no longer let you create a new one
Step 1: Click Add >> Create a New Ad Account.
Step 2: Fill in required fields. Click Create Ad Account
Step 3: Add people to your account and choose account roles
You can assign roles when selecting people to add to your ad account.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Assigning Ad Account Roles
Often, managing accounts by your lonesome is a difficult endeavor.
With a business to run and a personal life to maintain, overseeing
multiple assets can be overwhelming and exhausting. Fortunately,
adding people on Business Manager to lend you some extra help is fast
and easy. On Business Manager, you can add multiple people to your
existing ad accounts and assign them roles.
Step 1: Go to Ad accounts. Click Add People
Step 2: Choose person. Assign role. Click Save Changes
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Chapter 2. Getting Started: Business Page, Business Manager, and Instagram
Adding an Instagram Account to
Business Manager
Step 1: Go to Accounts >> Instagram Accounts
Step 2: Select the + Add button.
Step 3: Enter the username and password for any Instagram accounts
you manage.
Business Manager Settings
In Settings, you can view and update ad account settings and edit
your account information, such as your account name, the country
where your business is located, and your business address. You can also
edit your notification settings (figure 2.2) and view, add, or remove ad
account roles (figure 2.3).
Figure 2.2
A look inside the ad account settings page
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Figure 2.3
Viewing, adding, or removing ad accounts
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Chapter 3: Ads Manager Overview
CHAPTER 3. ADS MANAGER OVERVIEW
Ads Manager, accessible from Business Manager’s drop-down
menu, is a dashboard within Business Manager where you can create,
view, and edit ads, as well as access performance reports for all of your
campaigns. Previously, Ads Manager existed alongside Power Editor,
another dashboard that allows you to create, view, and edits ads.
However, in 2017 Facebook converged Power Editor and Ads Manager
for simplicity’s sake. Now, you can only create and edit all ads in Ads
Manager.
Figure 3.1
Where to find Ads Manager
When you access the new Ads Manager, you will choose between
two types of workflows, one called complete campaign and the other
called campaign shells. If you preferred Ads Manager over Power
Editor or if you are new to Facebook advertising, choose the complete
campaign workflow because it features Ads Manager’s user-friendly
guided creation. If you preferred Power Editor, choose campaign shells
because, much like with Power Editor, you can create parts of your ad
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
to complete later, and you can create your ads non-sequentially.
In Ads Manager, you’ll notice three tabs: campaigns, ad sets, and
ads. These are the different levels of ad creation.
Campaign level:
In the campaign level, which contains one or more ad sets and ads,
you can choose an objective, turn on or off all ad sets and ads, and
measure the performance of each objective across multiple ad sets and
ads.
Ad sets level:
In the ad sets level, which contains one or more ads, you can choose
your audience, schedule, budget, and placements. You can do three
things that you can’t do in other levels: you can create separate ad sets
for each audience, choose either a daily budget or a lifetime budget,
and test ad sets against each other.
Ads level:
In the ads level, which contains only a single ad, you can add
creatives, copies, and links.
Think of these levels as a matryoshka doll. Open the campaign
level, and you will find ad sets within it. Open the ad sets level, and you
will find ads within it. Open the ads level, and you will find a single ad
within it. The deeper you go into these levels, the smaller they get. The
ads you create are automatically organized in these three levels. If you
want to view or edit certain parts of your ads, you must visit certain
levels. For example, you can edit your audience in the ads level and
your objective in the campaign level. As you probably have guessed,
you can take different actions in different levels.
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Chapter 3: Ads Manager Overview
It’s important that you understand these levels to easily improve
your ad’s performance. Understanding the structure helps you
measure results, test different audiences, and identify which ads work
best.
Figure 3.2
The three editing levels in Power Editor
Other than create and edit ads, you can also view all of your
Facebook payment history, change your bids and budgets, export ad
performance reports from the reports tab, and pause or restart your
ads at any time in Ads Manager. Ads Manager contains features that
will help you better manage your ads. Those features include data
exports, filters, and performance views, just to name a few.
Your Accounts
You can view all of
your ad accounts on
Ads Manager and easily
switch from one to the
other. You will also
find your ad account
number there, which
you will need when
requesting ad account
help from Facebook or
Figure 3.3
A dropdown menu containing ad accounts
when working with a partner who needs access to one or all of your
accounts.
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Search
Below the tab with all of your
ad accounts, you will find the
search tab, which you will use to
search a campaign name, ad set
name, ad name, and campaign
ID, among many others. This tab
is particularly helpful when you
have a list of hundreds of ads you
need to search through. Instead of
scrolling through the long list of
ads and clicking on each of them,
you can instead use the search tab
Figure 3.4
Search by name or ID
to find the specifics of an ad that you need
to view or edit.
Filter Options
Next to the search button, is the filters
button. With this, you can filter what
you want to see on your ads report. For
example, if you want to know which of
your ads are delivering, you can choose to
filter by active ads. You can also filter by
objective, buying type, and metrics.
Figure 3.5
Filter options
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Chapter 3: Ads Manager Overview
Filter by Days
You can also choose which campaigns you want to view by days. For
example, you can see campaigns from the last seven, fourteen, or
thirty days.
View Your Performance
Figure 3.6
Filter by Days
If you want to know how your campaigns are doing, you can do so
by clicking the columns tab. You can choose specific performances you
want to view such as delivery, engagement, video engagement, and
app engagement, among many others.
Figure 3.7
Viewing campaign performance
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Breakdown
Next to the performance tab, you will see a breakdown tab. This tab
shows you the breakdowns of your campaigns. If you want a report of
your audience’s age in your campaigns, you can filter by age. If you
want to see other data for gender, country, region, or impression
device, among many others, you can also find that in the breakdown
dropdown menu.
Export Data
Figure 3.8
The breakdown tab
If you want to download the data for the campaign specifics you
searched for, you can do so by exporting the files into a spreadsheet.
Step 1: Click “Export Table Data”
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Chapter 3: Ads Manager Overview
Step 2: Choose file type >> click “Export.”
Step 3: Download file
Step 4: You’re done
Your file has been saved according to your chosen file type.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Ads Manager Mobile App
Fortunately, you can keep a close eye on your account even when
you’re away from your computer. After recognizing the growing
number of advertisers who use their phones more often than their
computers, Facebook launched the Ads Manager app in 2015, available
for iOS, Android phones, and tablets. The app helps you manage
and monitor your accounts while on the go and allows you to track
performance, create and edit ads, ad budgets and schedules, receive
push notifications, pause or resume campaigns, and respond to alerts.
There are four features that make managing your accounts easier
while on the go: the home page, comparative view of your campaigns,
weekly summary, and recommended actions.
Home page: The home page contains quick-view summaries of your
accounts, ads, and pages.
Campaigns: You can view several campaigns side by side to compare
their metrics.
Weekly summary: The app also provides a weekly summary of your
campaign performances as well as other information about your ad
account and creatives.
Recommended actions: The app will also recommend actions to help
you improve your ad performance.
You can download the app using these links:
Google Play - play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.
adsmanager
App Store - itunes.apple.com/us/app/facebook-ads-manager/id964397083
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Chapter 4: Facebook Ad Guidlines and Policies
CHAPTER 4.
FACEBOOK AD GUIDELINES AND POLICIES
Your Instagram and Facebook ads must abide by Facebook’s ad
policies. When you submit your ads for approval, Facebook will review
them to ensure they aren’t violating its policies. It will check your ads’
image, text, targeting, positioning, and landing page. Facebook will
review your ads within 24 hours, although some ads may take longer.
After the review process, Facebook will send you an email notification
stating whether your ads were approved.
If your ads don’t abide by Facebook’s policies, they will be rejected.
If your ads were rejected, you must edit them according to Facebook’s
disapproval details. If you think your ads were falsely disapproved, you
can appeal the decision. 3To avoid delays and confusion, it’s important
that you carefully study Facebook’s advertising policies, which I have
included in this chapter. You can also read Facebook’s policies online.4
3
Appeal at https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/1582364792025146/.
4
Visit Facebook’s policy online at https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/.
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Prohibited Content
1. Community Standards
Ads must not violate our Community Standards. Ads on Instagram
must not violate the Instagram Community Guidelines.
2. Illegal Products or Services
Ads must not constitute, facilitate, or promote illegal products,
services or activities. Ads targeted to minors must not promote
products, services, or content that are inappropriate, illegal, or unsafe,
or that exploit, mislead, or exert undue pressure on the age groups
targeted.
3. Discriminatory Practices
Ads must not discriminate or encourage discrimination against
people based on personal attributes such as race, ethnicity, color,
national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity,
family status, disability, medical or genetic condition.
4. Tobacco Products
Ads must not promote the sale or use of tobacco products and
related paraphernalia.
5. Drugs & Drug-Related Products
Ads must not promote the sale or use of illegal, prescription, or
recreational drugs.
6. Unsafe Supplements
Ads must not promote the sale or use of unsafe supplements, as
determined by Facebook in its sole discretion.
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7. Weapons, Ammunition, or Explosives
Ads must not promote the sale or use of weapons, ammunition, or
explosives. This includes ads for weapon modification accessories.
8. Adult Products or Services
Ads must not promote the sale or use of adult products or
services, except for ads for family planning and contraception. Ads
for contraceptives must focus on the contraceptive features of the
product, and not on sexual pleasure or sexual enhancement, and must
be targeted to people 18 years or older.
9. Adult Content
Ads must not contain adult content. This includes nudity, depictions
of people in explicit or suggestive positions, or activities that are
overly suggestive or sexually provocative.
10. Third-Party Infringement
Ads must not contain content that infringes upon or violates the
rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy,
publicity, or other personal or proprietary rights. To report content
that you feel may infringe upon or violate your rights, please visit our
Intellectual Property Help Center.
11. Sensational Content
Ads must not contain shocking, sensational, disrespectful or
excessively violent content.
12. Personal Attributes
Ads must not contain content that asserts or implies personal
attributes. This includes direct or indirect assertions or implications
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about a person’s race, ethnic origin, religion, beliefs, age, sexual
orientation or practices, gender identity, disability, medical condition
(including physical or mental health), financial status, membership in a
trade union, criminal record, or name.
13. Misleading or False Content
Ads, landing pages, and business practices must not contain
deceptive, false, or misleading content, including deceptive claims,
offers, or methods.
14. Controversial Content
Ads must not contain content that exploits controversial political or
social issues for commercial purposes.
15. Non-Functional Landing Page
Ads must not direct people to non-functional landing pages. This
includes landing page content that interferes with a person’s ability to
navigate away from the page.
16. Surveillance Equipment
Ads may not promote the sale of spy cams, mobile phone trackers
or other hidden surveillance equipment.
17. Grammar & Profanity
Ads must not contain profanity or bad grammar and punctuation.
Symbols, numbers and letters must be used properly without
the intention of circumventing our ad review process or other
enforcement systems.
18. Nonexistent Functionality
Ads must not contain images that portray nonexistent
functionality.
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19. Personal Health
Ads must not contain “before-and-after” images or images that
contain unexpected or unlikely results. Ad content must not imply or
attempt to generate negative self-perception in order to promote diet,
weight loss, or other health related products. Ads for health, fitness or
weight loss products must be targeted to people 18 years or older.
20. Payday or Cash Advance Loans
Ads must not promote payday loans, paycheck advances or any
other short-term loan intended to cover someone’s expenses until
their next payday.
21. Multilevel Marketing
Ads promoting income opportunities must fully describe the
associated product or business model, and must not promote business
models offering quick compensation for little investment, including
multilevel marketing opportunities.
22. Penny Auctions
Ads may not promote penny auctions, bidding fee auctions or other
similar business models.
23. Counterfeit Documents
Ads may not promote fake documents, such as counterfeit degrees,
passports or immigration papers.
24. Low Quality or Disruptive Content
Ads must not contain content leading to external landing pages
that provide an unexpected or disruptive experience. This includes
misleading ad positioning, such as overly sensationalized headlines,
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and leading people to landing pages that contain minimal original
content and a majority of unrelated or low quality ad content.
25. Spyware or Malware
Ads must not contain spyware, malware, or any software that
results in an unexpected or deceptive experience. This includes links
to sites containing these products.
26. Automatic Animation
Ads must not contain audio or flash animation that plays
automatically without a person’s interaction or expands within
Facebook after someone clicks on the ad.
27. Unauthorized Streaming Devices
Ads must not promote products or items that facilitate or
encourage unauthorized access to digital media.
28. Circumventing Systems
Ads must not use tactics intended to circumvent our ad review
process or other enforcement systems. This includes techniques that
attempt to disguise the ad’s content or destination page.
29. Prohibited Financial Products and Services
Ads must not promote financial products and services that are
frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional
practices.
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Restricted Content
1. Alcohol
Ads that promote or reference alcohol must comply with all
applicable local laws, required or established industry codes,
guidelines, licenses and approvals, and include age and country
targeting criteria consistent with Facebook’s targeting guidelines
and applicable local laws. Note that ads promoting or referencing
alcohol are prohibited in some countries, including but not limited
to: Afghanistan, Brunei, Bangladesh, Egypt, Gambia, Kuwait, Libya,
Lithuania, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab
Emirates and Yemen.
2. Dating
Ads for online dating services are only allowed with prior written
permission. These must adhere to the dating targeting requirements
and our dating quality guidelines found here. In order to be a
registered dating partner, please fill out this form to begin your
application process.
3. Real Money Gambling
Ads that promote or facilitate online real money gambling, real
money games of skill or real money lotteries, including online
real money casino, sports books, bingo, or poker, are only allowed
with prior written permission. Authorized gambling, games of
skill or lottery ads must target people 18 years or older who are in
jurisdictions for which permission has been granted.
4. State Lotteries
Lotteries run by government entities may advertise on Facebook,
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provided the ads are targeted in accordance with applicable law in the
jurisdiction in which the ads will be served and only target people in
the jurisdiction in which the lottery is available.
5. Online Pharmacies
Ads must not promote the sale of prescription pharmaceuticals.
Ads for online and offline pharmacies are only permitted with prior
written permission.
6. Supplements
Ads that promote acceptable dietary and herbal supplements may
only target people who are at least 18 years of age.
7. Subscription Services
Ads for subscription services, or that promote products or services
that include negative options, automatic renewal, free-to-pay
conversion billing products, or mobile marketing are subject to our
subscription services requirements.
8. Financial Services
Ads promoting credit card applications or financial services with
accredited institutions must clearly provide sufficient disclosure
regarding associated fees, including APR percentages transaction
fees, within the ad’s landing page. Ads promoting loans or insurance
services must not directly request the input of a person’s financial
information, including credit card information.
9. Branded Content
Ads promoting branded content must tag the featured third party
product, brand or business partner using the branded content tool.
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Branded content within ads is defined as a creator or publisher’s
content that features or is influenced by a business partner for an
exchange of value. When promoting branded content integrations,
advertisers must use the branded content tool (please learn more here
on how to tag the featured third party product, brand or business
partner).
10. Student Loan Services
Ads promoting student loan services must be targeted to people 18
years or older. Ads must not promote misleading or deceptive services
related to student loan consolidation, forgiveness, or refinancing.
11. Political Advertising
Advertisers can run political, election related and issue ads,
provided the advertiser complies with all applicable laws and the
authorization process required by Facebook.
12. Cryptocurrency Products and Services
Ads may not promote cryptocurrency and related products and
services without our prior written permission.
Video Ads
Video ads and other dynamic ad types must comply the all of the
rules listed in these Advertising Policies, including the Community
Standards, as well as the policies below:
1. Disruptive Content
Videos and other similar ad types must not use overly disruptive
tactics, such as flashing screens.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
2. Entertainment Related Restrictions
Ads for movie trailers, TV shows, video game trailers, and other
similar content intended for mature audiences are only allowed with
prior written permission from Facebook and must target people who
are 18 years or older. Excessive depictions of the following content
within these ads are not allowed:
1. Drugs and alcohol use
2. Adult content
3. Profanity
4. Violence and gore
Targeting
1. You must not use targeting options to discriminate against, harass,
provoke, or disparage users or to engage in predatory advertising
practices.
2. If you target your ads to Custom Audiences, you must comply with
the Applicable terms when creating an audience.
Positioning
1. Relevance
All ad components, including any text, images or other media, must
be relevant and appropriate to the product or service being offered
and the audience viewing the ad.
2. Accuracy
Ads must clearly represent the company, product, service, or brand
that is being advertised.
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3. Related Landing Pages
The products and services promoted in an ad’s text must match
those promoted on the landing page, and the destination site must not
offer or link to any prohibited product or service.
Text in Ad Images
Excessive text in ad images may result in your ad reaching fewer
people or not running at all. Try to use little or no image text when
possible. Visit the Advertiser Help Center to learn more about these
guidelines and exceptions to the guidelines.
Lead Ads
Advertisers must not create Lead Ads questions to request the
following types of information without our prior written permission.
1. Account Numbers
Ads must not request account numbers, including frequent
flyer numbers, loyalty card numbers, or cable or telephone account
numbers without our prior permission.
2. Criminal History
Ads must not request information regarding criminal or arrest
history without our prior permission.
3. Financial Information
Ads must not request financial information, including bank account
numbers, bank routing numbers, credit or debit card numbers, credit
scores, income, net worth or how much debt someone has without our
prior permission.
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4. Government Issued Identifiers
Ads must not request government-issued identifiers, including
Social Security numbers, passport numbers or driver’s license numbers
without our prior permission.
5. Health Information
Ads must not request health information, including physical health,
mental health, medical treatments, medical conditions or disabilities
without our prior permission.
6. Insurance Information
Ads must not request insurance information, including current
insurance policy numbers, without our prior permission.
7. Political Affiliation
Ads must not request information regarding political affiliation
without our prior permission.
8. Race or Ethnicity
Ads must not request information regarding race or ethnicity
without our prior permission.
9. Religion
Ads must not request information regarding religion or
philosophical beliefs without our prior permission.
10. Sexual Orientation
Ads must not request information regarding sexual orientation
or information about the sexual life of the individual, including what
gender(s) the person prefers to date, without our prior permission.
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11. Template Questions
Ads must not request the same or substantially similar information
that you could use a Template Question to request.
12. Trade Union Membership
Ads must not request information regarding trade Union
membership status without our prior permission.
13. Usernames or Passwords
Ads must not request usernames or passwords, including
usernames and passwords for existing and new accounts, without our
prior permission. If you want to direct people to sign up for an account
with your site or service, you should use the Clicks to Website or
Website Conversions objective when you run your ads.
Use of Our Brand Assets
For ads that feature the Facebook or Instagram brands please refer
to the Facebook Brand Resource Center and the Instagram Brand
Resource Center to review brand guidelines and download approved
assets.
1. Brand Endorsement
Ads must not imply a Facebook or Instagram endorsement or
partnership of any kind, or an endorsement by any other Facebook
Company.
2. Brand Usage in Ads
Ads linking to Facebook or Instagram content (including Pages,
groups, events or sites that use Facebook Login) may make limited
reference to “Facebook” or “Instagram” in ad text for the purpose of
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
clarifying the destination of the ad.
Ads should not represent the Facebook brand in a way that makes it
the most distinctive or prominent feature of the creative.
Facebook brand assets should not be modified in any way, such as
by changing the design or color, or for the purpose of special effects or
animation.
3. Copyrights & Trademarks
All other ads and landing pages must not use our copyrights,
trademarks, or any confusingly similar marks, except as expressly
permitted by the Facebook Brand Resource Center and the Instagram
Brand Resource Center, or with our prior written permission.
4. User Interface Screenshots
When featuring the Facebook, Messenger or Instagram User
Interface (UI) in an ad, it must accurately depict how the UI currently
appears and functions in product. If an action or functionality depicted
cannot happen in the current product or within the current UI then it
cannot appear to happen in an ad.
Depictions of the UI in ads must be featured within the context
of a relevant device (ex, mobile or desktop) and as permitted by the
Facebook Brand Guidelines or Instagram Brand Guidelines.
The UI may not be modified in any way, including, but not limited
to: adding special effects, interference or animation. Glyphs or
elements of the UI may not be used separately or individually.
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Data Use Restrictions
1. Ensure any ad data collected, received or derived from your
Facebook or Instagram ad (“Facebook advertising data”) is only shared
with someone acting on your behalf, such as your service provider.
You are responsible for ensuring your service providers protect any
Facebook advertising data or any other information obtained from us,
limit their use of all of that information, and keep it confidential and
secure.
2. Don’t use Facebook advertising data for any purpose (including
retargeting, commingling data across multiple advertisers’ campaigns,
or allowing piggybacking or redirecting with tags), except on an
aggregate and anonymous basis (unless authorized by Facebook) and
only to assess the performance and effectiveness of your Facebook
advertising campaigns.
3. Don’t use Facebook advertising data, including the targeting criteria
for your ad, to build, append to, edit, influence, or augment user
profiles, including profiles associated with any mobile device identifier
or other unique identifier that identifies any particular user, browser,
computer or device.
4. Don’t transfer any Facebook advertising data (including anonymous,
aggregate, or derived data) to any ad network, ad exchange, data
broker or other advertising or monetization related service.
Things You Should Know
1. The Advertising Policies apply to (1) ads and commercial content
served by or purchased through Facebook, on or off the Facebook
services, including ads purchased under AAAA/IAB Standard Terms
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and Conditions, (2) ads appearing within apps on Facebook, and (3)
ads on Instagram. Your use of Facebook’s advertising products and
services is part of “Facebook” under Facebook’s Statement of Rights
and Responsibilities (https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms, the
“SRR”) and is subject to the SRR.You may be subject to additional terms
or guidelines if you use Instagram or certain Facebook advertisingrelated products or services.
2. Advertisers are responsible for understanding and complying with
all applicable laws and regulations. Failure to comply may result in a
variety of consequences, including the cancellation of ads you have
placed and termination of your account.
3. We do not use sensitive personal data for ad targeting. Topics
you choose for targeting your ad don’t reflect the personal beliefs,
characteristics or values of the people who use Facebook or Instagram.
4. Ads are public information, as described in the Facebook Data
Policy. Ads may be re-shared and accessed by users outside of the
targeted audience (including from the Facebook Page running the
ads or from other surfaces made available by Facebook), and remain
accessible after the campaigns end (e.g., if shared, until the users delete
it, or visible to users through their account tools).
5. If you are managing ads on behalf of other advertisers, each
advertiser or client must be managed through separate ad accounts.
You must not change the advertiser or client associated with an
established ad account; set up a new account. You are responsible for
ensuring that each advertiser complies with these Advertising Policies.
6. We reserve the right to reject, approve or remove any ad for any
reason, in our sole discretion, including ads that negatively affect
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our relationship with our users or that promote content, services, or
activities, contrary to our competitive position, interests, or
7. For policies that require prior written permission, Facebook or a
Facebook Company may grant these permissions.
8. These policies are subject to change at any time without notice.
It’s important to understand the rules of what you can and cannot
advertise on Facebook. So much has changed in Facebook’s advertising
policies over the past year, and I expect it to continue to change a few
years from now.
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
CHAPTER 5. FACEBOOK PIXEL SETUP
The next step in setting up your ad account is to set up your
Facebook Pixel, a piece of JavaScript code that allows you to measure,
optimize, and build an audience for your campaign. With the pixel, you
can track conversions, create a Lookalike Audience based on those who
converted (only after the pixel has tracked a minimum of one hundred
conversions), and market to those who converted.
When you sign up for Facebook, your profile is given a Facebook
ID, which the pixel uses to track your activity and provide valuable
insights to advertisers. Let’s say you visited Nordstrom’s website,
which has the pixel installed. If you visit the home page, the men’s
shoes page, then purchased a pair of black shoes, the pixel, tracking
your web activity, would know. Some may be uncomfortable with this
type of tracking, but the pixel allows advertisers to effectively show
relevant ads to users.
There are three main benefits of using the pixel. First, you can use
the pixel’s data to create a Custom Audience. Second, you can use the
Custom Audience data, which provides never-before-seen information
on website visitors’ demographics, interests, and purchase behaviors,
as a secondary resource to Google analytics or other analytics services.
Third, you can use the pixel’s data to remarket to visitors who visited
specific pages of your site using Dynamic Product Ads. For example,
you can show couch-related ads only to those who viewed couches on
your website or show ads that remind customers who abandoned their
carts to finalize their purchases.
Because I don’t want you to make the mistake of running ads
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without pixel tracking, I’m encouraging you to create one before
creating your ads. You can create a pixel under the Assets section of
Business Manager.
Creating a Facebook Pixel
Step 1: Click Create a Pixel
Step 2: Name pixel. Click Create
After creating your pixel, you will need to install it into your website
so that the pixel will track web visitors.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Installing the Pixel
Step 1: Click Manually Install the Code Yourself
This menu will appear right after you create your pixel. If you want
to revisit this menu, you can do so by clicking View Setup Instructions
from your pixels page.
Step 2: Copy Code
Copy the code and paste it between the headers (<head> </head>) of
your website. Once pasted between the
headers, the pixel will track web visits
on every page of your website.
To make sure that you correctly
installed your pixel to your headers,
send test traffic to the pixel. Enter the
URL for your website in the text box
under “Send test traffic to your pixel”
then click the green button “Send Test
Traffic.” If you installed your pixel
correctly, the status “Active” will appear.
Please be patient because testing your
pixel may take several minutes.
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Step 3: Turn on Advanced Matching
Although optional, you can turn on advanced matching to increase
your Custom Audience size and number of attributed conversions. I
recommend turning on advanced matching because it helps Facebook
better match customers from your customer list to Facebook users.
Slide the toggle button to the right to turn on advanced matching.
Then choose the data you want the pixel to collect.
Step 4: Add events you want to track.
In the next step, you can add the events you want to track. Events are
the customer actions that the pixel tracks. For example, adding to cart,
viewing a content, and making a purchase are examples of events.
It’s important to track events because they allow Facebook to show
ads to people most likely to make a specific action that you want. For
example, if you want your ads to appear in front of people who will
buy your products, you would need to track the purchase event.
Additionally, tracking events helps you build an audience who
triggered the event you chose. For example, you can build an audience
comprised of people who initiated a checkout. Once you build that
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audience, you can then target that audience later for a different ad.
To add events to your pixel tracking, move the slider to the right.
There are two ways to add the events code to your website:
●● Track Event on Page Load: The pixel will track the event when
a person is redirected to a new page after completing an action.
For example, once a person arrives to the confirmation page after
purchasing an item, the pixel will fire and record the event.
●● Track Event on Inline Action: The pixel will track dynamic
events, such as clicking certain buttons on your website.
For each event you want to track, you must insert the event code into
your website to help Facebook recognize when someone takes an
action. For example, the code for a purchase event is this:
<script>
fbq (track’, ‘Purchase’);
</script>
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
You must copy that code and paste it into the order confirmation page
or purchase completion page. The code must go below the </head> tag
so it can load with the pixel.
Once you install the events code, you can install the Pixel Helper
to check whether your code is working correctly. Although this
is optional, I highly recommended it. I use it myself, and I find it
important to running my ad campaigns. (I will discuss in more detail
the Pixel Helper later in the book, so stay tuned.)
I know. You didn’t expect to have coding knowledge to advertise on
Facebook. Fortunately, you don’t need to worry about confusing which
code to place in which part of your website because Facebook will
instruct you on where to place your code.
If you still don’t feel comfortable installing the code on your own, I
recommend hiring a web developer to do it for you. All you need to do
is email the instructions to the person you hired and share your pixel.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Sharing the Pixel
If you want to send your pixel code to your web developer, you can do
so via email.
Step 1: Click Email Instructions to a Developer
Enter the recipient’s email and click send. Facebook will send the email
including the Facebook Pixel ID, the pixel base code, and the event
code.
Editing the Pixel
If you want to change your pixel’s name or if you spot an
embarrassing typo you want to correct, you can edit your pixel at any
time by clicking the pencil icon to the right of your pixel.
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Figure 5.1
Installing Pixels to Websites
Learning how to install your pixel code can be a massive pain,
especially if you have zero coding experience. Fortunately, Facebook
seems to understand this because it recently integrated with several
website companies, such as WordPress and Shopify, to help you easily
install your pixel to your site.
On your Pixel page, along with the options to manually install your
pixel and to email your pixel to your colleague, is an option to use an
integration. When you click it, a dialogue box with all of the partners
appears. From there, you can integrate your website. Here’s how you
do it.
Figure 5.2
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WordPress
Step 1: Download the Facebook Pixel Extension
Step 2: Go to WordPress dashboard >> Plugins >> Add New
Step 3: Click Upload Plugin
Upload the Facebook Pixel Extension from step one.
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Step 4: Click Install Now
Step 5: Activate Plugin
Step 6: Verify Pixel
To verify that you installed your pixel correctly, enter your website
URL into the text box and click “Send Test Traffic.”
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Google Tag Manager
Step 1: Click Continue to sync your Google Tag Manager account
with Facebook
Step 2: Choose the account you want to sync with Facebook
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Step 3: Choose account and container you want to sync.
Shopify
Step 1: Copy your pixel ID
Step 2: Go to Shopify >> Online Store >> Preferences
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Step 3: Paste pixel ID
Squarespace
Step 1: Go to Settings >> Advanced >> Code Injection
Step 2: Paste pixel code into header. Save
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Big Commerce: Blueprint Theme
Step 1: Go to Advanced Settings >> Web Analytics
Step 2: Click Facebook Pixel >> Facebook Pixel
Step 3: Paste code, and you’re done
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Big Commerce: Stencil Theme
Step 1: Go to Web Analytics >> Google Analytics. Save
Step 2: Click Google Analytics
Step 3: Paste pixel code into the tracking code box
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Wix
Step 1: Go to Mysite >> Manage Website >> Tracking & Analytics
Step 2: Click New Tool >> Facebook Pixel. Insert your pixel code
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Eventbrite
Step 1: Go to Profile >> Manage Events
Step 2: Click Manage. It’s under one of your published events
Step 3: Click Tracking Pixels
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Step 4: Click Facebook Pixel >> + Add new pixel
Step 5: Enter your pixel ID. Save
If you want the pixel to apply to all of your published events, click “All
Events.”
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Magento
Step 1: Download the Facebook Ads Extension
Step 2: Go to Dashboard >> System >> Magento Connect >> Magento
Connect Manager
Step 3: Go to Direct Package File Upload. Choose File. Select the file
“facebook_ads_extension_ocmod.zip”
OpenCart
Step 1: Download the Facebook Ads Extensions
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Step 2: Go to Account >> Extensions >> Installer >> Upload >> Continue
Step 3: Go to Extensions >> Modifications >> Refresh
Step 4: Click Facebook Ads Extensions >> Facebook Ads Extensions >>
Get Started
PretaShop
Step 1: Dashboard >> Modules
Step 2: Click Official Pixel Facebook >> Install
Step 3: Clck Configuration >> Paste Pixel ID >> Save
3Dcart
Step 1: Dashboard >> Modules >> Facebook Ads >> Change Settings
Step 2: Click Initiate Onboard Process
Segment
Step 1: Destinations >> Add Destination
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Step 2: Search for Facebook Pixel. Click Facebook Pixel >> Configure
Facebook Pixel. Select and confirm source
Step 3: Select Pixel ID. Paste your Pixel ID into the box. Save
Step 4: Click the toggle button to activate Pixel ID
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Storeden
Step 1: Marketing >> Facebook Ads Extension >> Get Started
Ticketmaster
Step 1: Go to Ticketmaster ONE >> Add Pixel Tracking
Step 2: Set start date and end date
Step 3: Under Channel, click Ticketmaster
Step 4: Select specific artist or click Select All Artists
Step 5: Under Pixel, click Facebook
Step 6: Copy and paste pixel ID. Save
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Troubleshooting Your Pixel
The Facebook Pixel Helper is a valuable tool that you certainly must
download. It is a Chrome extension that validates your Facebook Pixel,
checks that it works properly, troubleshoots errors, and improves
performance. I use this tool to ensure that my clients’ pixels are firing
properly. Because a misfiring pixel will fail to track web visitors,
you, with no data to upload, will be unable to create a new Custom
Audience of interested buyers to whom you can retarget ads. I cannot
stress this enough—the Facebook Pixel is an essential part of your
campaign. (You will see the pixel’s important role resurface in this
book.) Even more, a working Facebook Pixel is an essential part of your
campaign.
You can download the Pixel Helper for free from Google Chrome’s
web store. Once downloaded, the Pixel Helper icon, represented by the
symbol </>, will appear on the upper-right corner of your browser.
Downloading the Facebook Pixel Helper
Step 1: Go to Chrome Store and find Facebook Pixel Helper. Click Add
to Chrome
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Chapter 5: Facebook Pixel Setup
Step 2: Click Add extension
Step 3: Click Facebook Pixel Helper to activate
Your pixel helper is located on the upper-right corner of your tool bar.
Click to activate.
To test whether the pixels on your site are working, check if the Pixel
Helper icon is green, yellow, gray, or red.
Green: Your pixel is firing correctly.
Yellow: Your pixel is firing, but there’s an error.
Red: Your pixel is not firing.
Gray: You don’t have a pixel installed.
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If your Pixel Helper is green—great. You have nothing to worry
about. All of your pixels are firing correctly. Often, you will see a green
number displayed on the icon, indicating the number of pixels found
on your web page.
If your helper is glowing yellow or red, you have some problems
to fix. There are a few reasons your pixel isn’t working correctly. One
is you installed the pixel for a purchase event, but you didn’t have a
product catalog synced, causing your Pixel Helper to turn yellow. A
yellow status means your pixel is still firing and collecting data, but
there is something wrong with how a certain piece of information
from your website is syncing with Facebook.
Another reason is this: your pixel was not installed correctly. If
this is your problem, your Pixel Helper will glow red. If you don’t
immediately fix an incorrectly installed pixel, three things can
happen: one, no data transfers to Facebook; two, the pixel can’t track
all users visiting your website; and three, tracking will be duplicated,
completely spoiling your data. If you click the pixel icon, you will see
the information for debugging your pixel and the data tracked by your
pixel.
People who have multiple pixels installed in their websites will
often experience pixel problems. Although it’s possible to have
multiple fully functioning pixels on your site, problems may occur
when all of your pixels do not load before your website fully loads. It’s
vital each pixel loads before your website.
Custom Conversions and Events
As previously mentioned, the Facebook Pixel tracks customers’
actions on your website. However, if you want to track people’s actions
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on each page of your website, you must let your pixel know which
pages you want it to track. For example, if you only wanted to know
who added products to his or her cart, you will likely want to track
the add-to-cart page. You can track certain actions on certain pages of
your website using two tools: custom conversions and events.
Custom conversions allows you to optimize and track for specific
actions without making adjustments to your already existing pixel
code by replacing the pixels placed on individual success pages.
Custom conversions, then, does not work the same as events. Unlike
custom conversions, with events, you will need to alter the Facebook
Pixel on specific pages.
Creating Custom Conversions
Step 1: Click Custom Conversions >> Create Custom Conversions
Step 2: Create a custom conversion
Fill in the required information to create a custom conversion. By
filling out these rules, you are helping Facebook determine whether a
customer who visited your website converted. Choose “URL Contains”
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and then type the URL keywords to tell Facebook where in your
website you want it to track. In the example below, I used “/shoes” to
tell Facebook I want to track customers who landed on my page with
those keywords on the URL. The n choose a category. For mine, I chose
“Purchase.” By choosing this, Facebook will track for purchases. After
you filled in the fields, click “Create.”
Earlier I showed you how to add events to your pixel under the
subsection “Installing Pixel.” I told you why you should add an event
to your pixel, and I taught you how. I’m going to talk a little bit more
about events here, its difference from custom conversions and the
different event codes you need to insert into your website.
Adding events to your pixel is highly recommended because it’s
more accurate, and it gives you more features. For example, if you
wanted to track a thank-you page and selected the keywords “thank
you” for the URL rule in custom conversions, your custom conversions
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may accidentally include other URLs with the thank-you keywords
that are not thank-you pages. With standard events, however, there
will be fewer possibilities for error because you will place the code on
the exact page that you want to track.
Events is also essential to tracking users through critical funnels.
It allows you to see users who viewed a specific product, added it to
their cart, initiated checkout, and purchased. With events correctly
installed, you can display ads to people who added something to their
carts but then abandoned for whatever reason. With events, you can
track nine actions using their corresponding codes. You must place
these codes just below the </head> tag to allow the event codes to load
with the pixel code. Adding in the standard event code will indicate to
the pixel that that is the specific type of event you want to track.
Website action
View content
Standard event code
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘ViewContent’);
</script>
Search
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘Search’);
</script>
Add to cart
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘AddToCart’);
</script
Add to wishlist
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘AddToWishlist’);
</script>
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Initiate checkout
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘InitiateCheckout’);
</script>
Add payment info
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘AddPaymentInfo’);
</script>
Purchase
<script>
fbq (‘track’, ‘Purchase’) ;
</script>
Generate Lead
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘Lead’);
</script>
Complete
registration
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘CompleteRegistration’);
<script>
Figure 5.3
Standard event codes
Figure 5.4
Where to insert the event code
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Chapter 6: Boosted Post, the Easiest Way to Advertise on Facebook
CHAPTER 6.
BOOSTED POST, THE EASIEST WAY TO
ADVERTISE ON FACEBOOK
In chapter one, I briefly talked about boosted posts, regular
Facebook posts that you pay to show to a targeted audience. Although
Facebook advertising experts don’t normally use boosted posts, most
advertisers completely new to Facebook advertising begin with them.
Because of the simplicity and ease of boosted posts, novices, who don’t
have the expertise to navigate through Ads Manager, begin with them
before dabbling with the more complex ads.
Boosting a post is a great precursor to creating Facebook ads. You
can practice not only creating a target audience but also setting a
budget and writing ad copies. Although boosting a post is a great start
for beginners, remember that boosted posts are just that—a great start.
If you want to numerous long-term ads, treat boosted posts as the
training wheels, the stepping stones. Before dabbling with Facebook
ads, I’ll get you started with a boosted post.
Step 1: Create regular page post then click Boost
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Step 2: Choose objective and CTA button
Step 3: Choose audience and click Run Promotion on
Instagram” (optional)
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Chapter 6: Boosted Post, the Easiest Way to Advertise on Facebook
Step 4: Choose budget and duration
Your budget is the amount you want to spent for the duration you
choose. In the example below, I’m telling Facebook to run my ad for
one day. During that day, Facebook will spend $20. As soon as Facebook
spends my $20, it will stop running the ad, even if that time does not
meet the one-day specification.
Step 5: Turn on tracking conversions
This is the last step. If you don’t turn on your tracking conversions,
Facebook won’t be able to track the results of your ad, and you won’t
be able to target people who converted in future ads. It’s important
that you turn on tracking conversions for all ads.
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Chapter 7. Creating Facebook Ads
CHAPTER 7. CREATING FACEBOOK ADS
I don’t mean to show a lack of confidence, but creating your first
Facebook ad will be difficult and confusing. Before I became the CEO
of my company, I was just like you. Completely new to Facebook
advertising, I was both amazed by its potential and frustrated by
its user unfriendliness. Although uploading ads has always been
straightforward to me (pick your objective, your targets, and upload
your ad—done), other aspects of Facebook advertising confused me
terribly. I did not understand how Facebook’s algorithm worked
because there wasn’t much transparency about it at that time, and
some of the policies confused me, like the 20 percent text rule that,
if you ask other advertisers, wasn’t applied consistently. I also had a
difficult time knowing the difference between a boosted post and a
Facebook ad. Much like you are now, I was confused and frustrated.
But, I assure you, it will get better. In fact, you’re off to a better start
than I was because Facebook’s platform has significantly improved
in the last three years, and you have me to guide you through your
first Facebook ad. If you still don’t feel confident enough to create a
Facebook ad, practice with a boosted post. It’s the easiest ad to create,
and it will allow you to become better acquainted with the tools and
options that you will use when creating ads on Ads Manager.
I have two pieces of advice I want to give to you before you create
your first Facebook ad. First, expect to spend money. One of the things
you have to do as a Facebook advertiser is to constantly test ads, and
that requires spending. However, if done correctly (which you will
be able to do after reading this book), Facebook advertising can be a
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valuable investment toward your business. Two, take it slow. Create
one ad. Let it run. Then create another ad to outperform the previous
ad. There are millions of elements you can test on Facebook, so it can
quickly become overwhelming if you don’t take it slow. In this chapter,
I’ll show you the steps you must take to create your first Facebook ad,
from choosing an objective to choosing a format.
Choosing an Objective
When creating a Facebook ad, you must first choose an objective. This
is such a vital part of your campaign that Facebook won’t allow you to
skip it. If you skip to the other levels of ad creation, you’ll quickly find
that you can’t.
Before you create a Facebook ad, know your campaign objective. Do
you want to send people to your brick-and-mortar store? Do you want
more brand exposure? Do you want more sales? Facebook wants you to
choose an objective before creating your ad because different
objectives have different eligible ad placements and formats. For
example, only an ad with the objective store visits can feature an ad
with a map that directs customers to your location. In this section, I
discuss all the objectives available to you—their purposes, their
placements, and their eligible ad formats.
Figure 7.1 Objective options
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Brand Awareness
Here’s an interesting question for you. Would you rather do your
friend a favor or a stranger a favor? You likely chose the first option,
a completely reasonable choice. Of course, you’d rather choose your
friend, someone you shared adventures, laughs, and drinks with. Who
wouldn’t? This goes the same for Facebook ads—users will be more
likely to buy from you once they’ve familiarized with your brand. For
this reason, it’s often wise to begin with a brand awareness campaign,
especially if your brand is not well known.
The brand awareness objective, which aims to increase the recall
of ads, will help you find customers most likely to remember your ads
after seeing them and customers who will most likely purchase from
you in the future. Although you likely won’t generate sales, you will
gain a higher ad recall lift. Don’t think a brand awareness campaign
is a waste of money because it will pay off in the end. Once you track
conversions with your Facebook Pixel, you can then retarget to those
who converted—that is, those who, after getting acquainted with your
brand, will be more likely to purchase from you.
Eligible placements: mobile and desktop News Feeds, Instant Articles,
in-stream videos, suggested videos, Instagram feed, Instagram Stories,
Audience Network, Messenger Inbox, Messenger Sponsored Messages
Eligible formats: video, carousel, image, slideshow
Video Views
I’m lucky enough that I have an amazing, talented creative team
that produces daily award-winning videos for my very pleased clients.
My team works tirelessly each day, editing and perfecting videos
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Chapter 7. Creating Facebook Ads
over and over and over again. If you also have a talented team whose
videos you want to promote on Facebook or if you simply want to
promote a video you’re proud of, you’re in luck—there’s an objective
for that. Granted, you can use the video ad format for several different
objectives, such as brand awareness, traffic, and reach. However,
choosing the video views objective for your video ad will only focus
on garnering views rather than sales (if you choose traffic as your
objective) or leads (if you choose lead generation).
Eligible placements: mobile and desktop News Feeds, Instant Articles,
in-stream videos, suggested videos, Instagram feed, Instagram Stories,
Audience Networ, Marketplace, native, banner, and interstitial, rewarded
videos
Eligible formats: video, slideshow
Lead Generation
If you want to collect customer information on Facebook, then you
should use the lead generation objective. With this objective, you can
create an ad that, once clicked, opens into a prefilled form. In the form,
you can ask almost any question you want as long as it complies with
Facebook’s ad policies and your privacy policy. You can ask users for
their email address, full names, phone numbers, and addresses, just
to name a few examples. (I’ll go into more detail about Lead Ads in
chapter eight.)
Eligible placements: mobile and desktop News Feeds, Instagram feed,
Instagram Stories, Instant Articles
Eligible formats: single image, single video, carousel, slideshow
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Messages
When people want to learn more about your business, the faster
they can contact you, the better. You can use the messages objective
with Click to Messenger Ads, which direct users to a Messenger
conversation with your business. This objective paired with Click to
Messenger Ads opens conversations with users who are more likely to
respond to or interact with your business.
Eligible placements: mobile and desktop News Feeds, Instagram feed,
Instagram Stories, Messenger inbox, Messenger sponsored messages
Eligible formats: single image, single video, carousel, slideshow
Conversions
If you want people to make a desired action on your website, then
you should choose conversions as your objective. With this objective,
you can urge customers to purchase, add credit card information,
or browse through your products. The conversions objective works
differently than the traffic objective because while the traffic objective
optimizes to get people to visit your website, the conversions objective
takes it a step further by optimizing for desired actions on your site,
like a purchase or a sign-up.
Eligible placements: mobile and desktop News Feeds, Instant Articles,
Instagram feed, Instagram Stories, Audience Network, right column,
Marketplace, native, banner, and interstitial, in-stream videos, rewarded
videos, Messenger inbox, Messenger sponsored Messages
Eligible formats: single video, single image, carousel, slideshow, collection
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Chapter 7. Creating Facebook Ads
Catalog Sales
If you choose promote a product catalog as your objective, you will
be able to create Dynamic Product Ads, which automatically advertise
products from your product catalog. Dynamic Product Ads work
especially well if you target customers who browsed through your
catalog but did not purchase an item. The pixel will track which pages
of your website a customer visited (i.e., product catalog or checkout)
and, based on its findings, will serve a relevant ad to that customer. For
example, if your customer looked at a fur coat from your catalog, your
ad will automatically advertise that same product to your customer
without your needing to create a new ad. Dynamic Product Ads are
great tools that push interested customers to make a purchase.
Eligible placements: mobile and desktop News Feeds, right column,
Instagram feed, Instagram Stories, Audience Network, Marketplace, native,
banner, and interstitial, Messenger inbox, Messenger sponsored messages
Eligible formats: single image, carousel, collection
Store Visits
If you own a chain store, you likely have multiple stores in various
locations. If you want to simultaneously promote your multiple
physical stores from different locations in one ad, then you should
choose the store visits objective. An ad with a store visits objective
will direct your customers to a physical store that is nearest to their
current locations. Based on the CTA you chose (get directions or call
now), the ad will contain either a map that will navigate customers to
your nearest store or phone number that customers can call.
Eligible placements: mobile and desktop News Feeds, Instant Articles,
Instagram feed, Instagram Stories
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Eligible formats: single image, single video, carousel, slideshow
Targeting Your Audience
Facebook’s ad targeting is the reason I quit my nine-to-five job and
started my agency. I saw its potential, and I jumped on it. I saw laserprecision targeting that I never saw before in all of my years as an
advertiser, targeting that can be so unbelievably precise and detailed
that it’s almost omniscient. With more than 850 targeting options,
you can target almost anyone, anywhere, and in almost any walk of
life. You can target people of any purchase behavior, any interest, and
in any location, whether that’s in the United States, Canada, or the
Philippines. Facebook’s targeting almost has no limits.
Facebook, as I mentioned earlier in the book, created targeting
options from self-reported data. Self-reported data comes from
the information Facebook users provide on their profiles, such as
occupation, education, relationship status, and interests. Facebook
used to provide third-party data for ad targeting, but after the
Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which an app misused millions of
users’ personal information for political ad targeting, the company
decided to remove data from third parties. Despite this change,
Facebook’s targeting is still effective in targeting an audience most
likely to respond to ads.
With Facebook’s vast targeting options (and your eagerness to
obtain a large audience), you will likely try to target as many users
as you can—don’t do that. Bigger is not always better, and that adage
rings true for ad targeting. When you target an audience, the median
is key. You have to make sure that your audience is neither too broad
nor too narrow. The former can result in targeting people who aren’t
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Chapter 7. Creating Facebook Ads
interested in your business while the
latter can result in excluding highinterest, potential customers. To check
whether your audience is too big or too
small, refer to the audience-size meter
that appears on the left side of your
screen.
Figure 7.2 The audience-size meter
When creating a target audience, you have two options: you can
create a new audience or you can upload a customer list (called a
Custom Audience in Facebook’s world, but more on that later). If you
don’t have a customer list, then you should create a new audience.
You have several targeting options for creating a new audience:
demographics, connections, interests, behaviors, Custom Audience,
and Lookalike Audience.
Demographics
When you create the
demographics for your
target audience, you can
choose from a large variety
of options. You can choose
the basic options, such as
location, age, gender, and
language; however, you
shouldn’t stop there. For
Figure 7.3 Demographics section
a more effective target audience, you should also include detailed
targeting, such as education level, job title, relationship status,
political views, and interests. Simply type the keyword related to
the demographic you want to target into the search box for detailed
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
targeting, and it will appear. If not, then that option is not available.
Connections
You can also target users according to their connection with your
business. You can target users or friends of those users who either
liked your Facebook pages, used your apps, or responded to your
events. Conversely, you can exclude anyone who has any connections
with your business. Unlike the detailed targeting for demographics
and interests, which you access by entering keywords into the detailed
targeting search box, connections targeting appears as a drop-down
menu on the bottom of the audience section.
Figure 7.4 Connection types
Interests
There are hundreds of options for interest targeting, which
includes hobbies and activities, entertainment, business and industry,
sports, shopping, fashion, food and drink, fitness, and wellness. You
can target certain interests by typing the keyword for the interest
you want to target in the detailed targeting search box. You can
differentiate between a suggestion that is under the interests category
and a suggestion that is under the demographics category by looking
at the category label next to the suggestions. If it’s an interest targeting
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Chapter 7. Creating Facebook Ads
option, it should be labeled “interests.”
Target audiences differ according to different targeting categories.
For example, if you typed “energy drinks” and clicked an interest
targeting option, Facebook will send the ad to people who expressed
interest in energy drinks on Facebook (e.g., following or liking an
energy drink page). If, instead, you clicked a behavior targeting option,
Facebook will send the ad to people who are known to be or likely to be
buyers of energy drinks based on their purchase behavior. To make
sure you’re targeting the people you want, check that the option you’re
choosing is from the correct category.
Figure 7.5
Interest targeting options
Behaviors
Behavior targeting used to rely on the data third-party partners
provided. These partners knew what people were doing offline: what
products they bought, how much money they made, and which retail
stores they visited. Because of third-party data, you could create a
target audience based on people’s purchase behaviors (what and where
people buy), financial behaviors (which card type people use to buy),
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and traveling behaviors (which airlines people use when they travel
and whether they fly for business or for leisure). Now that third-party
data is gone, Facebook gathers data on user behaviors solely from their
activities on Facebook. For example, if users often click on travel ads,
Facebook will show those users ads related to travel because their
actions suggest that they are frequent travelers. You can choose from
Facebook’s numerous behavioral targeting options from the detailed
targeting search box. When you type the keywords for your chosen
behavior, several suggestions will appear. Make sure to click the
keyword that is labeled “behavior.”
Figure 7.6
Behavioral targeting options
Custom Audiences
A Custom Audience is an ad targeting tool that allows you to serve
ads to your existing contact list, which may be a list of customers taken
from Lead Ads or sign-ups. Facebook will compare the list you
uploaded with its data to find the people in your list on its platform.
You can add a Custom Audience to your targeting by clicking the
Custom Audience text box. A list of your existing Custom Audiences
should appear.
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Figure 7.7
The area from which to upload Custom Audiences
Creating a Custom Audience is important for two reasons. First, it
can garner more conversions by targeting users who are already in
your customer list, who have proven to be loyal customers, and who
are already interested in your business. In contrast, if you no longer
want to advertise to the people in your list (such a situation would
occur if you were to create a brand awareness campaign, targeting
only those who have never interacted with your business), you can
exclude your Custom Audience from your target audience. Second, you
can use your Custom Audience to build a Lookalike Audience, which
would allow you to target new users who are similar to your current
customers.
Figure 7.8
Where to find audiences
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Figure 7.9
The audiences page
Uploading a Custom Audience to Facebook
To create a Custom Audience, you must upload an Excel sheet
filled with your customers’ information. If this sheet is not formatted
correctly, an error message will appear and prevent you from
uploading your Custom Audience. To prevent complications, follow the
Facebook formatting guidelines provided below.
Data type
Email
Column header
email
Description and formatting guidelines
Facebook accepts up to three separate email
address columns in US and international
formats.
Examples
●● username@hotmail.
co.uk
●● your.name@gmail.com
●● myname@yahoo.com
Phone Number
phone
Phone numbers must include a country code
to be used for matching. For example, a 1 must
precede a phone number in the United States.
Facebook accepts up to three phone numbers
as separate columns, with or without punctuation.
●● 1-234-567-8910
●● 12345678910
●● +44 844 412 4653
Important: Always include the country code
as part of your customer’s phone numbers,
even if all of your data is from the same
country.
First Name
fn
Facebook accepts first name and first name
●● John
initial, with or without accents. Initials can be
●● F.
provided with or without a period.
Last Name
ln
●● Émilie
Facebook accepts full last names with or
●● Smith
without accents
●● Sørensen
●● Jacobs-Anderson
City
ct
Facebook accepts full city names as they
●● Paris
normally appear.
●● London
●● New York
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State/Province
st
Facebook accepts full names of US and inter-
●● AZ
national states and provinces as well as the
●● California
abbreviated versions of US states.
Country
country
Date of Birth
dob
Facebook accepts country names that are presented as an ISO two-letter country code.
●● FR
Important: Always include your customers’
countries in their own column in your file,
even if all of your data is from the same country. Because Facebook matches on a global
scale, this simple step helps them match as
many people as possible from their customer
list.
●● GB
Facebook accepts eighteen different date
●● MM-DD-YYYY
formats to accommodate a range of month,
●● MM/DD/YYYY
day, and year combinations, with or without
punctuation.
Year of Birth
doby
●● Normandy
●● US
●● MMDDYYYY
Facebook accepts year of birth as a four-digit
●● DD-MM-YYYY
number, YYYY.
●● DD/MM/YYYY
●● DDMMYYYY
●● YYYY-MM-DD
●● YYYY/MM/DD
●● YYYYMMDD
●● MM-DD-YY
●● MM/DD/YY
●● MMDDYY
●● DD-MM-YY
●● DD/MM/YY
●● DDMMYY
●● YY-MM-DD
●● YY/MM/DD
Age
age
Facebook accepts age as a numerical value.
1986
Zip/Postal Code
zip
Facebook accepts US and international zip
●● 65
and postal codes. US zip codes may include
●● 42
four-digit extensions as long as they are
separated by a hyphen. The extension is not
●● 21
required and will not further improve match
rate.
Gender
gen
Facebook accepts an initial to indicate gender.
●● W11 2BQ
●● 94104-1207
●● 94104
Mobile Advertiser ID madid
Facebook accepts two types of mobile adver-
●● M
tiser IDs: Android’s Advertising ID (AAID),
●● F
which Google provides as part of Android
advertising, and Apple’s Advertising Identifier
(IDFA), which Apple provides as part of iOS in
Facebook App
User ID
uid
its ads framework.
An ID corresponding to someone who uses
an app that can be retrieved through the
Facebook SDK. Facebook accepts numerical
user IDs associated with your Facebook application.
●● AECE52E7-03EE-455AB3C4-E57283966239
●● BEBE52E7-03EE-455AB3C4-E57283966239
Figure 7.10
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Step 1: Click Create Audience >> Custom Audience
Step 2: Click Customer File >> Choose a File or Copy and Paste Data >>
Upload File >> Next >> Upload & Create
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Other Types of Custom Audiences
The Custom Audience I showed you how to upload is a type
of Custom Audience called customer file. There are three other
Custom Audiences that you can use: website traffic, app activity, and
engagement. Although the customer file Custom Audience requires a
spreadsheet to create, these three other Custom Audiences only need
one thing: a Facebook Pixel. Once again, the Facebook Pixel comes
in handy as I repeatedly said it would be. The pixel’s role in creating
Custom Audiences is to gather information on customers and save it
for your use. You then upload that information to Custom Audiences to
create a new set of audience. Without a working pixel, you can’t create
the website traffic, app activity, and engagement Custom Audiences.
●● Website traffic: A Custom Audience of people who visited your
website or took actions on your site (e.g., purchased, added to cart,
or abandoned cart).
●● App activity: A Custom Audience of people who used your app,
among other specific actions.
●● Engagement on Facebook: A Custom Audience of people who
engaged with your content on Facebook (e.g., your posts, ads, or
events).
Lookalike Audience
Lookalike Audience allows you to reach an audience that is similar
to the people in your Custom Audience or to your Facebook page
followers. From your uploaded Custom Audience or Facebook page,
Facebook will identify common qualities between your audience and
Facebook’s users. Afterward, Facebook will serve your ad to people
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who are similar to the people in your Custom Audience and Facebook
page followers in the location you choose. You can create Lookalike
Audiences in the audiences section of Business Manager, the same page
from which you created your Custom Audience.
Step 1: Go to Asset Library >> Audiences >> Create Audience >>
Lookalike Audience
Step 2: Upload Custom Audience or Facebook page. Add location and
size. Click Create Audience
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A value-based Lookalike Audience helps you serve ads to people
who are similar to your highest value customers. To create a valuebased Lookalike Audience, you must upload a Custom Audience that
contains a customer lifetime value, or customer LTV, defined by
Facebook as “a numeric representation of the net profit you predict
[that] will be attributable to a given customer over the duration of your
relationship with [that customer].” Here’s how you create a value-based
Lookalike Audience.
Step 1: Click Create Audience >> Custom Audience >> Customer File
>>“Include LTV for Better Performing Lookalikes
Step 2: Upload your customer file. Click Customer Value Column >>
Upload & Create >> Create Lookalike
Step 3: Choose location of customers, audience size, and number of
people you want Facebook to find.
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Selecting Ad Placements
After you choose your objective and target audience, the next step
is to choose your placements, which are areas where you can place
your ads. For example, if you choose Instagram Stories as your
placement, your ad will appear between users’ stories. If you choose
mobile News Feed, your ad will appear on the Facebook app’s News
Feed. You have two placement options to choose from: automatic and
edit.
Figure 7.11 Automatic Placements
●● Automatic placements: Facebook automatically selects the
recommended placements your ads are eligible for, depending on
your objective and creative. This
is the default option.
●● Edit placements: You manually
choose your placements. When
you click on your chosen
placement, a preview will appear
alongside it so that you know
what your ad will look like when
it appears on that placement.
Figure 7.12 Automatic Placements
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Although Facebook offers six placements, some of your ads may
not be eligible for all of them because eligibility depends on your
advertising objective, as previously mentioned. For example, if you
chose the objective mobile app installs, your ad will only be eligible for
placement on Instagram, mobile News Feed, and Audience Network.
If your ad is ineligible for certain placements, it will say “ineligible”
next to your placement. In this section, I discuss all of the placements
available to you.
Desktop News Feed
If you choose to place your ads on Facebook’s desktop News Feed,
your ad will appear on News Feed, the section of Facebook where
posts by your friends and family appear. It’s important to remember,
however, that placing your ads on desktop News Feed means your ads
will only appear on News Feeds accessed through desktop computers
and laptops. Do not confuse this with mobile News Feed, which is
accessed through mobile phones.
Many advertisers favor desktop News Feed ads because their
resemblance to regular posts are more appealing to Facebook users
who hate intrusive ads, including pop-up ads and video ads that
play automatically with sound on. Desktop News Feed ads, on the
contrary, blend with their environment and do not interrupt the
user experience. Additionally, advertisers prefer News Feed ads
because they appear on the section of Facebook that receives the
most attention; because posts appear on News Feed, users’ eyes are
often glued to the feed, giving your ad a higher chance of attracting
attention. However, what works for some may not work for others.
The best way to determine whether this placement is the best for you
is to test it. If you find that other placements cost less and deliver the
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desired results, then desktop News Feed is not the right placement for
your ad. If you find contrary results, then you should stick with it.
Objectives eligible for this placement: brand awareness, reach, traffic,
engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, conversions,
catalog sales, store visits, messages
Mobile News Feed
When you choose to place your ad on Facebook’s mobile News Feed,
your ad will appear on the app’s News Feed. Much like desktop News
Feed, your ad will appear among your friends and family’s Facebook
posts.
Some advertisers prefer placing their ads on mobile News Feed
for two reasons. First, there is a higher likelihood that people will
see the ad. Because mobile News Feed fills up an entire phone screen
and because posts appear on the screen one at a time, people have
no choice but to look at your ad when it appears. Unlike the desktop
News Feed, there is no left sidebar or right column to distract the
eyes. Second, more people access Facebook through mobile. As of
March 2017, Facebook has 1.94 billion monthly active users. Of those
1.94 billion users, 1.74 billion access Facebook only through mobile.
5
Neglecting to place ads on mobile News Feed means losing a large
group of potential customers.
Objectives eligible for this placement: brand awareness, reach, traffic,
engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, conversions,
messages, catalog sales, store visits
5 Facebook. Facebook Q3 2016 Results. 2016. Raw data. Investor.fb.com.
Facebook’s Q3 2016 Earnings Report.
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Right Column
The Facebook right columns, also known as the right or left bars,
appear on either sides of your News Feed. The columns contain both
important information and easily accessible actions. For example, the
left column contains actions such as creating a Facebook event, an ad,
or a fundraiser; the right column contains trending topics and
Facebook ads. If you want your ads to appear in the right column, then
you should choose right column as your placement
Figure 7.13
The right column on the
right side of News Feed
News Feed ads trump sidebar ads in popularity, and for good
reasons. Although right column ads were the only ads that Facebook
allowed when it first debuted advertising on its platform, right column
ads didn’t generate the best results because they were located on the
right column, which was rarely noticed. (In the first four years of
using Facebook, I don’t think I’ve ever clicked a right column ad once.)
However, there are a few benefits to using the right column placement.
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●● Right column ads will rarely get negative feedback because they
are not in the News Feed.
●● Right column ads are usually much cheaper than News Feed ads
because they are not placed in a highly coveted location.
●● Right column ads usually work best with an older audience
because that audience will often be more inclined to browse the
entire page. A younger audience, in contrast, is extremely quick
and impatient, often skimming through content at the speed of
light. If your ad is not right in front of a young audience’s eyes, it
will most likely be missed.
●● Right column ads are less intrusive than News Feed ads because
they are separated from News Feed where people’s posts appear.
Figure 7.14 An example of a
right column ad
right side of News Feed
When checking Facebook’s News Feeds as your placement, the
right column will automatically be included whether you want it or
not. Facebook claims that it needs all the placement options enabled in
order to reach highly interested users at the lowest cost. Although this
sounds like a reasonable explanation, remember that Facebook also
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profits from running your ads in all of the placements regardless of
whether that placement is the best for generating your desired results.
You might be wondering which ad would be better—the News
Feed ad or the sidebar ad. Again, I cannot come to a conclusion for
you because although some placements work for some advertisers,
they may not work for others. For most of my clients, I often only use
the right column with remarketing campaigns because remarketing
ads target already interested users who are more likely to convert.
However, because my focus is often on ROI for my clients, I normally
favor News Feed because it attracts the most attention, and it is a
placement that users are more likely to notice. My advice is to test
which placement works better for you.
Objectives eligible for this placement: engagement, catalog sales, traffic,
conversions
Audience Network
The Audience Network, a partnership between Facebook and
publishers, allows you to reach more people by placing ads on the
apps and websites of Facebook’s partners. For example, Target, which
wanted to target those who use the Target app and those who want to
watch Frozen, found an audience through the Huffington Post’s mobile
app. In another example, Audible, which wanted to promote its Game
of Thrones audiobooks to fans, found its audience through the Cut the
Rope app.
When you serve ads to the Audience Network, you can also choose
the unit you want your ad to appear as. You have three choices: banner,
interstitial, or native. You don’t need to alter your ad creatives for
these ad units because Facebook officially renders your ad to fit the
unit you choose. Let me discuss these ad units in detail.
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●● Banner ads: These are the most common types of ad units for the
Audience Network. Banner ads appear as banners on the lower
part of the mobile screen.
●● Interstitial ads: These ads appear full-screen in users’ mobile
devices. They usually appear during pauses in games or during a
natural break in an app’s flow.
●● Native ads: Native ads seamlessly fit into any app that they
appear in. Unlike the other ad units, you can customize your ad’s
appearance, size, and format using Facebook’s Native ad API.
Audience Network’s ability to connect you with an audience that
you may not find on Facebook, giving your brand omnipresence in
your customers’ online experience, has been proven to work. I’ve read
several success stories, and two of them, I remember, were successes
from the US Navy and Rosetta Stone. When the US Navy chose to serve
ads to Audience Network, its campaign reach soared to 33 percent.
When Rosetta Stone followed the same strategy in an attempt to drive
installs of its mobile app, it reduced cost per impression by almost 40
percent. Their success is not surprising considering Facebook has the
ability to connect businesses with one billion people and has several
new partners, including Univision, Washington Post, Wenner Media,
Daily Mirror, and BBM, among many others.
Unfortunately, you do not have the power to choose which
publishers and devices you can place your ads in. However, you can
exclude certain categories, or the type of content, you don’t want your
ads to appear alongside of, as shown in figure 7.13. The categories are
dating, debatable social issues, gambling, mature, and tragedy and
conflict. If there’s a specific website or app you don’t want your ad to
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appear alongside of, you can also create block lists by uploading a .txt
or .csv list of website domains and app store URLs that you want to
block.
Figure 7.15
Exclusion categories and block lists are
located under the placement options
Objectives eligible for this placement: brand awareness, reach,
engagement, app installs, catalog sales, traffic, video views, conversions,
messages
To create block lists, follow these steps.
Step 1: Go to Business Settings >> People and Assets >> Block Lists
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Step 2: Click Create Block List
Step 3: Attach .txt or .csv file. Click Create Block List
You can upload your block list to your ad at the ad set level by
clicking “Apply Block Lists” under advanced options, as also shown in
figure 7.15.
Objectives eligible for this placement: brand awareness, reach, traffic,
engagement, app installs, video views, conversions, product catalog sales
Instant Articles
Have you ever had to wait too long for an article that you accessed
through a social networking app to load? Facebook solved that problem
in 2015 when it launched Instant Articles, a feature that makes articles
load easily in its mobile app. When Facebook users click on an article,
the article opens within Facebook’s app with similar formatting to the
article on the publisher’s website.
If you choose Instant Articles as your placement, you’re placing
ads between the paragraphs of the articles that people read on the
app. Much like Audience Network, Instant Articles gives your brand
omnipotence as it follows your users from News Feed to the articles
they’re reading. Unfortunately, you can’t choose the websites on which
to place your ads. You can, however, block categories and create block
lists as you would with Audience Network.
Objectives eligible for this placement: brand awareness, reach, lead
generation video views, traffic, conversions, engagement, app installs,
catalog sales, store visits
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Instagram Feed
When you place your ad on Instagram’s feed, your ad will appear
among Instagram users’ posts. You can place eligible Facebook ads on
Instagram without reformatting your ads. Note that Instagram does
not support all of Facebook’s ad formats. Although single image, video,
and Carousel Ads are eligible for placement on Instagram, Instant
Experience Ad and Slideshow Ads are not.
If you want to tell your brand’s story at the center of a visual
representation, then I recommend placement on Instagram, a platform
known for its visually focused content. To ensure that your ad
successfully blends in with Instagram’s environment, you must use
professional, creative, high-quality, and visually appealing photos
and videos for your ads. Take a
few minutes to browse through
brands’ Instagram feeds to get
acquainted with the type of
content they usually post on
Instagram.
Figure 7.16 The Instagram
feed and Stories placement
Objectives eligible for this placement: brand awareness, reach, traffic,
engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, conversions,
catalog sales, messages, store visits
Instagram Stories
When you place ads on Instagram Stories, your vertical ads will
appear between Instagram users’ ephemeral ten-second Stories.
Usually, when you create an ad, you can place ads on multiple
placements. For example, I can place ads on Instagram’s feed,
Facebook’s feed, and Audience Network simultaneously. That is not the
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case for placement on Stories. You can’t use other
placements alongside Instagram Stories because
Stories ads require ad specs that are incompatible
with other ad formats and placements. For
example, all Stories ads must be in a vertical
video format, a format that is not compatible for
all the other placements. If you want to place ads
on Instagram Stories, create separate creatives
exclusively for Stories.
If you want to show your ads to the
Figure 7.17 The Instagram
feed and Stories placement
maximum number of Instagram users in your
audience and generate a larger brand awareness, then choose the
Instagram Stories placement.
Objectives eligible for this placement: brand awareness, traffic,
engagement, app installs, lead generation, messages, store visits, reach,
video views, conversions, catalog sales
Figure 7.18
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Marketplace
Marketplace is the buy-and-sell platform that Facebook launched
in 2016. Previously, the platform was not open to advertising until 2018
when Facebook officially rolled out Marketplace as a placement.
You can serve your ads to Marketplace by choosing Automatic
Placements. By doing so, your ads will automatically appear in
Marketplace, as well as News Feed, Instagram, Messenger, and
Audience Network. You can also manually choose Marketplace as a
placement option in Manual Placements if you don’t want your ad to
appear anywhere else.
Objectives eligible for this placement: reach, traffic, video views,
conversions, catalog sales
In-Stream Video
You can place five- to fifteen-second video ads within live and
non-live videos on Facebook and Audience Network by choosing the
in-stream video placement. Your in-stream video ad will display at the
beginning, middle, or end of an online video.
When in-stream placement first launched, many advertisers felt
apprehensive about using it because they were afraid their ads would
appear within inappropriate content that they did not want associated
with their brand. Content that were a cause for worry included adult,
dating, and political content. If you don’t want your ad to appear
alongside certain types of content, you can include your block list in
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your ad or block certain categories as you would with placements on
Audience Network.
Objectives eligible for this placement: brand awareness, engagement, video
views
Choosing Your Budget and Schedule
The next step is to create your budget and schedule, which you
can do at the ad set level. So many curious advertisers and potential
clients ask me how much Facebook ads cost. Here’s the thing: Facebook
doesn’t have a fixed fee for its ads because the ad buying process is
a bid. Rather than charging you a set amount per month, Facebook
charges you by the amount you’re willing to pay. Do you want to spend
$20 a day? You can do that. Do you want to spend $5 a day? You can do
that too. You establish your budget with Facebook, and Facebook will
charge you within your budget. There’s no maximum daily spend you
need to abide by, but I don’t recommend that you cheap out on your
ads. You have to bid for a spot
for Facebook’s platform, after
all, and throwing in a few dollars
helps you win a good spot. In this
section you’ll learn how to create
your budget and schedule.
Budget
Figure 7.19
Setting your budget and schedule
Your budget is the amount of money you’re willing to pay over the
period of time you chose your ads to run. In the example below, I have
a $20 daily budget, which means I’ll spend a maximum of $20 each day.
Although I have $20 to spend each day, I may not necessarily have to
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spend that entire budget. For example, Facebook may decide to charge
me $15 on one day or $5 on another. Although the charge per day may
differ, Facebook will never charge you more than your daily budget.
When setting a budget, you have the option to choose between a
daily budget and a lifetime budget. Your daily budget is the amount
you’re willing to spend each day, and your lifetime budget is the
amount you’re willing to spend over the duration of your ad set. Once
you’ve chosen a budget type, you can’t switch to a different one while
the ad is running. You can, however, duplicate an ad set and create a
different budget type for that ad set.
Schedule
After you’ve set your budget, you must then choose your schedule.
Your default option is to run your ad set continuously. If you select
that option, Facebook will run your ads until your budget has been
completely spent. Your second option is to set a start and end date.
Facebook will run your ad based on the start date that you choose and
end it on the end date that you choose. The times entered must comply
with the times of each ad’s location. Thus, if you start your ads targeted
in New York and London at 5:00 p.m., both ads will begin at 5:00 p.m.
in their respective locations.
Figure 7.20
Choosing your schedule
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Brand awareness: Facebook will serve your ads to an audience
most likely to pay attention to your ads.
Link click: Facebook will deliver your ad to an audience that is
most likely to click on your link at the lowest cost.
Impressions: Facebook will place your ad in front of your
audience as frequently as possible.
Reach: Facebook will deliver your ad to your audience once a
day.
Landing page views: Facebook will deliver your ads to uses who
will most likely click on your ad’s landing page link.
Daily unique reach: Facebook will deliver your ads to users once
a day.
Post engagement: Facebook will deliver your ads to users who
will most likely like, share, or comment on your ad.
App installs: Facebook will deliver your ad to users who will
most likely download your app.
App events: Facebook will deliver your ad to users who will
most likely take a specific action on your app at least once.
Video views: Facebook will deliver your ads to users who will
most likely give you their contact information.
Leads: Facebook will deliver your ad to users who will most
likely have a Messenger conversation with you.
Replies: Facebook will deliver your ad to users who will most
likely have a Messenger conversation with you.
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Conversions: Facebook will deliver your ad to users who will
most likely convert on your website.
Conversion events: Facebook will deliver your ad to users who
will most likely take action when they see your product catalog.
Store visits: Facebook will deliver your ad to users who will
most likely visit your business location.
Figure 7.21
optimization options
When choosing your optimization and bidding strategy, think of
your goal. If, for example, you have an app installs ad with an app
installs objective, choosing the app installs ad delivery optimization
will show your ads to users most likely to install your app. If you
wanted to pay only for every time users have clicked on your ad to
download your app, the link click (CPC) bidding strategy will best
complement your objective and delivery optimization. If you choose
the right ad delivery optimization and bidding strategy, you will be
closer to achieving your business goal.
Bid Amount
Facebook advertising is an auction in which advertisers bid against
each other to obtain a spot on Facebook’s platform. Your bid amount
represents your level of interest in showing your ads: low bids show
low interest; high bids show high interest. There are two ways you can
set your bid. First, you can set it on automatic and allow Facebook to
bid on your behalf. Second, you can set it on manual and choose the
amount of money you’re willing to pay per 1,000 impressions. My
advice: choose automatic bid if you don’t have a set value in mind and
choose manual bid if you know how much you’re willing to pay per
bid. If you do choose manual bid, don’t bid too low. Remember that
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Facebook advertising is an auction. If you bid too low, your
competitors will outbid you for the spot that you want.
Figure 7.22
Setting the bid amount
When You Get Charged
You have two options for when you want Facebook to charge you.
You can choose to be charged every time 1,000 impressions occur or
every time someone clicks on your ad. If you choose per 1,000
impressions, Facebook will charge you every time your ad appears on
your audience’s screen. If you choose link clicks, Facebook will charge
you every time someone clicks on any part of your ad. This includes
clicking to react, to comment, to share, or to claim your offer. If you’re
unsure which method would be more financially beneficial to you, you
can test two different ad sets: one in which you’re charged per
impressions and one in which you’re charged per clicks. See which ad
is more inexpensive and continue to run that one.
Figure 7.23
Options for how Facebook charges you
Ad Scheduling
If you chose a lifetime budget, you’ll have the option to either run
your ads continuously or to run them according to a schedule. Running
your ads on a schedule would be helpful if you knew when your
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audience is most often on Facebook, information that you can access
through audience insights. Let’s say audience insights shows you that
you audience accesses Facebook from noon to 1:00 p.m. on the
weekdays. To ensure that your audience sees you ads, schedule your
ads to run every weekday from noon to 1:00 p.m.
Delivery Type
Figure 7.24
Ad scheduling options
After you’ve paid for your ad and after Facebook has approved it,
Facebook will deliver your ad to your target audience using two
methods: standard delivery and accelerated delivery. If you choose
standard delivery, the recommended delivery type, Facebook will
deliver your ads evenly over the course of your campaign (this process
is also called pacing). When choosing this option, keep in mind that,
because Facebook paces your budget, Facebook may lower your bid
when there are more inexpensive opportunities available to get the
best results out of your budget. Pacing is advantageous to you because
you will have the funds to spend on more inexpensive opportunities
that may come later.
Figure 7.25
Delivery options
If you choose accelerated delivery, Facebook will deliver your ads as
quickly as possible. The focus will be on speed rather than efficiency.
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Although this option may prevent you from getting the most statistical
value from your ads (aka the most cost-effective delivery options), it
will be beneficial to you if your campaign is time sensitive.
Sometimes you might find that your ad is not delivering. That’s
because your ad doesn’t have the highest total value, a value that is
calculated by four factors: your bid, your ad quality and relevance, and
your estimated action rates. The following is a checklist of what you
can do to increase your highest total value:
1. Enter a decent bid: Although you can bid any amount you want,
it’s important not to bid too low. If a competitor bid a higher
amount for a spot in News Feed that you want, you will lose the
bid and the spot.
2. Create high-quality ads: Low-quality ads may affect delivery.
3. Target a relevant audience: If you target the wrong audience, an
audience that isn’t relevant to your offer (for example, targeting
young women for an ad that advertises men’s shoes), you will
receive a low relevance score, which will result in low estimated
action rates, the number of people Facebook predicts will
respond to your ad.
It’s important that your ad has a high total value; otherwise, your
ad will not deliver.
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Estimated Daily Results
As you’re creating your ad in the ad set level, you will likely notice a
square on the right column of your screen labeled “Estimated Daily
Results.” That square gives you an estimate of your daily reach and
results based on your ad settings, such as your target audience, budget,
and optimization. You’ll notice that after you’ve chosen your objective,
placement, schedule, and budget and created your audience, the
estimated daily results bar will give you a predicted outcome based on
what your campaign is optimized for.
Figure 7.26 Facebook’s estimated daily results
With the estimated daily results prediction, you can adjust your
daily budget, optimize ad set performance, and use the information
of your ad set that you have so far to improve your results. Estimated
daily results are best suited for advertisers who have actions (e.g.,
video views, conversions, and installs) as their objective.
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Choosing a Page
Figure 7.27 Connecting your page to your ad
As you move from the ad set level to the ad level, you will find
a small section that requires you to connect a Facebook page or an
Instagram account to your ad. Although small, you must not skip this
section because the page you choose will represent the ad that appears
on Facebook and the Audience Network. For example, by choosing my
company’s business page, the ad I created will appear as an ad from
AdvertiseMint. If you’re also placing your ads on Instagram, you’re
required to connect your Instagram account so that the ad will appear
on Instagram’s feed as represented by your business (the Instagram
account you choose to connect).
Choosing Your Format
When I first started advertising, I used nothing but Single Image
Ads. However, I soon realized that in order to keep my audience
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interested in my ads, I needed to use other types of ad formats. My
team’s Facebook representative kept badgering us to create more video
ads in almost every meeting. Finally, I relented and produced video ads
for my bigger clients—and he was right. Our results were great. When
it comes to Facebook advertising, it’s best to use more than one format
to avoid ad fatigue, a phenomenon in which an audience that has seen
your ads too many times overlooks or ignores your ads. Here, I’ll show
you the available ad formats, which you can access at the ad level.
Figure 7.28 Available ad formats
Single Image
Facebook’s Single Image Ad is an ad format that contains a text, a
single image, a headline, a link description, and a CTA button.
Figure 7.29 The anatomy of a Single Image Ad
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The Text
The text appears above the image, usually containing details about
your product or service, a value proposition, and a CTA. The text
should convey everything your audience needs to know about the ad.
What does it offer? What should your audience expect upon clicking
the ad?
The recommended character count for the text is ninety characters.
Note, however, that this is only a recommendation, not a requirement.
Although fewer characters are often recommended by advertisers and
copywriters alike, you are more than welcome to write longer texts. As
always, A/B test to find the text length that garners the best results.
The Image
Below the text is the ad’s image. You can choose any image you
want for your ad as long as it complies with Facebook’s advertising
policies, one of which requires that the text doesn’t occupy more than
20 percent of the image, and ad specs. You can choose a product image,
an image with a model, or an image with your brand’s logo, among
many other choices. Although you are free to choose any image,
remember that your image must relate to your message. For example,
if you’re promoting your wine collection, use an image containing a
few bottles of wine or an image with a model drinking, holding, or
pouring wine into a glass.
The Headline
The headline, which appears below the image in bold, contains
more information about the offer. It should be able to catch your
audience’s attention and compel them to click on your ad. In figure 7.27,
the headline “one-day sale” does exactly that by creating a sense of
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urgency. Facebook recommends that you keep your character count to
twenty-five characters for your headline.
The Link Description
The link description contains the description of the link you’re
providing on your ad. In figure 7.27, the link description “free same-day
shipping” lets customers know that the ad’s link will direct them to a
product catalog where they can purchase products with free same-day
shipping.
The CTA Button
The CTA button, located on the bottom-right corner of the ad,
encourages people to take a desired action. In the Nato Mounts ad, the
CTA button encourages customers to shop at its online store. Note that
your CTA button must relate to your message. Don’t, for example, use
a “learn more” CTA when your ad’s purpose is to drive customers to
make a purchase. Using an irrelevant CTA will confuse, irritate, and
disappoint customers when you don’t meet
their expectations at the landing page.
Single Video
Facebook’s video ad, much like its image
ad, is an ad format that contains a text, a
headline, a link description, a CTA button,
and, unlike the image ad, a video. All of the
ad elements are located in the same area as
the ad elements on an image ad. The text is
above the video, which is then followed by
the headline, the description, and the CTA
button.
Figure 7.30
The anatomy of a single video ad
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The Video
You can choose any video you want as long as it complies with
Facebook’s policies. Although you are free to upload any video to
your ad, remember that your video must relate to your message. For
example, if you’re promoting a horror movie, use the movie’s trailer
for your video ad.
When choosing your video, make sure it complies with Facebook’s
ad specs and technical requirements. Although all uploaded videos
have a maximum length of 120 minutes, try to keep your videos no
longer than one minute to maintain your audience’s attention, unless
you’re promoting a trailer, which are usually two to three minutes
long. If you must use a video that’s longer than one minute, make
sure the heart of your message appears before the one-minute mark.
Otherwise, you could lose your audience’s interest. And, as always, A/B
test to see which video length garners the best results.
When you create your video ad, make sure to design for sound
off because most users prefer to watch their videos without sound.
Although Facebook is currently rolling out a sound-on option that
allows videos to automatically play with sound, users can still opt
out of this feature, and honestly, they most likely will. (The sound-on
feature is not popular among users.) Also, make sure you use highquality videos. When creating your video, use these recommended
custom settings:
●● H.264 video with AAC audio in MOV or MP4 format
●● An aspect ratio no larger than 1280px wide and divisible by 16px
●● A frame rate at, or below, 30fps
●● Stereo audio with a sample rate of 44,100hz
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Carousel
Figure 7.31
An example of a Carousel Ad
Growing tired of creating those all-too-common Single Image Ads
day after day? Do you long to craft something new, something exciting,
something that is practical yet aesthetically pleasing, complex yet
easy to create? Behold Facebook’s Carousel Ad. A Carousel Ad, unlike
your regular Single Image Ad, can feature up to ten images or videos
that Facebook users can scroll through. Each card contains a clickable
link to your landing page, a headline, and, if desired, a call-to-action
button. If you choose to create a Carousel Ad, you will be able to
display multiple products, tell a story, and showcase one long image
through successive Carousel Ad cards in one ad unit.
You have a few placement and objective choices with Carousel Ads.
You place these ads on Facebook’s mobile News Feed, desktop News
Feed, and Instagram. Because of its size, appearance, and function, the
Carousel Ad cannot be placed on Facebook’s right column. Carousel
Ads are eligible for ads with the objectives website clicks, website
conversions, app installs, app engagement, video views, and page post
engagement.
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Instant Experience
Instant Experience Ad don’t just sell—
they take you to an immersive, interactive
experience. Unlike Facebook’s Single Image
Ad or Carousel Ad, Instant Experience
Ads, once clicked, unfold to full-screen
view on your mobile phone. Once you’re
in the world of Instant Experience, you
can swipe up, down, left, right, or zoom
in and out to follow the ad’s narrative.
Each of the ad’s creative, whether it be an
image or a video, can, if desired, include
Figure 7.32
An example of Instant
Experience Ad
links to your landing page, call-to-action buttons, and headlines. With
an Instant Experience Ad, you can link multiple Instant Experience
Ads for a microsite-like effect, choose a combination of capabilities to
better tell your story, sequence your story to drive customers through
your marketing funnel, and remarket to high-interest customers who
opened your ad. If you want to create an Instant Experience Ad, make
sure to use one of the following objectives:
●● Website clicks
●● Website conversions
●● Mobile app installs
●● Mobile app engagement
●● Video views
●● Brand awareness
●● Page post engagement
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Chapter 7. Creating Facebook Ads
It’s possible that you haven’t seen an Instant Experience Ad on your
News Feed before—it’s not hard to imagine why. Unlike your regular
single image, video, slideshow, and Carousel Ads, Instant Experience
Ads are more complex and more expensive to create. Businesses’
apprehension of creating Instant Experience Ads likely explains its
absence on Facebook. However, that does not indicate that Instant
Experience Ads are ineffective. In fact, many bigger companies such
as Coca Cola, Lowe’s, and ASUS have used Instant Experience Ads
with success. If you want an ad that’s immersive, visual, and fast, then
Instant Experience Ads are the ads for you.
Slideshow
In 2015, two events were
occurring in the digital advertising
scene: video was gaining popularity
among Facebook users and users
were consuming most of their
video content on mobile. The
popularity of video and users’ shift
from desktop to mobile presented
several problems for advertisers:
advertisers with a smaller budget
could not afford to create and serve
Figure 7.33
An example of a Slideshow Ad
video ads, and those who could afford it had difficulty delivering
their ads to a cell phone-using audience living in areas with low WiFi speeds and to an audience that owned older cell phone models.
To combat these predicaments, Facebook created Slideshow Ads,
lightweight ads that are easier and more inexpensive for businesses to
create, ads that load and play easily in areas with low internet speeds
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and in older cell phone models.
Slideshow is a lightweight video ad created from a series of three to
ten still images. You can use images from video stills, a photo shoot, or
photos from Facebook’s free photo library. Slideshow can also include
music, as long as the music you upload is licensed for use. Slideshows
can be as short as five seconds and as long as fifty seconds.
Adding Your Media, Text, Links, and Pixel
In the final step of the ad level, you can add your media, text, links,
and pixel. In the media section, you can add the media for your ad,
whether that’s an image for your image ads or a video for your video
ads (figure 7.32). Next, you need to write the copies for your ad. You
must write copies for your text, headline, and link description (figure
7.33). When writing your copies, make sure they are grammatically
correct, relevant to your overall offer, and concise.
Figure 7.34 Where to add your media
Once you’ve added your media and copies, you must include your
website URL. This is the destination to which your ad will send your
customers. For example, if I wanted my customers to know about
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AdvertiseMint’s services, I would add the
URL that directly sends my customers
to AdvertiseMint’s services page. Always
check that your website link matches
your ad’s description. For example, don’t
advertise your product catalog and,
instead of providing the URL to your
product catalog, add the URL for your
about page. Doing so will direct your
customers to a page that they did not
expect, causing them to feel deceived.
Next, you must choose your CTA
Figure 7.35
Where to add links, text, and CTA
button, display link, and pixel options.
When choosing your CTA button, you
must make sure that it describes the
action you want your customers to
take and that it is relevant to your
landing page. For example, if the
website URL you provided will direct
them to your product catalog, and
you want your customers to purchase
from that product catalog, then choose
“Shop Now” or “Buy Now” as your CTA
button. The display link, conversely,
is the link that appears on the ad.
Although this feature may not appear
on all placements, placements such
as Facebook News Feed will show the
display link to customers.
Figure 7.36
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Finally, you must track conversions from your Facebook Pixel.
Although it’s optional, I highly recommend that you do so. I cannot
stress enough the importance of pixel tracking. Before you submit
your ad for Facebook’s approval, always check that you enabled pixel
tracking.
Figure 7.37 enabling pixel tracking
As you’re editing from the ad level, you will see a preview of
your ad on the right side of your screen. You can click the dropdown
menu above it to preview your ad in other placements. Once you’re
satisfied with your ad, you can click “Place Order” to submit your ad to
Facebook. Once approved, you will receive an email notification.
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Chapter 8. Special Ad Types
CHAPTER 8.
SPECIAL AD TYPES
In the previous chapter, I taught you how to create a Facebook ad.
I taught you how to choose an objective, create a target audience, set
your budget and schedule, and choose your format. These are the steps
you will always take when creating any type of ad, whether that’s a
Lead Ad, a Single Image Ad, or a Slideshow Ad. However, some ads
require you to take extra steps. For example, when creating a Lead Ad,
you have to create a lead form. If you want to create a Store Visits Ad,
you would need to set a store location. In this chapter, I will guide you
through creating special ads, or ads that require a unique extra step.
Generating Leads with Lead Ads
If you want more leads, you’re in luck—there’s an ad for that. The
Lead Ad lets you collect valuable information from potential customers
without directing them outside the Facebook platform. From phone
numbers to email addresses to job titles, Lead Ads will help you collect
any information you want from your potential leads.
Lead Ads are superior to website forms for three reasons. First,
Lead Ads were built with the mobile user in mind. Because the forms
open directly in Facebook’s app, users will never have to leave the app.
Instead, they can quickly complete your mobile-friendly form from
their devices rather than from a webpage that may load too slowly
on a mobile phone. Second, Lead Ads automatically prefill the forms
with users’ profile information. This is an amazing feature because
it enables a user to accurately complete and submit a form within
seconds. Third, most Lead Ads convert 50 percent better than website
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forms. This means if you spent $1,000 and generated 1,000 leads with
a website form, with that same $1,000, you could generate 2,000 leads
with Lead Ads. Lead Ads are undoubtedly a much better use of your
money.
Because Lead Ads are a great way to collect leads, I usually tell
all of my clients to have at least five percent to ten percent of their
budgets allocated toward Lead Ads and eighty percent to ninety
percent for clients whose campaigns focus solely on generating
leads. I recommend that you do the same because all of the data that
you collect is yours forever. You can use your leads as recipients for
your email, direct mail, Facebook ad, or text messaging campaigns.
Remember that, by targeting your leads, you are only showing your
ads to users who are more likely to care about your product or service.
Step 1: Click Lead generation >> Continue
Step 2: Choose your Facebook page
Step 3: Create your target audience
Step 4: Choose your placements
Lead Ads are only eligible for Facebook desktop and mobile News
Feeds and Instagram’s feed.
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Step 5: Set a budget and schedule
When you set your budget, optimize for leads rather than for link
clicks. Choosing the latter may result in a higher click-through rate. If
you want to get the most out of your Facebook ad, always optimize for
your goal, which, in this case, is leads.
Step 6: Choose your format
Although your Lead Ad is eligible for the formats carousel, single
image, single video, and slideshow, I recommend sticking with the
single image format. Because you don’t want to risk losing a lead, and
because you want the process to finish as quickly as possible, you want
to keep your form simple and easy.
Step 7: Enter text
Write copies that give your audience a clear understanding about your
business and your offer. For example, disclose what your customers
will get in return (if anything) for their contact information. Will you
give them a free e-book? Will you give them email updates about your
business? Will you give them notifications about your latest offers?
Step 8: Create the form
When you create your form, keep your questions to a minimum.
Lengthy forms may dissuade your customers from signing up because
they may be reluctant to disclose too much personal information. Only
take what you need, which will likely be your customer’s full name,
email address, and phone number. If you must ask questions on your
form, ask multiple choice questions rather than open-ended questions.
A convenient process leads to more conversions.
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When creating a Lead Ad, review the questions you want to ask
customers with your legal team and carefully study Facebook’s Lead
Ad policies and terms of service.
Step 9: You’re done
After running your Lead Ads for a few days, you can then compile the
information you obtained into a spreadsheet that you later upload
to your Custom Audience. Afterward, use your Custom Audience
to remarket to the customers who responded to your Lead Ad. I
recommend doing this because the customers who responded to your
Lead Ad are most likely to respond to your future ads.
Creating Conditional Answers
Originally, you could only receive multiple-choice and short
answers for your Lead Ads. However, Facebook updated the Lead Ad
form to allow you to include conditional answers, which automatically
change according to the customer’s previous response. Examine figure
8.1. As you can see, the first question contains two different answers. In
that example, I answered USA, and, because I gave this answer, the
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Chapter 8. Special Ad Types
responses to the next question will change accordingly. In figure 8.2,
I’m asked which state I live in, and I’m given two states within the
United States as the options because, remember, I answered USA to the
previous question. When I answer California in figure 8.3, the next
question will give me cities from California to choose from.
Figure 8.1
Options will change according to your responses
Figure 8.2
Options include states within the United States
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Figure 8.3
Options include cities in California
Remember, conditional answers change according to the previous
answer you gave. So if I choose the option India rather than USA, the
answers will also change. Take a look at figures 8.4 to 8.6. When asked
which state I live in, I’m given states in India because I answered India
in the previous question. When I’m asked which city, I’m given cities in
the state of Haryana.
Figure 8.4 Changing response from USA to India
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Figure 8.5 Options include states within India
Figure 8.6 Options include cities from the state of Haryana
After seeing the usefulness of Lead Ad’s new conditional answers,
you’re likely excited to learn how to create one. Creating one can
be confusing because you would need to upload a spreadsheet in a
particular format, containing all the questions with all the conditional
answers. If you don’t format it correctly, you can accidentally pair
the questions with the wrong answers. Examine figure 8.7, a sample
template courtesy of Facebook.
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Figure 8.7 A sample template courtesy of Facebook
In the first column, I have the answers to the first question, “Which
country do you live live in?” For the second column, I have answers
to the second question, and for the third column, I have answers to
the third question. Notice that the answers to the first question in the
first column are entered multiple times: there are three entries for
USA and four for India. That’s because you need to enter each of the
first answers with each of the first and second answers. USA needs to
be entered three times in the first column because you have to enter
California once to give the answer for Menlo Park and you need to
enter Florida twice for the options Orlando and Miami. It’s important
that you plan your questions and answers before creating the
spreadsheet to ensure that you know exactly how to format it. Once
you’ve created your spreadsheet, you can then upload it to your Lead
Ad form. Here are the steps in creating a new
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Step 1: Click New Form from the ad level
Step 2: Click Questions >>Custom Questions >> Add Custom Question >>
Conditional
Step 3: Upload spreadsheet
Step 5: Write the questions
When you write the questions, make sure that each question is worded
in a way that is applicable to all of the possible answers.
Step 6: You’re done
After you’ve created your form, you can submit the Lead Ad to
Facebook for approval.
Personalizing Advertising and Marketing with
Messenger Ads
Messenger Ads send customers directly to your conversation
window after they click on your ad. In the past, I have used this
objective to send customers discount codes, guides, and infographics.
Here’s how to create your own Messenger Ads.
Step 1: Choose your objective.
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The objectives traffic, conversions, app installs, reach, Messages, brand
awareness, and catalog sales are eligible for this type of ad.
Step 2: Choose Messenger for traffic
Doing so will bring customers who clicked on your ad to your
Messenger. If you don’t choose this option, your Messenger Ad won’t
work.
Step 3: Choose your audience
Step 4: Choose your placements
Step 5: Choose your budget and schedule
Step 6: Choose your Facebook and Instagram page
Step 7: Choose your format
Step 8: Upload your images
Step 9: Add your text, CTA button, and pixel
Step 10: Set up Messenger
For this step, you’re creating the content that will appear to your
customers once they arrive to your Messenger conversation after
clicking your ad. You have two options. You can either create your own
welcome experience or use your bot’s “Get Started” screen
●● Create your own welcome experience: standard template
Enter your text greeting. The text greeting is the first message your
customers will receive upon entering your Messenger conversation.
Then personalize your message. You can either choose to personalize
the message according to first name only, last name only, or full name.
When you personalize your message, the name in the greeting will
change according to the person contacting you.
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Next, select a list of responses. The responses you choose must be
relevant to your business goals. For example, if you want customers to
learn more about your business, add a “Learn more” response. You can
also choose a response that will answer commonly asked questions.
For example, because most people often ask about AdvertiseMint’s
agency rates, I added a “What are your agency rates?” response to the
greeting. This is what my Messenger conversation will look like on my
customer’s end.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
●● Create your own welcome experience: custom template
Custom template goes beyond the boring text-only template. This
option allows you to customize your greeting with photos and videos,
to add buttons that send customers to your website, and to create
quick, automatic replies so that you can respond to customers even
when you’re away from your computer or smartphone.
When creating buttons, you have to provide the label, action, and
website URL. The label is your CTA button that encourages customers
to take an action. The action options in the second field are “Open a
website” and “Send a postback.” Unless you have a chatbot, select the
first option “Open a website” then add the website URL to where you
want your customers to go after clicking your label. For my example,
I used “View Rates,” which, once clicked, will send customers to the
pricings page of my website.
After you set up your messages, go ahead and submit the ad for
review.
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Chapter 8. Special Ad Types
Selling Products: Dynamic Product Ad, Broad
Dynamic Product Ad, and Collection Ad
Often, certain formats work well with certain objectives. For
example, the brand awareness objective works well with Single Image
and Single Video. The lead generation objective works well with the
Lead Ad. In the same manner, if you want to sell products, there are
several formats that work well. Those formats advertise products and
target your audience in the most efficient way possible.
Dynamic Product Ad
Imagine an ad that allows you to target customers in all stages
of the sales funnel, an ad that allows you to simultaneously feature
multiple products in one creative, an ad that features products your
customers viewed, added to cart, or purchased. That ad you imagined
is not a fictional product. In fact, it’s an ad called Dynamic Product
Ad. Unlike regular ads like Single Image and Single Video, Dynamic
Product Ads, which debuted in 2015, advertise products straight from
your product catalog, changing according to customers’ current salesfunnel stage.
How does Facebook know which products to show to which
customers in which stages of the sales funnel? Facebook uses the
Facebook Pixel to track the website pages your customers visited (e.g.,
product catalog or checkout), and based on its findings, it will serve
ads with the relevant products to those customers. For example, if
customers browsed through your collection of fur coats, your ad will
advertise the coats those customers viewed. If your customers added
fur coats into their carts but did not purchase, your ad will remind
your customers to finalize their purchases featuring those exact
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products. Dynamic Product Ads are great tools that push interested
customers to convert.
Dynamic Product Ads, if you choose the carousel format, contain up
to 10 images and videos that customers can scroll through. The ads also
feature one relevant product to customers in specific stages of the sales
funnel using the Single Image Ad format. With Dynamic Product Ads,
you can automatically promote all of your products in one ad, set up
your campaigns once, continually reach people with the right product
at the right time, reach people on any device they use, and show ads
with products customers are most likely to buy. To create Dynamic
Product Ads, you must have the items listed below.
●● An online product catalog: You can use an existing catalog from
other online shopping portals. The product catalog you create on
Facebook must have a product ID, name, description, landing page
URL, image URL, and availability.
●● The Facebook Pixel: The pixel is an essential element because
it tracks web activity and shows relevant products to your
customers
If you want to promote relevant products from your catalog to
interested customers, then you should choose promote a product
catalog as your objective and create a Dynamic Product Ad. The process
of creating a Dynamic Product Ad is slightly different from the process
of creating your regular Single Video or Single Image Ad. For one, you
can only use the product catalog sales objective. To create a Dynamic
Product Ad, follow the steps below.
Step 1: Choose the product catalog sales objective
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Step 2: Choose your product set and audience
Choose the product you want to feature in your ad. Next, choose
the audience to whom you want to target the ad. You target people
who viewed or added your products to their carts but did not purchase,
viewed a specific product set in a specific amount of time, or purchased
from the product set in a specific amount of time. You can also target a
Custom Audience of users who interacted with your products.
Step 3: Choose your placement
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Step 4: Set your budget and schedule
Step 5: Choose your optimization
Choose how you want Facebook to optimize your ad for delivery.
If you don’t choose carefully, Facebook won’t deliver your ads, and
your ads will fail. You have three options to choose from: link clicks,
impressions, and conversion events. If you choose link clicks, Facebook
will show your ads to those who will most likely click on your ad.
If you choose impressions, Facebook will show your ads to as many
people as possible. If you choose conversion events, Facebook will
deliver your ads to those who are most likely to take action when they
see a product from your catalog.
The two popular options are impressions and conversion events.
Your choice between these two options depends on your amount of
website traffic. If you have a small product catalog and little website
traffic, then you should choose impressions. If you have plenty of
products and website traffic, then you should choose conversion
events. It is necessary that you have a lot of website traffic when
choosing conversion events because Facebook requires at least 25
conversions a week to gather enough data to optimize for conversion
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events. If you don’t have enough conversions for the conversion events
optimization, Facebook won’t have enough data to know to whom to
show your ad, and your ad won’t deliver.
Step 6: Choose your conversion window
A conversion window is the amount of time between someone
clicking or viewing your ad and completing a conversion event. By
choosing a conversion window, you’re choosing whether to collect one
day or seven days’ worth of conversion data when determining who
should see your ad. Let’s say you chose a one-day conversion window.
Once a customer clicks on your ad, Facebook will track whatever that
person is doing on your website for 24 hours, whether that action is
viewing other products, adding to a cart, or purchasing. After 24 hours,
Facebook will collect that data to determine to whom to show your ad.
Conversely, if you chose a seven-day conversion window, Facebook
will track that person’s actions for seven days. The seven-day window
gives Facebook the chance to track more actions from the customer, so
it is likely that it will create more useful data.
Although the longer conversion window is recommended for all
businesses, your choice should depend on the size of your business and
the amount of website traffic you receive. If your business is small, if
you have little website traffic, and if only a few people interact with
your products, then you should choose the seven-day conversion
window. If you own a bigger business and a website with a lot of
traffic, then you can choose a one-day conversion window.
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Step 7: Choose event type
Conversion events describe a variety of different actions, such as
adding to a cart, purchasing, or completing registration. By choosing
an event type, you’re defining what you consider as a conversion. For
Dynamic Product Ads, you can choose to define your conversion event
as an add to cart, a purchase, a complete registration, an initial
checkout, or a search. In the example below, I defined my conversion
event as a purchase. By doing so, Facebook will optimize my Facebook
ad by delivering it to those who will most likely make a purchase.
Step 8: Connect your pages
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Step 9: Choose your format
You can choose the Carousel Ad or the Single Image Ad format.
When you choose the carousel format, your ad will feature up to ten
images of products that your customers viewed, placed in their carts,
or purchased. It will also feature products that are closely related to
products your customers bought. When you choose a Single Image
Ad format, your ad will feature only one product that your customers
either viewed or added to their carts. When deciding which of these
two ad formats to use, ask yourself this question: Do you want to
encourage your customers to buy more products or do you want them
to buy only the product they have previously viewed or added to their
carts? If you want the former, then use the Carousel Ad format. If
the latter is the case, then use the Single Image Ad format. Although
both are valuable, I usually use a Carousel Ad because it encourages
customers to scroll through the carousel cards, consequently
increasing the ad’s relevance score. Additionally, the carousel format
for Dynamic Product Ads is usually cheaper than the single image
format.
Step 10: Add links, copies, pixel tracking, and CTA buttons
Step 11: You’re done
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Broad Dynamic Product Ad
Dynamic Product Ads work exceptionally well for retargeting
customers who interacted with your business. For example, people
who added your products to cart without checking out. However,
Dynamic Product Ads prevent advertisers from acquiring new
customers. If you want to retarget and acquire new customers, you
can instead use the Broad Dynamic Product Ad, which targets a broad
audience, people who expressed interest in your products or products
similar to yours without visiting your website or app. After you upload
your product catalog, the ad will show relevant products to users. To
run a Broad Dynamic Product Ad, you must turn on your Facebook
Pixel and upload your product catalog.
Step 1: Create your Dynamic Product Ad as you normally would.
Step 2: At the ad set level, under Create New in the Audience section,
click the option
Define a Broad Audience and Let Facebook Optimize Who Sees Your
Products.
Step 3: Choose your target location, age, and gender.
Step 4: Click Show Advanced Options. Refine your audience and
exclude people less
likely to take action on your ads.
●● No exclusions: You don’t exclude anyone from seeing your ads.
Even people who already purchased from you will see your ads.
●● Exclude people who purchased: The ad won’t appear to people
who already purchased your products.
●● Create a custom exclusion: Your ads won’t appear to people based
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on the rules you specify. For example, you can choose to exclude
people who purchased a specific brand of shoes in that last 10
days.
Quick Tips
●● Don’t use Lookalike Audiences, behavioral targeting, and interest
targeting. They will limit your ad’s delivery.
●● Exclude people who already purchased. If they already converted,
they will not convert again.
●● Don’t exclude all of your website visitors. Including people who
interacted with your website will let Facebook know to whom to
show your ads.
●● Optimize conversions. Through the standard events, you can
optimize for purchase, add-to-cart, and registration.
●● Use creatives that performed well in the past.
●● Use creatives relevant to people who never visited your website,
who are not familiar with your business.
●● Use a product catalog that contains more than a few products so
Facebook can find the best-performing products.
Collection Ad
A prospective buyer scrolls through his News Feed and stops at a
video ad, which automatically plays.He watches the Adidas Pure Boost
ZG Trainer Shoes—dark, beautiful, and sleek—float before him. He
wants to have them now, but the video doesn’t link to the website. In
fact, if he wants to buy the shoes, he’d have to hunt them down. He’d
have to go to Google and search for them. The moment passes. With
a shrug, he continues scrolling through his News Feed, completely
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forgetting the shoes he, for a split second, wanted. That’s how quickly
you can lose a customer. It’s a matter of convenience, and it’s up to you
to provide it.
Although video ads are great for attracting and sustaining
attention, they’re not so great with helping customers find the item
they want to buy. Fortunately, Facebook solved that predicament by
launching an enhanced version of video ads, a version that allows
customers to find and buy the product featured in the video. This
new video ad is called the Collection Ad. Collection Ad allows you to
attach multiple product images to the bottom of a video or image ad
in a News Feed. For example, if your video ad features the Pure Boost
ZG Trainer Shoes, you can attach images of those shoes to the bottom
of the ad. Once customers click on the image, they will be taken
to a product catalog Facebook hosts. Note, however, that although
customers can access the catalog through the platform, they cannot
make a purchase right then and there. Rather, once they click, they will
be taken to your website, where they purchase your products.
When you create the Collection Ad, you’re combining the steps of
creating the Single Video Ad and the Dynamic Product Ad.
Step 1: Choose conversions or traffic as your objective
Step 2: Choose where you want to direct your traffic
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Step 3: Choose your audience
Step 4: Choose your placements
Step 5: Set your budget and schedule
Step 6: Connect your pages
Step 7: Choose the collection format and your template
You can choose from three templates:
●● Sell Products: Use this template if you want to feature your
products. The collection ad will appear as a grid featuring the
items you want to sell.
●● Showcase Your Business: Use this template if you want to
showcase your business for your brand awareness campaign.
The Collection Ad will appear as a full-screen interactive ad that
people can scroll through to look at pictures and learn more about
your business.
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●● Get New Customers: Use this template if you want to drive
people to your landing page. This ad will appear in an interactive
full-screen format. Users can scroll up and down to read more
information and click on your CTA button that will send them to
the web page of your choosing.
Step 8: Upload your media and destination URL
When you upload your media, you will have to choose your cover
photo or video. Your cover photo or video will appear as the thumbnail
for your ad. I suggest using a thumbnail that provides a sneak peek of
the ad’s message, sparks intrigue, and compels your audience to click.
In the example below, I capture the attention of my audience by
featuring my book The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising.
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Next provide your destination URL. The URL will bring your customers
to a landing page after clicking on the ad. If advertising a product,
make sure your URL will send customers to the product catalog that
you are advertising. In my example, I chose the URL for my book’s
Amazon page. From there, customers can buy my book.
Step 9: Add your product catalog
●● Order dynamically: With this option, your ad will automatically
show people the product that is relevant to them. For example, if
your audience is interested mini skirts, your ad will automatically
show mini skirts to that audience. If your audience at one point
looked at your product catalog of accessories on your website,
your ad will show accessories to that audience. I recommend this
option.
●● Choose a specific order: With this option, the products from your
catalog or the products you manually enter will appear in your ad.
The products featured will not change according to your
audience’s interest or behaviors.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Step 10: Create Your CTA Button and Add CTA URL
Your CTA button should reflect the action you want your audience
to take. For my example, I used “Buy Now” because I want my people to
buy my book. Your CTA URL is the place where you want people to go
once they click your CTA. For mine, I chose the Amazon page for my
book.
Step 11: Submit ad to Facebook for review
Using Creative Ads
Single Video Ad and Single Image Ad, the first ad formats to
appear during the early years of Facebook advertising, are basic and
straightforward. They appear with text, media, description, headline,
and CTA button. That’s it. As Facebook advertising improved, the social
media company released ad formats that were not so basic, ads that
were more likely to attract attention and immerse its audience in the
experience it offered. I refer to these ads as “creative ads” because they
allow more creativity than your regular video and image ads. I’ll teach
you how to create the creative ads available: Instant Experience Ad,
Dynamic Creative Ad, Slideshow Ad, 3D ad, and 360 video ad.
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Dynamic Creative Ad
Dynamic Creative Ad can appear as a video or an image. But it’s
different from any other Facebook ad because it automatically changes
appearance without your manually doing so. Here’s how the Dynamic
Creative Ad works: you enter a combination of creatives (images or
videos, copies, and CTA buttons), and the ad automatically combines
those creatives to create various ads. The ad delivers those variations,
finds the best performing version, and continues delivering those bestperforming ads to users.
Eligible for the Facebook News Feeds, right column, Audience
Network, in-stream video, rewarded video, and Messenger inbox
placements, Dynamic Creative Ad supports the image, video, and
carousel formats. To create the Dynamic Creative Ad, choose from one
of these objectives: brand awareness, reach, traffic, app installs, video
views, lead generation, and conversion. Also, choose the quick creation
workflow instead of the guided workflow in Ads Manager.
Step 1: Click the Create button.
Step 2: Create your campaign as you normally would. Click Save to
Draft.
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Step 3: At the ad set level, turn on the Dynamic Creative option.
Step 4: At the ad set level, choose one of the following options: Ad with
an Image or Video or Ad with Multiple Image in a Carousel.
Step 5: Upload multiple texts, headlines, and descriptions.
Step 6: Preview ad variations.
Step 7: Publish or save ads.
Quick Tips
●● Make sure your creatives make sense when combined.
●● Make sure you have at most 30 creatives.
●● Make sure you have at most five text variations.
●● Have no more than 10 image or video variations.
●● Have no more than five headline variations.
●● Have no more than five link description variations.
●● Have no more than five CTA-button variations.
●● When using the lead generation objective, create only one
form because that objective doesn’t support multiple forms.
●● When using the Dynamic Creative Ad for multiple products,
write generic copy so that your variations will be relevant to
all of the products the ad will feature.
●● Keep your copies short.
●● It’s better to have fewer creatives that are high quality than
more creatives that are low quality.
●● A/B test by using different selling tactics for each creative you
upload.
●● Don’t add text to images.
●● A/B test multiple CTA buttons to find the most effective one.
●● Use the Facebook Pixel to track results.
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Slideshow Ad
The Slideshow Ad provides two main benefits. One, it works well
in countries that have slow connections speeds. In fact, Facebook
created the Slideshow Ad for that exact purpose, to create visually
appealing ads that do not require fast internet connectivity. While
more complex ads such as Single Video and Instant Experience load
slowly in those areas, Slideshow loads quickly and easily because it is
lightweight, containing only basic transitions and movements between
the slides. Two, Slideshow is a great alternative to video ads, especially
for small companies that do not have the money or the resources to
create videos. This ad format, by flashing slide after slide of images to
create a story in a very flip-book-esque fashion, has the illusion of a
video. Although perfect for smaller companies with smaller budgets,
Slideshow has been favored by large companies such as Unilever and
Stance.
Step 1: Choose your objective
Step 2: Choose your audience
Step 3: Choose your placement
Step 4: Choose your budget and schedule
Step 5: Connect your pages
Step 6: Choose Slideshow as your format
Step 7: Choose your media
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When creating your slideshow, you can choose to upload only
photos (you can include up to 10), a combination of photos and videos,
or only text. If you choose to upload a video, you will have the option
to add captions. After choosing your media, you must also choose your
aspect ratio, image duration (how long you want your image to appear
in the slide), transition type, and music.
If you want to upload music to your slideshow, you must use one
of the formats WAV, MP3, M4A, FLAC, and OGG. Additionally, you
must have all legal rights to the song you want to use. Songs that you
licensed for use are allowed while songs you purchased or downloaded
are not. If you don’t have an audio track, you can use the free music
from Facebook’s library.
Step 8: Add your text, URL, and pixel tracking
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3D Image Ads
If you’re lucky, you’ll come across a rare 3D post on Facebook. Those
posts allow you to click and rotate an image to view it from all angles.
Imagine those posts in your News Feed. Imagine dragging the image
from left to right to look at all sides. Imagine dragging the image up
and down to view the objects over and under. If you want to tell the
difference between 3D posts and regular image posts, hover your
mouse over the image until a mouse and the instructions “click and
move around to view in 3D” appear.
Figure 8.8
Unfortunately, you can’t create 3D ads by uploading your glTF 2.0
files to Ads Manager or by boosting the 3D post. I included 3D posts
here because I suspect 3D will soon become an ad format. It’s better
to give you a head start for when that day comes. In the meantime,
you can raise brand awareness among your current followers by
organically sharing a 3D post on your Facebook page. You only need
to either use an app that supports Facebook’s Graph API with 3D post
support, share a link from a website that supports 3D sharing using the
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Open Graph tag, or upload your 3D file from your desktop, the easier
option. Here are the steps for the third option.
Step 1: Drag your glTF 2.0 file to your page’s status box.
Step 2: Click Post
If you don’t know which software to use for your 3D images, consider
these options:
●● Vectary
●● Sketchup
●● Blender
●● AutoCAD
●● Rhino
●● Revit
●● 3Ds Max
●● Maya
●● Cinema 4D
●● Tinkercad
●● 3D Slash
●● Voxel Builder
●● MagicaVoxel
●● Autodesk 123d
●● Sculptris
●● Onshape
●● Fusions360
●● Solidworks
●● Blender
●● ZBrush
●● Lightwave
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When creating your 3D image, keep these requirements in mind:
●● File type: GLB file
●● File size: 3MB or smaller
●● Textures: jpeg and png
●● Height and width: under 4,096 pixels
●● Rendering methodology: PBR and KHR_materials_unlit
extensions
Quick Tips
1 . Make sure copy states that your image is a 3D model. Here’s
an example: “Drag the image to view in 3D!” Otherwise, users
can easily scroll past your post, assuming it contains a regular
image.
2. Don’t know what 3D image to create? Try Featuring your
product in 3D. A 3D image of your product allows users to
examine and familiarize with what you’re selling.
3. Add texture, colors, depth, or realistic rendering to your
object to encourage users to examine your image.
4. Design objects in your image that appear to be in motion. An
object in motion is cooler to view in 3D than an object not in
motion.
5. Make sure your file size is 3MB or smaller.
6. Use jpeg texture for small images and use png texture for
transparency.
7. Create objects that can complement a plain or gradient
background. Those are the only two backgrounds you can use
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for 3D images.
8. Hide promo codes somewhere in your 3D object to encourage
users to interact with your image.
9. Make sure your 3D model doesn’t contain animation because
Facebook doesn’t support that.
10. Make sure your file is either glb or glTF 2.0.
11. Use lightweight, real-time modeling techniques.
12. Use small, compressed jpeg files for your textures. Avoid
uncompressed png files.
13. Strip out unused data.
14. Keep your vertex count and object count low.
15. Bake out high-polygon surfaces into normal maps.
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360 Video Ads
Figure 8.9
The first time I saw a 360 video on my News Feed, I was surprised
and delighted. I could zoom in and out and rotate my view of the scene
in full 360 degrees. At that moment, I saw the future of advertising,
and the future I saw was mind-blowingly cool.
If you haven’t seen a 360 video on your News Feed yet, it’s not
because I’m fabricating its existence. They exist, but not many
upload those videos to their feeds, most likely because 360 videos
require more time, money, and technical skills than regular videos.
With regular videos, you can easily capture the moment from your
smartphone if your camera quality is superb. But with 360 videos, it’s
not that easy. You need a special camera, such as the Samsung Gear
360, RICOH THETA S, 360Fly, Giroptic 360 Cam, and ALLie Camera.
However, if you do have the resources to produce 360 videos for
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your ads, I encourage you to do so. You often hear marketers talk about
the importance of attracting attention: “You have two seconds to stop
users mid scroll,” “Make sure to create thumb-stopping creatives,”
“Catch their attention.” What better way to attract attention than an
immersive 360 video that sucks them in the moment, that places them
in the scene as though they were standing there.
Although you currently can’t upload 360 videos to Ads Manager
to create a 360 ad, you can, instead, upload it to your page’s timeline
and boost the post as long as you recorded the video using a 360 or
spherical camera system that adds 360 metadata to the video file.
Otherwise, you will have to add the 360 metadata yourself before
uploading the video. To upload your video without the 360 metadata,
follow these steps.
Step 1: Click the camera icon under the text box of your status update
and choose the video you want to upload.
Step 2: Click the Advanced tab
Step 3: Click This Video Was Recorded in 360 Format
Step 4: Click the 360 Controls tab
Step 5: Publish
After publishing, you will receive a notification that states your video
can display in 360. Follow these steps to finalize your 360 video.
Step 1: Click the notification >> Edit Video Page
Step 2: Click Enable 360 encoding
Step 3: Save
Once your video is on your page’s timeline, click the “Boost Post”
button on the bottom-right side of your post. The 360 video will
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contain a 360 icon in the middle of the preview to distinguish itself
from regular videos.
Technical Specifications:
File type: MP4 container
Video Codec: H.264 Video
Resolution:
4k input (4096 x 2048 monoscopic)/(4096 x 4096 top-bottom
stereoscopic) for feed-targeted videos
6k (6144x3072) / (6144 x 6144 stereoscopic top-bottom)
recommended for VR-targeted videos
Dimensions:
2:1 Display Aspect Ratio for monoscopic videos
2:1 top-bottom - making overall video 1:1 - for stereoscopic
Frame Rate: 30fps recommended
Pixel Format: yuv420p
Depth: Monoscopic or Stereoscopic
Audio Codec:
Stereo audio: AAC at 128kbps
Spatial audio:
8 channel/10channel ambisonic audio – Hybrid Higher Order
Ambisonics.
Recommended up to 4096x4096 monoscopic
4096x2048 stereoscopic (left/right so 2048x2048 per eye)
Dimensions:
1:1 Display Aspect Ratio for monoscopic videos
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1:1 left-right (side-by-side) - making overall video 1:2 - for
stereoscopic.
Frame Rate: 30fps recommended.
Pixel Format: yuv420p
Depth: Monoscopic or Stereoscopic
Audio Codec:
Stereo audio: AAC at 128kbps
Spatial audio:
8 channel/10channel ambisonic audio – Hybrid Higher Order
Ambisonics.
Projection Format: Half-Equirectangular only
Device Requirements:
iPhone
●● Hardware: 4S or newer or iPad 2 or newer
●● Operating System: iOS7 or newer
●● App: Facebook iOS app (latest version, v56)
Android
●● Hardware: Devices from 2012 or newer
●● Operating System: Android OS version 4.3 or newer
●● App: Facebook Android app (latest version, v78)
On the web
Browsers: Google Chrome and Firefox
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Quick Tips
1. Be prepared to invest a lot of time, money, and effort on 360
videos. They require a lot of editing and expensive, high-tech
equipment.
2. Add audio using the microphones Zoom H2n and Core Sound
Tetramic.
3. Add traditional audio (sound comes from the left and right
sides of the earphones) if you’re targeting mobile and desktop
devices.
4. Add ambisonic audio (directional audio that changes when
people turn their heads) if you’re targeting VR devices.
5. Hold the camera steady to avoid rapid, dizzying movements.
6. Place your audience in the middle of the action from where
they can see and experience your ad in every angle.
7. Place your camera where you want to place your viewers.
8. Create a story that encourages your audience to explore the
full 360-degree view.
9. Place the action your audience needs to see in front and make
sure no other action distracts your audience’s attention.
10. If you include people in your video, place the camera at midchest height so they don’t appear warped.
11. When focusing attention on a particular subject, start farther
away then move in on the subject to prevent jarring cut scenes.
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Instant Experience Ad
Instant Experience Ad is a great way to create a full immersive
experience on mobile devices. The Instant Experience Ad will appear
as a regular ad on News Feed with a small circle at the bottom of the
ad. When users click on the small circle, the ad will open, taking up the
entire screen on a mobile phone. Instant Experience Ad is like Legos:
you can combine and stack different elements such as texts, videos,
images, carousels, and buttons on top of each other.
Template (the Easier Option)
Step 1: From the ad level, choose a format. Click “Add a full-screen
experience.” Choose a template
You have three template choices. One will help you get new customers
(much like the Lead Ad), one will help you showcase your business
(much like the brand awareness objective), and one will help you sell
products (much like the Dynamic Product Ad).
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Step 2: Add your media, text, CTA button, and website URL
Step 3: Preview and submit
Once you send a preview to your phone, Facebook will send you a
notification on your app. After you’re satisfied with the preview, you
can then submit the ad to Facebook for approval.
Advanced Instant Experience Ad Builder (the Harder Option)
Step 1: Click “Use the advanced Instant Experience Ad Builder” under
the three templates.
Step 2: Click Open Blank Instant Experience Ad
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Step 3: Name your Instant Experience Ad
Step 4: Update settings
You can choose between three themes: light, dark, and custom. After
you’ve chosen your theme, you can enable swipe to open, a feature
that, appearing on the last component of your Instant Experience Ad,
links to a website or an app.
Step 5: Add components
You can add several components:
●● Header: This image will appear at the top of your Instant
Experience Ad, and it will remain there as users scroll down. For
best results, images should be 882 x 66 pixels.
●● Text block: This will appear underneath your header. You can
modify your text’s font, size, color, alignment, and spacing. You
can also modify the cell padding and background color.
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●● Photo: This will appear under your header and text block. Upload
a photo with a width of 1080 pixels for the best results. When
adding a photo, you can include a destination URL in the http://
format, which is where users will be taken if they click on the
image. You can also modify the image padding and image format:
●● Fit to width (linkable): This takes up the width of the Instant
Experience Ad. A URL link can be added.
●● Fit to width (tap to expand): This expands to full screen when
users tap the image. They can also zoom out of the image.
●● Fit to height (tilt to pan): An image can fit cell phone screens both
vertically and horizontally when people tilt their devices to rotate
the image from side to side.
●● Video: This will appear under your header and text block. Keep
your videos (.mp4 or .mov) under two minutes and use captions.
Video format options: fit to width and fit to height.
●● Button: This will appear under your photo or video. It allows
you to direct users to a web page or app store using a URL in the
http:// format. You can edit the button’s color, style (border or fill),
font, font size, font color, padding, positioning, and background.
●● Carousel: You can upload up to 10 images. If images are not the
same size, they will be cropped to match your first image. Each
image must have a URL in the http:// format. You can edit the
carousel’s component padding and layout to linkable fit to width
and tiltable fit to height.
●● Product sets: You can upload a product catalog and display up to
fifty products.
●● Store locator: You can direct people nearby to your location.
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Step 6: Save, preview, share, and submit
Once you complete your Instant Experience Ad, you must first save it
before you can preview, share, or submit the ad. The options to save,
preview, share, and submit are located on the top bar of the editor box.
You can edit your Instant Experience Ad by previewing it.
Increasing App Installs
App install ads allow you to advertise your apps to users. Once
users click your ad, they will be redirected to the app store where they
can install your ad. To create app install ads, you must first connect
your app to the Facebook for Developers website and to Business
Manager. Only then can you use your app to create app install ads.
Linking Your App to a Facebook Developers Account
Step 1: Download the Facebook SDK into your app
SDK for iOS: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/ios/
SDK for Android: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/android/
Step 2: In Business Manager, click the
hamburger icon on the upper-left
corner of your screen then click App
Dashboard >> Add a New App
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Step 3: Create a new app ID. Select Create App ID
Step 4: Complete security check
Step 5: Add a product to integrate with your app and set up product
following the steps on your screen.
Step 6: Click Settings >> Advanced. Set up your settings
Assign any advanced settings. It’s important that you set up your
domains, app page, Business Manager, and any authorized advertising
accounts.
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Step 7: From the menu, click Roles to assign roles
Enter the name or username of the person you would like to add. Only
admins can create app install ads for your app.
Step 8: From the menu, click App Review. Slide the toggle bar to Yes to
make the app public.
Linking App through Business Manager
Next, link your app to Business Manager.
Step 1: Go to Business Manager >> Business Settings >> Apps
Step 2: Add your app using your app ID
Step 3: Assign ad accounts to your app
Step 4: Assign partners to your app
Once you’ve connected your app to the SDK and to Business Manager,
it will be available for attachment when creating app install ads.
Creating an app install ad
Step 1: Choose the objective app installs
App installs is the only objective eligible for the app install ad. If you
don’t choose this objective, you won’t be able to create app install ads.
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Step 2: Enter your app’s URL
Step 3: Create your audience
Step 4: Choose placements
Step 5: Select your mobile devices and operating systems
Based on the type of app you have, Facebook should automatically
choose the devices and operating systems compatible with your app.
You shouldn’t worry about this section unless you want to specify the
device versions you want your ad to appear in or unless you want your
ad to appear to devices that are only connected to Wi-Fi.
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Step 6: Choose your budget and schedule
Step 7: Choose your optimization
I highly recommend optimizing for app installs. As always, you should
optimize for the goal that you want to achieve, which, in this case, is
app installs.
Step 8: Add more specifications
Choose your conversion window, bid amount, charges, ad schedule,
and delivery type. Remember that your conversion window is the
amount of time between someone clicking or viewing your ad and
completing an action you’ve defined as a conversion event, such as
purchases. If you choose a one-day conversion window, Facebook will
track your customer’s actions on your website for 24 hours, whether
that action is viewing other products, adding to cart, or purchasing.
Step 9: Choose your Facebook and Instagram pages
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Step 10: Choose your format
Step 11: Choose your image
Although you can upload an image for your ad, Facebook will
automatically upload an image you used as the preview image for the
app.
Step 12: Add your text
Don’t forget to check the option that allows you to track all
conversions from your Facebook Pixel.
Step 13: You’re done
You should be able to see a preview of your ad. Once you’re done, you
can send your ad to Facebook.
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Increasing Foot Traffic to Stores Using Store
Visits Ad
Your business may have multiple locations in multiple cities. If you
owned McDonald’s, for example, you would have 14,146 restaurants in
the United States. Your multiple business locations pose one problem:
how are you supposed to advertise for each of those 14,146 restaurants
in one ad? This dilemma is particularly troubling for those who are
trying to create ads with a store visits objective, an objective that sends
people to your nearest business location. Fortunately, Facebook fixed
this dilemma by creating the business locations feature, which allows
you to add multiple locations for a single business. After you do that,
you can then dynamically show your customers information about
your business locations in a single ad. To use the business locations
feature for your Store Visits Ad, you must first set up the main page of
your business location.
Step 1: Go to Assets >> Business
Locations
If you don’t see business locations
from the menu, it’s likely because
your ads have not been running for
at least five consecutive days, do not
have at least 500 impressions, and
have not experienced a performance
shift. When you’ve fulfilled those three
requirements, the tool will appear.
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Step 2: Set up main page. Click Get Started
To set up business locations, you must first set up a main page. A
main page functions more like a branding page than a business page.
While a business page contains your business address, reviews, and
ratings, a branding page does not because it represents your business
as a brand rather than a specific brick-and-mortar store. If you choose
a business page to be your main page, the address, reviews, and ratings
shown in the page will disappear. This happens because your business
page will be converted to a brand page. To avoid this, either use your
already existing brand page as the main page or create a new one.
Click the page you want to set as your main page from the left-hand
corner of the page. If you can’t find your page from the drop-down
menu, you can contact Facebook support and ask the support team to
set up Business Locations for you. 6They will respond to you within 24
hours, and they will set up your business location’s main page within
6
www.facebook.com/business/resources
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two to three business days.
Once you choose your page, click “Make [page name] my main page”
Step 3: Add Locations
Click “Add Locations” to add your store locations.
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You have three options to add your locations: upload a file containing
all of your business locations (this is highly recommended for
businesses with hundreds or thousands of locations), set a location
from an already existing business page, or add a single location (a great
option for businesses with only a handful of locations). After you’ve
added all of your business locations, the locations will appear in the
page.
After you set up your business locations, you can then create the
Store Visits Ad.
Step 1: Choose the store visits objective >> choose a page
Step 2: Select business locations and radius
You must select the business locations you want included in your
ad. You can add locations by entering your locations’ zip codes, store
numbers, or designated market areas (DMA). You will also be able to
set your radius size, or the area around each of your business locations
that you want to target users in. You have two choices for your radius
size: you can set it to audience
or to distance. If you choose
audience, Facebook will target
ads to the number of people
you want to reach. If you
choose distance, Facebook will
target users within the radius
that you choose.
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Step 3: Choose your placements
Step 4: Choose your budget and schedule
Step 5: Choose your format
Step 6: Choose your media
Step 7: Add your texts, pages, links, CTAs, and pixel tracking
In this section, along with adding your texts, CTAs, and pixel
tracking, you will also be able to choose your ad’s voice, for which you
have two options: main page and local pages. If you choose the main
page, your ad will only contain your business’ name. If you choose
local pages, your ad will contain both your business’ name and it’s city
location.
In this section, you will also choose a page, a website URL, or a store
locator destination. In the first option, the ad, once clicked, will send
users to your business’ Facebook page. In the second option, they will
be redirected to your business’ URL. If the third option, they will be
directed to a map where they can find your business’ location. Once
you finish the last step, you will be able to submit your ad to Facebook
for approval.
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Chapter 8. Special Ad Types
Running a Promotion Using Offers Ad
Offers Ad, the digital versions of coupons, include discount codes
that customers can use at checkout. If you want to create the Offer Ad,
you must select the conversion or traffic objective because those are
the objectives eligible for offers.
Step 1: Choose the conversion or the traffic objective
Step 2: Choose where you want to drive traffic: website, app, or
Messenger
Step 3: Turn on offer. Click Create Offer
●● Create offer title
●● Add offer details
●● Set offer schedule
●● Set redemption location: You can allow code redemption online or
in store. If online, you must add the website URL where users can
redeem your offer.
●● Create promo code: You can exclude a promo code, add one code,
or add unique codes. If you add one code, multiple users will be
able to use the one code you created. If you add unique codes,
each user will have different codes to use. For unique codes, you
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must download a CSV file with all the codes listed.
●● Enter the number of offers you want to give
●● Set advanced options (optional): You can prevent people from
sharing the coupon, and you can upload your offers’ terms and
conditions.
Step 4: Add target audience
Step 5: Choose placements
Step 6: Set budget and schedule
Step 7: Connect pages
Step 8: Choose format
Step 9: Choose media
Step 10: Add text
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Chapter 9. Business Manager
CHAPTER 9. BUSINESS MANAGER
Business Manager is the website you use to manage all of your
assets for Facebook advertising such as pages, ad accounts, Instagram
accounts, product catalogs, and mobile apps. In Business Manager, you
can easily access those assets in one place and grant access to those
working with you. There are several features that are particularly
important in Business Manager, features that I will discuss in this
section.
Campaign Planner
How much should you spend on Facebook ads? Here’s a tool that
will help you answer that question. Campaign Planner is a tool that
allows you to estimate the reach and frequency for a campaign based
on the budget, ad placements, and target audience you choose. After
you create a plan for your campaigns, you can compare one campaign
with the other and share campaign predictions with colleagues. In
figure 9.2, I’m comparing a campaign with a $4,000 budget with a
campaign with a $5,000 budget. The results show that the campaign
with the $5,000 budget will have a higher reach and frequency than
the campaign with the $4,000 budget.
You can also analyze your results by viewing the chart on the right
side of the screen (figure 9.3). In the chart, the analysis is broken down
by frequency per person, placement distribution, and spend per day.
To share the results, you can click the share button on the upperright side of the screen. You can share your data through email or a
shareable link. You can even download it as a CSV file.
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Figure 9.1 Campaign planner in
the Business Manager menu
Figure 9.3 Campaign planner charts
Figure 9.2
A comparison of two campaigns
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Figure 9.4 Various ways of sharing data
If you like the results you see, you can buy the plan by clicking
“Reserve for Purchase” on the upper-right corner of your screen. The
plan you create will automatically be saved. You can leave the screen
and return to the plan at any time. However, be aware that if you wait
too long to update your plan, it may become irrelevant. To make sure
that yours is up to date, check the status of the plan that is represented
in three different symbols: green circle, gray circle, and red triangle.
Green circle means it’s up to date; gray circle means it’s not up to date;
and red triangle means there’s an error.
Figure 9.5 Reserving your plan for purchase
Figure 9.6 The green circle indicates that the plan is up to date.
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Automated Rules
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past five years, it’s managing
successful Facebook ad campaigns requires constant attention. There
are many moving parts to your ad campaigns, and failure to monitor
or manage your ads effectively is a surefire way to overpay Facebook
for your ads. Facebook created automated rules to automate some of
the most common tasks based on data from your campaigns,
eliminating some of the time-consuming manual work by
automatically applying rules to your ad campaigns. For example, you
can create a rule to lower budgets and bids when CPAs are high or,
conversely, to raise them when CPAs are low. When you create an
automated rule on Business Manager, you must choose an action, or
the rule you want to apply when one or several conditions have been
met, and a condition, or the circumstances in which Facebook must
apply the rule you have chosen.
Figure 9.7 Where to find automated rules
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Apply Rule To: Where you want the rule to apply. You can apply a rule
to all active campaigns, ad sets, or ads.
Action: What will happen when a condition has been met. Your options
include turn off, send notification, adjust the budget, or adjust the
manual bid.
Condition: This triggers the automated rule. You can select from a list
of items such as daily spend, lifetime spend, frequency, results, and
cost per result, just to name a few. You can then set the thresholds to
greater than, is equal to, or is lesser than, and the number you wish.
When a campaign, ad set, or ad reaches this threshold in the time
range you select, the automated rule will complete the action you have
chosen. The most common examples of automated rules are decreasing
spend, stopping ads that are underperforming, and increasing the ad
spend when an ad is performing well.
Figure 9.8 How to create a rule
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Audience insights
Most advertisers get wide-eyed when they discover the treasure
trove of information made available by the audience insights tool,
a tool that helps you understand your audience’s interests and
behaviors, enabling you to better target your ads. It shows you an
exclusive report on demographics, lifestyles, interests, location,
language, Facebook activity, behaviors, and purchase activity.
People often ask me where Facebook acquires all of its data. It
comes from Facebook’s users. Facebook acquires data from its users
who voluntarily provide personal information upon registering for
a Facebook account and developing their profiles. The information
includes email, phone number, first and last names, address,
relationship status, and job title.
It’s important that you analyze your insights to better understand
and target an audience. For example, if most of your audience is
comprised of women, you would then know to focus your targeting
on women or to write copies that speak to women. Here’s how to use
audience insights.
Step 1: Go to Audience insights
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Step 2: Choose an audience
You will have three options: everyone on Facebook, people connected
to your page, and Custom Audience.
Everyone on Facebook: If you choose this option, you will see insights
on all Facebook users, even those who aren’t in your customer list
and who aren’t connected to you via Facebook page or events. Choose
this option if you want to understand data based on broad interests or
taken from competitor pages.
People connected to your page: With this option you will see insights
on people who either liked or followed your page. Choose this option if
you want to understand an existing audience.
Custom Audience: With this option, you will see insights on customers
from your customer list. Choose this option if you want to know more
about an audience that is already a customer.
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Step 3: Set your parameters
In this step, you must define the audience whose insights you want to
see. You can choose the audience’s country, age, gender, and interests.
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Step 4: Explore data
You can look at various parts of your demographics such age, gender,
relationship status, job title, household information, and lifestyle.
Delivery Insights
Delivery insights, which you can access while viewing ad sets in Ads
Manager, is a tool that shows you problems with your ad’s delivery.
With this information, you can better diagnose delivery issues and
improve results. The information in delivery insights also includes
analyses explaining the reasons for delivery volatility and ways that
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you can address the problem. When accessing delivery insights, you
will see three tabs that contain information about your ad set’s
performance.
Figure 9.9 The three tabs of delivery insights
●● Activity: This tab shows you the actions taken on a specific ad set,
such as updates and deliveries.
●● Auction overlap: An auction overlap, one of the causes of your ad
set’s poor performance, occurs when you target an overlapping
audience, causing you to bid against yourself. In this tab, you’ll
gain access to information on other ad sets that overlap.
●● Audience saturation: This occurs when an audience sees your
ads multiple times and refuses to respond to them. The audience
saturation tab will provide information on audience saturation,
such as the percentage of your daily impressions that comes from
people seeing your ad set for the first time.
You can access delivery insights in two ways:
●● Ads Manager: Each ad set with a performance shift has a “See
Delivery Insights” link.
●● A business notification: When your ad set experiences a
performance shift, Facebook will send you a notification that you
can click to view. The notification will appear on the top-right
corner of Ads Manager.
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Only ad sets that have been running for at least five consecutive
days, have at least 500 impressions, and experienced a performance
shift will have access to delivery insights.
Creative Hub
Figure 9.10 Where to find Creative Hub
Creative Hub is a website where advertisers can easily create,
review, share, and test ad mockups. It focuses on mobile ads and
explores the new ways advertisers can create attractive, compelling
ads compressed within a mobile screen.
Here’s what you can do with Creative Hub
●● Browse through ad creatives designed by other brands and
agencies at the Hub’s inspiration gallery located under the “Get
Inspired Tab.” Featured ad formats include 360 videos, Carousel,
Instant Experience, and Single Video.
●● Preview mockups in all available ad formats on Facebook and
Instagram.
●● Save mockups and return to them later.
●● Collaborate and exchange ideas with your team. (This feature is
only available to Business Manager account holders.)
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●● Generate a URL of your mockup to send to colleagues and clients.
●● Check whether your image complies with Facebook’s 20 percent
text rule. (Text shouldn’t take up 20 percent of the ad’s image.)
App Ads Helper
If you have an app, then you should use Business Manager’s app ads
helper, a tool that troubleshoots and fixes any problems with your app.
There are various app management actions you can do with this tool.
You can verify your app, check your app’s settings, install events, and
view your app’s history, installs, and bid type.
Ads Reporting
The ads reporting tool stores all of your saved reports. You can save
your reports from the campaign, ad sets, or ads level in Ads Manager.
Here are the steps to follow when you navigate through the ads
reporting page.
Figure 9.11 Where to manage reports in ads reporting
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Step 1: Click campaigns, ad sets, or ad to run a report. Click the
category you want to get the report on.
Step 2: Click Export >> Create Custom Report
Custom Conversions
Custom conversions allow you to optimize and track for specific
actions without adjusting your already existing pixel code, a process
that requires replacing the pixels placed on the final page after the
desired action is completed (e.g., order complete page). Although
standard events are the preferred method of tracking because those
fields appear first in the conversion tracking area, if you do not have
a programmer on staff or if you are using an e-commerce platform
such as Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento, correctly implementing
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standard events can be a hassle, making custom conversions your best
option. Custom conversions allow you to track a conversion event
based on a URL string, which means you can enter the URL of the page
you want to mark as a conversion, and Facebook will track all the users
who make it to that page. If you hate tinkering with code, you will love
custom conversions because it is a more convenient way to optimize
and track your customers’ actions. Fortunately, setting up your custom
conversions is fast and easy.
Step 1: Go to Custom Conversions
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Step 2: Click Create Custom Conversions
Step 3: Create a custom conversion
Fill in the required information to create a custom conversion. By
filling out these rules, you’re helping Facebook determine whether a
customer who visited your website converted.
1. Choose “URL Contains” then type the URL keywords. By doing so,
you’re telling Facebook where you want the pixel to track in your
website. In the example below, I used the keywords “/shoes” to tell
the pixel that it should track customers who landed on my page
with those keywords in the URL.
2. Name your custom conversion, choose a value and a category. For
mine, I chose “Purchase.” By choosing this, Facebook will track for
purchases.
3. Click “Create”
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Images
When you visit the drop-down menu
from Business Manager, you will see, under
the assets section, an option labeled
“Images.” Clicking this will lead you to the
images page, which contains all of the
images you’ve ever uploaded for various
ads. This page is a useful tool for revisiting
past creatives.
Figure 9.12 Where to find images
Figure 9.13 A list of all the images uploaded to Business Manager
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Pixels
Under the assets tab, you will also see an option labeled “Pixels.”
When you click that, you will be directed to a page that contains
performance information about your pixel. From there, you will see a
graph that displays when your pixel fired and a list that contains the
URLs, domains, and devices your pixel fired from. On the upper-right
side of the screen, you’ll see important information about your pixel
(pixel ID and code) that you will need when implementing your pixel
to a website.
Figure 9.14 Where to find your pixels
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Figure 9.15 The pixel page
Offline Events
Offline events is a tool that allows you to track offline conversions.
Let’s say you released an ad promoting your products. A customer,
after seeing the ad every day for a week, decided to go to your nearest
brick-and-mortar store to buy the product off the shelf. Although the
customer didn’t buy your product from your online store through
your Facebook ad, the ad still influenced the customer’s decision to
purchase. Before Offline events existed, you had no way of knowing
whether your ad influenced a customer’s offline purchase. To track
offline conversions, you need to create an Offline event set where you
can upload your data
Step 1: Go to Offline Events
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Step 2: Click Create Offline Event Set
Step 3: Name event set. Include description. Click Create
Step 4: Assign ad accounts to test offline event set (optional)
You can choose multiple accounts. Click “Next” or “Skip” to skip this
step.
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Step 5: Assign people to test offline event set (optional)
Click “Next” or “Skip” to skip this step
Step 6: Drag your file within the box and click Next: Map Data
Step 7: Click Next: Review
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Step 8: Click Start Upload
Step 9: Click Close and See Results.
Product Catalogs
A product catalog contains a file called a product feed that has all of
the products you want to advertise on Facebook. This list contains a
description of each product, including an ID, name, category,
availability, product URL, image URL, and other product attributes.
You need product catalogs for Dynamic Product Ad. If you want to
upload a product catalog, you must go to the Catalog Manager page of
Business Manager.
Step 1: Go Catalogs
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Step 2: Click Create Catalog
Step 3: Select catalog type
Step 4: Select catalog owner and choose catalog name
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Step 5: View catalog
Step 6: Upload your product feed by clicking Add Products
Formats compatible for upload are CSV, TSV, RSS XML, and ATOM
XML.
Step 7: Select the first option Use Data Feeds
Step 8: Choose Upload Once then drag your product catalog into the
box.
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Page Post
The page post section, under Create and Manage, contains all of
the page posts you’ve published on your Facebook page. From there
you can see all of your scheduled posts, published posts, and ad
posts, as well as metrics for all of your published posts, such as reach,
engagement, and lifetime value. You can also create and delete posts
from this section.
App Dashboard
The app dashboard contains all of the apps you’re advertising.
From there you can view your app ID and app status. You can also add
products to your apps and add new apps.
Test and Learn
Wondering which strategy will work best for your campaign?
Don’t know where to find the answers? Test and learn is a great tool
for those who want to improve their campaigns by finding the best
strategies. There, you can run tests and find the answers to your
burning questions. For example, you can find which campaign causes
the lowest cost conversions and find the number of conversions that all
of your Facebook ads are causing.
Monetization Manager
Monetization Manager helps you track and manage your
monetization on the Audience Network. From there you can manage
your ads and placements, analyze your ad performance, and optimize
your revenue.
Analytics
Analytics contains all of the analytics for your groups, apps, pages,
and pixels. The analytics information include monthly active users,
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monthly new users, and monthly revenue. Visit this page to monitor
the performance of your assets.
Events Manager
Events Manager contains all of your assets related to event
tracking. From there you can access your pixels, offline events, app
events, custom conversions, and partner integrations.
●● Pixel-the javascript code that tracks the actions people take on
your website
●● Offline events- the actions your customers are taking in real life,
for example, visiting your physical store after clicking on your ad.
●● App events-the action people are taking on your app.
●● Custom conversions-a type of tracking that includes rules and
parameters that define specific customer actions.
●● Partner integrations-the list of Facebook partners that makes the
pixel installation fast and easy. Partners include Shopify, Wix, and
Wordpress.
Audiences
Here, you’ll find all of the audience lists you uploaded, such as
Custom Audiences, remarketing lists, and Lookalike Audiences. In this
section, you can create a new audience and use the filter tool to search
for a specific audience list.
Videos
Under assets you’ll find a section called videos. There, you can
view all of the videos you uploaded for your ads. If you want to upload
another video, you can also do so there.
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Chapter 10. Analyzing Your Results
CHAPTER 10.
ANALYZING YOUR RESULTS
After you publish your Facebook ads, you must analyze your
results. You can’t create your ads and leave them running—no. You
need to regularly monitor their performance. If you don’t analyze your
results, you’ll never know whether or not your ad is performing well.
You’ll never know whether you should discontinue running an ad and
create a new one in its stead. Inversely, you’ll never know whether
your ad is performing so well that you can continue running it for a
few more weeks.
You can view all of your results in Ads Manager by clicking on a
campaign. Once you click on a campaign, you will see columns with
metrics such as reach, frequency, cost per results, and budget. Those
are the columns you should look at when you want to analyze your ad
results. In this chapter, I’ll list the most important metrics that I always
look at when I’m analyzing results.
Figure 10.1 Analyzing your results
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CTR (Link Click-Through)
Your CTR, or click through rate, is the number of clicks on your ad’s
link that takes users to a URL destination, for example, a page on your
website. You can use this percentage to determine whether your ad is
relevant to your audience. A low CTR may indicate that your ad is not
attracting your audience’s attention. After all, if they’re not clicking on
your ad, it’s likely because they don’t care about it.
If you notice that your CTR is low, try refreshing your ad’s creative
by either changing the ad’s media, copies, or format. If your ad’s
creatives aren’t resonating with your audience, then it’s time to
create a new ad that will resonate. If that solution does not work, try
changing your audience. If your ad isn’t resonating with your target
audience, it’s likely because you’re targeting the wrong one. To target
an audience most likely to be interested in your business, target
current customers and Lookalikes. However, if you’re targeting cold
audiences and your CTR is low, don’t worry too much about it because
cold audiences that don’t know your business are less likely to click
than audiences that know your business well. Think about it this way:
are you most likely to do a favor for a friend or for a stranger? Most
likely, you’d rather do your friend a favor than a stranger because,
unlike with a stranger, you’ve already built a relationship and a history
with your friend.
CPC (Cost per Link Click)
CPC is the average cost for each link click. If your CPC is at $1.25,
you’re paying $1.25 each time a user clicks on your ad. You can calculate
CPC by dividing the total amount spent on your ad by link clicks. For
example, if you spent $1,000 running your ad, and 400 users clicked,
your CPC is $2.50 dollars. Look at this metric to keep track of your
spending.
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If your CPC is too high, that’s a sign that you should pause and
change your ad. Of course, a CPC that is “too high” varies by industry
to industry, client to client. For example, a client who spends $50
per link click won’t mind spending that much if that client has $200
in returns. To determine whether your CPC is too high, look at your
ROAS and ask yourself this: am I paying too much for the return that
I’m getting? If the answer is yes, change your ad.
Impressions
The number of times your ads appear on users’ screens. If a user,
scrolling down News Feed, came upon your ad, Facebook would count
that instance as one impression. If that user scrolled back up to see the
ad, that still counts as one impression because the impression came
from the same user. Low impressions are a sign that your bid is too
low. If your bid is low, your competitors can outbid you for a spot on
News Feed. Consequently, your ad will appear to a fewer number of
users, resulting in fewer impressions. When this happens, increase
your bid.
CPM (Cost per 1,000 Impressions)
CPM is the average cost for 1,000 impressions. It is calculated by
dividing the total amount spent by impressions and multiplied by
1,000:
spend / impressions x 1,000
For example, if you spent $60 and you received 10,000 impressions,
your CPM would be $6:
60 / 10,000 x 1,000 = 6
Use CPM to determine whether your ad is relevant to your
audience. A high CPM can be a sign that Facebook deems your ad
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irrelevant to your audience. If that is the case, Facebook would display
your ad to fewer users, resulting in fewer impressions. Using the above
example with fewer impressions, your CPM would be this:
60 / 5,000 x 1,000 = 12
As you can see, a lower impression results in a higher CPM. If your
CPM is high, change your audience. Ideally, target an audience most
likely to be interested in your business.
Cost per Result
Your cost per result is the average cost per result from your ads. A
result is the outcome based on the objective you chose for your ad. For
example, if your objective is conversions, then your result is purchases.
Cost per result is calculated by dividing the amount you spent by the
number of results you gained. For example, if you spent $100 on your
conversions campaign and gained 70 purchases (results), your cost per
result would be $1.42.
100 / 70 = 1.42
Frequency
If you frequent your News Feed, you’ll notice that an ad doesn’t
only appear to you once. It appears to you multiples times a day
for several days. Facebook does this to increase brand awareness
and recall. If you saw an ad from an unfamiliar brand once, you are
unlikely to remember that brand. However, if you saw it three times a
day for the next seven days, you’ll know not only the brand name but
also the logo and its offers. The number of times you saw that ad on
your feed is called frequency.
When monitoring frequency, make sure to do so along with results
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and relevance score. If you notice that your results and relevance score
are declining while your frequency is increasing, it’s a sign that your
audience is experiencing ad fatigue. When this happens, you must
change your ad creatives or targeting.
Reach
Reach is the number of people who saw your ad at least once. If
your reach is high, your ad is appearing to a larger number of users.
Normally, a large number for metrics, such as cost per result or CPM,
is a bad sign. However, that is not the case with reach. In fact, you want
to maintain a higher reach. If your reach is low, fewer users are seeing
your ads.
Your bid, budget, and audience targeting can affect your reach. If
you have a large audience with a low reach, increase your bids because
competitors are outbidding you for a spot in your chosen placement.
Otherwise, a large audience will reap higher reach.
Amount Spent
The estimated total amount you spent on your ads. You can
reference this metric to keep track of your spending.
Relevance Score
Relevance score is one of the most important metrics to track
because it estimates your ad’s relevance to your audience. A rating
from 1 to 10, relevance score determines whether your ads will be
shown to your target audience in comparison to your competitors’. If
your relevance score is low, Facebook will not show your ad to your
audience as often because it believes it will not resonate with the
people you’re targeting. Make sure your relevance score is seven or
above. If your score is below seven, change your creatives (images,
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media, copy, etc.) or your audience.
Website Purchases
Website purchases metric shows you the total number of purchases
resulting from your Facebook ads. It’s important to track this metric
because it helps you understand the number of sales your ads are
generating. If your sales are low, then it’s time to either stop the ad or
refresh it.
Cost per Website Purchase
When monitoring your website purchases, you want to do so while
also looking at your cost per website purchase, which is the average
cost of your website sales. It is calculated by dividing the total amount
spent by the website purchases:
spent / website purchases = cost per website purchase
Let’s say you spent a total of $500, and you acquired 300 sales. By
dividing your spend by sales, your cost per website purchase amounts
to $1.66.
500 / 300 = 1.66
The lower your cost per website purchase, the better. If your cost
per website is high, your ad is not working.
Website Purchase ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
The website purchase ROAS shows you how much money you make
per dollar spent. This, along with your relevance score, is the most
important metric to track. This metric shows you whether your ads
are generating revenue. Keep a close eye on this metric if you want to
ensure you’re gaining more money than you’re spending.
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Again, your job does not stop after publishing your ads. In fact, that
is only the beginning. After your ad goes live, you must—and I cannot
stress this enough—monitor your ad’s performance. If you want to
keep your spending within you budget, if you want ensure that your
ads are generating returns, always examine the metrics I mentioned in
this chapter. It is the key to your success
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Chapter 11. Building Your Sale Funnel
CHAPTER 11.
BUILDING YOUR SALES FUNNEL
Not every customer seeing your ad is in the same buying process.
While one person is already aware of your brand, another may not.
While one customer is ready to purchase, another may still look at
competitors’ offers. The different stages of the buying process is called
the sales funnel. Imagine an upside down triangle with the base at the
top and the tip at the bottom. From top to bottom you have four stages:
awareness, interest, decision, and action. As a marketer, it’s your job to
push customers from the awareness phase, when they are aware of the
business’ existence, to the action phase, when they finally purchase.
Here’s a breakdown of each phase.
Phase 1: Awareness
Customer becomes aware of your business.
Ex: customer saw an ad about your business, received
recommendations from a friend, etc.
Phase 2: Interest
Customer develops an interest on your business and begins
to research.
Ex: customer visits your website
Phase 3: Decision
Customer decides your offerings are the best of them all.
Customer wants to purchase from your business.
Phase 4: Action
Customer purchases your advertised item.
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Here’s an example scenario of a customer going through the sales
funnel. A mother of three wants to purchase a new car. She sees a
billboard for a the new Toyota SUV. Curious, she visits the Toyota
website while also researching cars from competitors. After much
research and deliberation, she decides she needs an SUV from Toyota
because of the extra storage, safety ratings, and affordable price. After
purchasing from Toyota, she becomes a satisfied customer.
Much like the mother of three in the Toyota example, as customers
go through the sales funnel, they turn from cold audience to warm
audience to customers. A cold audience is not likely to purchase for
your company because that audience doesn’t know anything about
you, about the quality of your products, the products you offer, the
reviews received in the past. As customers learn more about your
company, whether from your ads or from their own research, they
turn to a warm audience that is more likely to purchase from you.
Because not everyone who sees your ad will be in the same phase
of the sales funnel, you must adjust your marketing strategy. After all,
you want to target the right ad for the right person, otherwise your
ads won’t succeed. If, for example, I targeted an ad that said “Buy our
products now” to a person who knows nothing about my business, I’m
missing the mark. That person is not likely to buy from me because
that person is still a cold audience. As a result, I’m wasting my time and
my money. I suggest creating different ads with different creatives and
targeting people who are in different phases of the sales funnel.
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Chapter 11. Building Your Sale Funnel
Top Funnel (Awareness)
Remember, people on Facebook don’t visit the social platform to
buy. They’re there to socialize, laugh at silly memes, kill time. For
people who have never before seen your ad, who have never before
interacted with your business, it’s important to create ads that are
entertaining, ads they can’t help but like, comment, or share. For
formats, I highly suggest videos or other moving creatives such as GIFs
and slideshows. If you insist on using images, I suggest trying memes if
appropriate for your brand. Look at the ad from Skittles below. Instead
of pushing a sale, Skittles amuses with its silly Skittles book and fake
request for a book recommendation. The ad serves to amuse and raise
awareness of the brand.
Figure 11.1
Here’s another good example of an ad targeting cold audiences. In
this video ad, Sky Organics informs its audience about the benefits of
coconut oil. Although the ad features branded products, it doesn’t push
for a sale.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Figure 11.1
For ads targeting a top-funnel audience, I suggest targeting broad
audiences and the Lookalike Audience. Using the Lookalike Audience is
particularly helpful for the top funnel because although the customers
in that audience have never seen your ad before, since they are similar
to your current customers, there’s a higher change they’ll be receptive
to your marketing messages.
Middle Funnel (Interest)
Customers in the middle of the funnel are likely debating whether
or not to purchase from you, researching competitors, and learning
more about your business. For this phase of the funnel, I suggest
creating ads that talk more about your business and the products
you offer. Here’s an example from Runway Rogue. The Carousel Ad
features multiple products at once. It also lists all the benefits that can
convince customers to choose Runway Rogue rather than choosing a
competitor.
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Chapter 11. Building Your Sale Funnel
Figure 11.3
For the middle funnel, target people who clicked on your topfunnel ad. For example, if you created a video for brand awareness,
use the engagement Custom Audience option and target customers
who clicked and viewed your video ad. By doing so, you’re retargeting
customers who showed interest on your products. By retargeting
them, you are nudging them closer and closer to purchase.
Bottom Funnel (Decision)
After customers click on your middle-funnel ads, it’s time to close
the deal. In this phase, because customers will be ready to make the
purchase, you can create ads that push for the sale, with CTAs and
copies that urge customers to buy. The audience you target for this ad
is the same audience that interacted with your middle-funnel ad. For
example, anyone who clicked on your ad to visit your website, who
perused your product catalog, who added items to cart without
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checking out. Take a look at the ad below. The ad emphasizes the sale
in both the text and the image. It also pushes for the purchase with its
CTA button “Shop Now.” As you likely noticed, the ad doesn’t introduce
the brand or explain the product because customers already know
about the company and its offerings at this point.
Figure 11.4
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Chapter 12. Setting Up Remarketing
CHAPTER 12.
SETTING UP REMARKETING
My number one tip for new advertisers is to run remarketing
campaigns. Businesses benefit from remarketing. In fact, running
remarketing campaigns reaps good ROIs. Why? Because it’s effective
and cost efficient to reach customers who have shown interest in
your product but have not yet purchased. Since customers normally
deliberate for a few days before purchasing a product, remarketing
helps push customers to purchase.
Imagine people walking in and out of a clothing store on a busy
street corner. If a customer walked in, tried on a dress, and left without
purchasing, there would be little that advertiser could do to find that
customer and convince her to buy the dress. Fortunately, Facebook
advertising provides technology that allows you to reach customers
who showed interest in your products. If a customer visited the
clothing store’s website and viewed the red dress, through Facebook
advertising, an advertiser could show a remarketing ad to that
customer with an image and link to the exact dress she viewed. The
advertiser saves money by paying for an ad that targets people who are
more likely to purchase based on their previous show of interest.
Remarketing is the process of showing ads to individuals who
visited your website or mobile app. Usually, remarketing takes 30 days.
For example, if I visited your website today, I would see your ads for
30 days (if you chose to run your ads for that period of time). After 30
days, the ads would automatically stop displaying to me. Remarketing
reminds customers to return to the product that captured their
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attention. Reaching new customers can sometimes be very expensive.
Remarketing allows you to segment the customers who showed
interest and continue to show ads to only those customers.
Earlier in the book, I showed you how to create the Facebook Pixel
and how to install it to your website. Now, you’ll understand why the
Facebook Pixel is so important, why the pain of creating and installing
it is worth the effort. If you can recall, the Facebook Pixel is a tracking
tool. When you install the Facebook Pixel on your website, it will pick
up the Facebook user ID for anyone who visited your website and keep
a record of which pages they visited. This means if I went to an online
clothing store and looked at men’s shoes, the Facebook Pixel will take
note that I visited the men’s shoes page of the site. An advertiser can
then use that data for retargeting.
To create a remarketing ad, choose any objective with any ad
format and go to the ad set level. From there, you must select the
Custom Audience option for your targeting. You have four retargeting
options: website traffic, app activity, offline activity, and engagement.
●● Website Traffic: Using this option, you can target customers who
visited specific web pages. For example, if I ran an ad promoting
my book, I can create a retargeting list that targets only the
customers who clicked on my ad and visited the book’s Amazon
page. Anyone else, those who looked at the ad or scrolled past it,
will not be retargeted.
●● App Activity: For this option, you can target anyone who took a
specific action on your app after clicking your ad. For example, if
customers visited the product page of my app, then I can retarget
only those people who visited that product page.
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Chapter 12. Setting Up Remarketing
●● Offline Activity: If you want to target customers who visited your
store or contacted your business, use this option. This allows you
to retarget anyone who took an action offline.
●● Engagement: This retargeting option allows you to target people
who engaged with your posts on Facebook. If I wanted to send
more articles to people who commented on the ones posted on
my AdvertiseMint Facebook page, I can choose this retargeting
option.
After you choose your retargeting option, pick your schedule,
which you can also do in the ad set level. As I earlier mentioned, the
general rule is 30 days. Although you can retarget for 30 days, I would
encourage you to retarget with different ads for shorter number of
days to avoid ad fatigue. For example, create an ad for customers who
visited your website in the last one to three days, then another for four
to seven days. When doing so, customers will see the first ad for three
days, then the second ad for four to seven days, and so on. Make sure to
tweak your ads slightly so your customers aren’t repeatedly seeing the
same one.
Once your customers convert, it’s good practice to exclude them
from your remarketing ads. If your customer bought that coat you’ve
been advertising for the past month, it’s highly unlikely that they
would purchase the same coat again. As a result, you will waste money
serving ads to people who aren’t going to convert. Here’s how you
exclude people who already converted.
Step 1: Go to Audience in the Business Manager menu and create
a Custom Audience. Click Website Traffic >> Purchase. Create the
audience
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Step 2: Go to the ad set level. Click Exclude. Under the EXCLUDE people
box, select your purchase Custom Audience
Remarketing is important. Because people often deliberate before
purchasing (they may still be doing more research on the item they
want to buy or they are still waiting for that month’s paycheck), you
need to remarket and give them the final push to purchase. But once
they do finally purchase your product, don’t forget to exclude them
from your retargeting ads—if they bought your product once, they’re
not likely going to buy it again.
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Chapter 13. Mastering Ad Targeting Like the Pros
CHAPTER 13.
MASTERING AD TARGETING
LIKE THE PROS
“First, you want to easily describe the audience you want to target with
your Facebook ads. For example, if you own a fashion retail store, your
target audience should include fashionistas or teenage girls, to name a few.
Once you describe your audience demographic, you can look at Facebook’s
Custom Audience options, which will help drive desired outcomes based on
your defined audience.”
—Kate Halper, senior manager of marketing programs at Zepp Labs,
Inc. in the Facebook article “Targeting Tips to Reach the Right People”
By using Facebook’s targeting tools, demographic targeting and
Custom Audience, Zapp Labs, Inc. achieved a three times return on ad
spend, a 71 percent decrease in cost per action, and a 0.43 percent clickthrough rate. Clearly, using Facebook’s targeting tools bode well for
the sports technology company. Before you think Facebook’s tools will
magically bring you stellar performance results, don’t be so hasty. The
tools only worked well for Zapp because the company used the tools
correctly. Yes, ad targeting can bring fortune to your business only
if you know how to create your ad targeting well. In this chapter, I’ll
share with you my strategies for ad targeting, the strategies that I have
used throughout my career in Facebook ads.
Know Your Audience Using Audience insights
Choosing your target audience takes deliberation and strategy. It
would be foolish to target anyone of any gender in any location with
any interest. Doing that will result in an audience that is too large and
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
too expensive. In the end, you will target people who don’t have the
slightest interest in your business, who will never convert after seeing
your ad. It’s a waste of time and money. Rather, you need to target the
people who are most likely to be interested in your business. You need
to know a few things about this audience. Who are they? Where do
they live, what are their ages and genders, what languages do they
speak? What are their interests? Do they like fashion, food, or outdoor
activities? What do they purchase? Do they often buy clothes, gadgets,
or office supplies? Which categories are they most likely to purchase
from? Would they purchase from sports, home décor, or apparel?
Name
Janna Smith
Gender
Female
Age
30
Relationship Status
Never Married
Location
Los Angeles
Income
80K
Education
BA
Hobbies
Shopping, reading fashion magazines, going to
the beach, going hiking
Interests
Fashion, food, Malibu, nature, yoga
Story
Janna Smith is a single woman living in a onebedroom apartment with her boyfriend in
the greater Los Angeles area. She works as a
marketing manager for a Facebook advertising
agency. In her free time she works out, spends
time with her boyfriend in the city, and goes
shopping.
Figure 13.1 Sample Buyer Persona
By answering questions about your customers’ identities, you
are creating a buyer persona, a fictional, generalized character that
represents your ideal customers. Although you may think creating
a buyer persona is useless and time consuming, it, in fact, helps you
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Chapter 13. Mastering Ad Targeting Like the Pros
understand your buyers, create relevant ads, and better develop
your ad targeting. Usually, advertisers conduct interviews to obtain
the answers for their questions and create their buyer personas.
However, those methods are time consuming and costly. You would
need to conduct interviews in a span of weeks, find and incentivize
survey participants, and gather the data. The process could take up to
a month. Fortunately, when you advertise on Facebook, you don’t have
to face those hurdles.
Remember audience insights in Business Manager, which
I mentioned earlier in this book? You can use it to create a
buyer persona. You have all the information you need for free:
demographics, page likes, location, and activity. If you want to know
the demographics of your current customers, all you need to do is look
at the demographics section of audience insights. If you want to know
the location of your customers, you can find that information on the
location section. As I said, all of this information is free—it would be a
shame to squander it.
Tips About Broad Audience Targeting
Locations
Above the map in location targeting where you can target by
country, zip code, state or region, cities, and even addresses, you’ll
notice a dropdown menu next to locations. When you click it, you’ll
see several options about who you want to target in the location you
choose. But which one should you select for your audience? That
depends on your goal
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Figure 13.2
“Everyone in this location” is the default option, the option most
advertisers use. Choosing this broadens the scope of your targeting.
Anyone at the location you chose at that moment will see your ad,
whether those people are temporarily traveling to that area or living
there permanently. Although a great option if you want to target a
larger audience, it would not work as well if, for example, you want
to drive foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar store. If you own a local
business and you want to drive people to it, “people who live in this
location” would be a better option if you want to retain long-term local
customers and “People recently in this location” if you want to attract
customers who are nearby.
Although “people traveling in this location” is not a commonly used
option, it works well for targeting tourists. My agency is in Hollywood,
and right outside our building in Hollywood Boulevard salesmen who
rent their Ferraris for $100. Given the location the group chose, it’s
obvious that they are targeting tourists. If those guys were to advertise
on Facebook, an ad with the option “People traveling in this location”
would work well for them because in choosing that option, their ads
will only appear to those who are visiting the location, not staying
there permanently.
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Chapter 13. Mastering Ad Targeting Like the Pros
When setting the location for your ad, don’t forget the options
you have to make your targeting more granular. You can choose the
commonly used default option, or you can use the others if you have a
specific audience in mind that you want to target. You simply need to
keep in mind whether you want to target locals or tourists.
Ages
Choosing the age you want to target is easy. In fact, it’s a nobrainer. If your business caters to a certain age group, then target that
age group—it’s pretty obvious. However, there are certain rules to keep
in mind when choosing the age of your target audience.
First, you can’t target anyone under the age of 13 because that is the
minimum age requirement to sign up for a Facebook account. This may
be difficult for you if your business is suited for a younger audience. If
you want to reach an audience younger than 13, you can target those
people’s parents instead since they have the purchasing power.
Second, if you’re selling alcohol globally, make sure to target the
right drinking age for each respective country. The drinking age in the
US may be 21, but that is not the same in other countries. To solve this
issue, you can use two different solutions. In the first solution, create
different ads for each country. For example, create one ad targeting
people aged 21 and over in the US and one ad targeting people aged 18
and over in England. In the second solution, create one ad targeting
multiple countries and target the age that is the highest drinking
age out of all the countries you’re targeting. For example, if your
ad targets the United States where the legal drinking age is 21 and
England where the legal drinking age is 18, target your ads to users
who are 21 and over since 21 is the highest drinking limit of the two. If
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
you target people aged 18 and over, the ad will be disapproved because
the minimum drinking age for people in the US is 21. Out of the two
solutions, I recommend creating separate ads for each country because
combining the counties in one ad will result in missing an age group.
Using the England and US example again, targeting only users who are
aged 21 and over will cause you to miss the users who are aged 18 to 20.
Tips About Detailed Targeting
In the detailed targeting section, you can target by demographics,
interests, and behaviors. Many marketers use all three. However,
keep in mind that in certain cases, using demographics and behaviors
may work better than using interests. Let’s pretend I need to target
students of the University of Colorado. To do that, I have two options.
I can target by interest. This means my Facebook ads will appear to
anyone who liked University of Colorado’s page. Or I can target by
demographics. This means my ads will appear to those who listed
University of Colorado as their university in their profiles. Here’s the
problem: if I target by interest, I may be targeting people who aren’t
students of University of Colorado—just because people liked the
university’s page doesn’t necessarily mean they are students of that
university. But if you target by demographics, you’re targeting people
who are real students of the university, unless they’re creating a fake
identity for themselves, which isn’t likely the case. When deciding
whether to target by interest, demographics, or behaviors, think about
your audience. Who do you want to target? Citing the same example,
do you want to target students of the University of Colorado or anyone
interested in University of Colorado?
If you want to get very detailed in your targeting and increase
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Chapter 13. Mastering Ad Targeting Like the Pros
your chances of targeting an audience most likely to respond to your
ads, I suggest using the Connections option. Using this option allows
you to target only the people who have a specific connection to your
business. For example, you can target people who liked your page, who
used your app, and who attended your event. You can even exclude
connections if you want to reach new customers.
Figure 13.3
Although Facebook gives you numerous options to make your
targeting as detailed as possible, I don’t recommend making your
targeting too detailed. I know it’s absurd to teach you how to hyper
target your ads then tell you to stay away from creating targeting
that’s too detailed, but an ad with targeting that is too detailed will
result in an audience that is too narrow to be effective. Instead, try
to achieve a happy
medium. On the right
side of your screen,
you’ll see the audience
size meter. The happy
medium is in the middle
of the green arch.
Figure 13.4
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
How to Acquire New Customers
If you want to acquire new customers, I suggest targeting a
Lookalike Audience. Lookalike Audience is comprised of people who
possess similarities to your current customers. Targeting a Lookalike
Audience allows you to reach new customers who are most likely to
be interested in your business. One issue you may encounter when
targeting a Lookalike Audience is this: it’s very broad. For that reason,
you may need to narrow your audience by pairing your Lookalike with
detailed targeting. Throw in some targeting details related to interests.
Reach people who are similar to your current customers but who also
liked pages of businesses similar to yours. Or target people who are
similar to your customers but who have a habit of buying products
similar to yours. Again, refer to the audience size meter to see whether
your audience is too narrow or too broad.
You can also acquire new customers by using broad audience
targeting with exclusions. Going back to the connections option, you
can choose to exclude people who have interacted with your business.
You can exclude people who liked your page, people who interacted
with your app, and people who responded to your event.
Figure 13.5
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Chapter 14. How to Master A/B Testing
CHAPTER 14.
HOW TO MASTER A/B TESTING
Wouldn’t it be great if you could find the secret formula that will
help you create ads that garner the best results? Wouldn’t it be great if
you could know the combination of ad elements that make the perfect
Facebook ad?
Every marketer wants to know the secret to creating the best
Facebook ad. The secret can be all yours if you A/B test. A/B testing,
also known as split testing, is the process of concurrently running
two or more Facebook ads with different ad elements, testing the
performance of each ad against each other. Ad elements you can test
include media, copy, CTA button, audience, and placement. Typically,
you’ll analyze the CPA, ROAS, cost per purchase, cost per lead, CPC,
CPM, frequency, CTR, relevance score, and spend to determine which
ad is performing the best. A/B testing allows you to find your best
performing ad. Once you find it, you’ll run it and pause those that are
underperforming. A/B testing is the only way to determine which kind
of ad works best for your business, which kind resonates more with
your audience.
Ad Elements You Can Test
Countries
Interests
Devices
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Age
Gender
Ad design
Copy
Relationship status
Landing page
Ad format
Images
Media
Stock images vs illustrations
Objects vs people
Images vs videos
Headline
Value proposition
Bidding
Objectives
Placement
CTA button
Audiences
Figure 14.1
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Chapter 14. How to Master A/B Testing
Here’s my biggest advice about A/B testing: don’t be overzealous.
Don’t test ads with too many variables. You may be tempted to
test more than a handful of ad variables. For example, you may
be tempted to A/B test two ads image against image, copy against
copy, and audience against audience. Although it’s possible, I advise
against it because having too many variables will make it harder
for you to determine which variable is causing the ad to perform
well. Additionally, if you want to correctly isolate the reason for the
ad’s success, you need to create one ad for each variable that you’re
testing. If you wanted to test 3 ad images, 3 text copies, and 3 audience
segments, you would need to make 27 different Facebook ads. Not only
is that time consuming to create, but it’s also time consuming to wait
for the results.
There’s a reason why my agency has a minimum rate for clients.
I don’t set a minimum spend because I’m greedy. I do it because
managing Facebook ads require a lot of A/B testing, and a lot of A/B
testing requires a sufficient budget. Think of Facebook advertising as
a car. To run it, you need gasoline which, in this case, is your budget.
The more gasoline (money) you pump into your car (Facebook ads),
the faster and longer it runs. Similarly, if you want to find the best
performing ad that will reap higher returns, you need money to spend
testing those ads. For that reason, be prepared to have an adequate
budget for A/B testing. To receive valid A/B test results, you need at
least 100 conversions (some even say 200) for each ad variation. To
calculate your budget, use this formula:
Cost per conversion x ad variations x 100
Let’s say your cost per conversion is $1.50, and you’re testing 3
ad variations. You need to multiply $1.50 by 3 by 100. Your resulting
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budget for the A/B test is 450:
1.50 x 3 x 100 = 450
Granted, there are people who advertise on Facebook with a budget
of $20 a day. Usually, those people don’t have large campaigns, but
rather, small ones. Those people could be running an engagement
campaign for an Instagram post that needed more attention or a brand
awareness campaign for a small online store. For those people, the
stakes are low. However, if you’re managing an account for a client
who is expecting large returns, you need a sizeable budget to help your
Facebook ads perform well.
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Chapter 15. Leveraging Facebook Analytics
CHAPTER 15.
LEVERAGING FACEBOOK ANALYTICS
As the old adage goes, knowledge is power. Indeed, in marketing,
you can use knowledge of your customers to inform and improve your
advertising campaigns. Imagine that you had the god-like power of
omnipotence, that you knew exactly the behaviors and demographics
of your customers. If you can predict their behavior, you can know the
marketing strategy to employ. For example, if you knew that most of
your customers access your website through mobile devices, you could
then optimize your website for mobile to better improve the user
experience. If you knew the majority of your app users open your app
using their Android phones, you could then target only Android app
users for your app install ads. If you know your customers, you’ll know
how to effectively market to them.
Thanks to the advent of technology, having the knowledge I
described is simply a few clicks away. Facebook analytics is a free tool
included in Business Manager that contains a trove of information
about people’s interaction with your business across your website,
Facebook page, Messenger, and app. If you want to know where your
customers are, who they are, what they do, and more, you can find all
of that information in Facebook analytics. And—this is the best part—
access to that information is free. I know how much you like that word.
Facebook analytics acquires customer information from four
channels: your website, apps, Facebook page, and Messenger.
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Website: contains information about website activity, such as the
actions and demographics of your web visitors. It also contains
features that allow you to create funnels to measure conversion, see
demographics and segments to learn about your web visitors, and
measure behaviors over time. For Facebook to acquire information
about your website visitors, you must install the Facebook Pixel.
(You probably noticed by now the recurring roles of the pixel in
advertising.)
Apps: contains aggregated demographics and information about the
people who use your app, for example, information about the number
of users who open your app and the number of times users purchase
inside your app.
Facebook Page: contains information about your Facebook page
visitors: their demographics, their dates and times of visit, their
locations, and more.
Messenger: contains information about interactions between you and
your customers on Facebook Messenger.
The first time you poke your head in Facebook analytics, you may
feel overwhelmed, especially if you’re not accustomed to reading
analytical data. When you enter Facebook analytics, you will be
greeted by colorful charts, graphs, numbers, and percentages. Yikes.
But never fear because I will guide you through this overwhelming
array of information. Let’s start with the overview.
The overview is the first page you will see upon entering Facebook
analytics. There, you will see categories for information separated by
boxes which you can click to read more details. I’m going to list each
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category, explain the information they hold, and point out the possible
uses.
Figure 15.1
Key Metrics: contains the metrics most likely to be important to
you. You will see the numbers for unique users, new users, active
conversations, and new conversations. (If you don’t know any of these
terms, visit the glossary at the end of this book.) These key metrics
show website performance, for example, the increase and decrease of
website visitors. A decrease is represented by a red percentage while
an increase is represented by a green percentage.
Figure 15.2
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Active Users, Last 24 Hours: contains the number of unique users who
were active on your website within the last 24 hours. It also contains a
graph that measures the activity on your website throughout the days.
Figure 15.3
Active Users, By Hour: shows you the time and day when your visitors
are most active on your website. This information will be useful if, for
example, you want to know the optimal times of day to publish a blog
post. If most of your visitors are active at noon during the weekdays,
you will likely want to publish a blog post at that time on those days.
Figure 15.4
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People: the demographics of your most active visitors. The
information includes the age, gender, and country of your visitors.
Use this information to know your customers. Are most of your web
visitors men and women aged 25 to 40? This information may be useful
for your ad targeting.
Active Users: shows the number of your active monthly, weekly, and
daily users. This information is important in keeping track of your
website traffic.
Top Reacted Posts: if looking at your Facebook page analytics, top
reacted posts contains the page posts that have the most reactions.
This information helps determine which posts resonate with your
audience. For example, if your long how-to articles receive the most
reactions, that’s a sign that you should continue writing long how-to
articles as opposed to writing shorter articles about other topics.
Figure 15.5
Top Shared Posts: again, a metric for Facebook pages, it shows the
posts that users shared the most. Use this information to determine
which posts are the most popular among your page followers.
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Figure 15.6
Top Commented Posts: shows the posts that received the most
comments. This information helps you find the posts that resonate the
most with your followers.
Figure 15.7
Age and Gender: Shows the demographics of your web visitors or page
followers. Use this information to know your audience. Knowing the
age and gender of your audience is useful for future advertising
campaigns.
Figure 15.8
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Country: Shows the countries where your web visitors or page
followers reside. You can use this information to improve your ad
targeting.
Figure 15.9
Post Reactions: contains the number of times people reacted to your
Facebook posts.
Figure 15.10
`Post Shares: the number of times people shared your posts.
Figure 15.11
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Post Comments: the number of times people commented on your
posts.
Figure 15.12
Messages Sent: the number of times you messaged people on Facebook
Messenger.
Figure 15.13
Messages Received: the number of times people messaged you on
Facebook Messenger. This metric is useful in determining whether you
should pursue a Messenger ad campaign.
Figure 15.14
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Chapter 15. Leveraging Facebook Analytics
Other than viewing the metrics for your Facebook page or website,
you can also use the tools Facebook analytics offers.
Funnels: a tool that contains all the funnels you created to map your
website visitors’ customer journeys. To create your funnel, you must
enter the event you want Facebook analytics to track. For example,
you can create a funnel with the events in the following order:
content view (when website visitors view content on your page), add
to cart (when website visitors added items to their shopping carts),
and purchases (when website visitors purchased the items in their
carts). You can then see the percentage of visitors at each stage of the
customer journey. To create a funnel, simply add the funnel steps that
your web visitors will take as they go through the customer journey
then click “Apply.”
Figure 15.15
User Retention: if you want to see how users are retaining information
about your product or brand over time, this is the tool to use. This tool,
when showing you data, takes into account the percentage of users
who returned to your website, Facebook page, or app after seeing your
ad or interacting with your business by visiting your website, opening
or installing your app, or sending you a message on Messenger. Use
the information this tool provides to determine whether your current
marketing campaigns are resonating with your audience.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
For example, if you’re creating Facebook ads, and your user retention
scores are low, it’s a sign that you should create new ads because the
ads aren’t resonating with your audience.
Figure 15.16
Cohorts: shows the cohorts, or the groups of users who perform two
events of your choosing over time.
Breakdowns: breakdowns, much like the one in Ads Manager, is a
tool that groups and organizes data according to the parameters you
choose, of which you can pick up to three. For example, you can choose
to see data by channel, age, gender demographics, or session traffic
source.
Journeys: journeys is a tool that shows your customers’ interactions
with your different channels. This tool contains the following metrics:
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Chapter 15. Leveraging Facebook Analytics
●● Total journeys
●● Average number of sessions per journey
●● Average journey length
●● Percentage of converted journeys
Events: contains all of your pre-defined and custom events, or
actions that people take in your channels. Along with events, the tool
also contains event metrics, such as count, unique users, value, and
description.
Event Debugging: use this tool to check whether your events are
logging correctly.
Lifetime Value: contains the data of your lifetime value chart.
Facebook providing such a useful tool as analytics is remarkable
and extremely generous. In a different time, information such as the
one analytics provides comes with a price. Go back farther in time, for
example, before the advent of the internet, and you won’t even have
any way to track and measure such data. If you want to closely monitor
the behaviors of your customers, Facebook analytics is the tool to use.
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Chapter 16. Scaling Your Facebook Ads
CHAPTER 16.
SCALING YOUR FACEBOOK ADS
Pretend for a moment that you’re investing on a startup developing
innovative products you predict will sell widely to the public. Now
pretend that the startup you took under your wing is generating
hundreds—no—thousands in a mere few weeks. Given the startup’s
success, which of the following choices will you make: invest more
or stop funding. Of course, the first option is the obvious choice. If a
business is generating revenue, you want to increase your investment
so the business can grow, or, put a different way, scale up. The same
goes for Facebook ads. If you notice that your ad is performing well, it’s
wise to invest more money into that ad so it can reach more customers
and generate more sales. We call this strategy, putting more money in
ads, scaling.
To Scale or Not to Scale?
The prospect of growing your ad campaigns and, consequently,
growing your returns is an appealing one, so much so that you
may approach this strategy with a little too much gusto. Reign that
enthusiasm in because you can’t scale all of your ads. You can only
scale those that are performing well. Let’s say you’re running an ad
generating a lot of conversions. In this case, scale right away. Before
you even think about scaling your ad, however, let it run for a day or
two. Doing so allows you to gather data that will tell you whether your
ad is performing well. After you gathered enough data, you can then
decide whether you should scale your ad.
In some cases where the ad is generating mediocre results, it’s
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better to let the ad run for a few more days before scaling. Let’s
say your data revealed that your ad with the conversions objective
generated a large number of engagement with little to no conversions.
Evidently, your ad isn’t performing as well as it could. Sure, your
engagement may be high, which is a sign of user interest, but you want
the conversions to be high since that is your objective. In this case, it
would be unwise to scale the ad. Rather, you should run the ad for a
few more days to see if results improve. If not, then pause your ad and
refresh its creatives.
In other cases, it’s best to stop your ad immediately. For example,
your ad has no conversions and has very few engagement. In this case,
it’s better to stop the ad before it spends more of your money. Figure
out what is going wrong, whether it’s your audience or your creative,
then fix it.
How to Scale Your Facebook Ads
Scaling your ad is simply increasing your budget. Doing so shows
Facebook that you’re willing to spend more on showing people your
ads. As a result, your ads will appear to more users more frequently.
Usually, I raise my budgets by a maximum of 50 percent. For example,
if my budget was $50 a day, I would raise it to $75.
When you scale your ad, it’s important to create a balance between
your budget and your bid. Remember, Facebook advertising is an
auction. You set a budget to show Facebook how much you’re willing
to pay, and you set a bid to enter and compete at the auction. Here’s
the important thing about bidding: you don’t want to raise your bids
too high because doing so will cause Facebook to burn through your
budget very quickly. Remember, you have three choices for bidding:
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
autobid, max bid, and target cost. Autobid will spend all of your budget
and get conversions at the lowest cost. Max bid will only spend so
much for one conversion, and if it doesn’t reach that target bid, it will
stop spending. Target cost will try to achieve the target CPA provided,
and it is set up for ad sets that are likely to change budgets. Obviously,
based on this information, target cost is the ideal bid for scaling
campaigns.
In terms of bidding after increasing budgets, we recommend
using a max bid for your campaigns. Even though this might not fully
spending your budget, if an ad set is well set up and the creative is
performing well, the max bid will ensure the CPA’s stay consistent
no matter what. Target cost has a tendency of being inconsistent
regardless of budget, and volatility in ad performance is definitely
something you want to avoid.
In addition to increasing your budget, you can also scale by
expanding your audience. The more people you show your ads to, the
more prospective customers you gain. You can expand your audience
by targeting new customers who possess similarities to your current
customers—create a Lookalike Audience.
People say if something ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Don’t apply that
adage to your Facebook ads. If your ads aren’t “broken,” if they’re
performing exceptionally well, scale them.
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Chapter 17. Troubleshooting Ad Issues
CHAPTER 17.
TROUBLESHOOTING AD ISSUES
Sometimes, even as an expert, one of your ads will fail. When your
ads do fail, don’t be discouraged. This happens to everyone, to both
beginners and seasoned advertisers alike. Several issues can cause your
ad performance to plummet. Identify those issues immediately and
resolve them as soon as you can.
If your ad isn’t performing well, it may be because your audience is
worn out. If you keep sending ads to the same audience over and over
again, that audience may grow tired of your offer. In a different case,
because they already converted, the offer is no longer relevant to
them. To know whether or not your audience is worn out, look at the
first time impressions ratio metric from the delivery tab under the ad
set level. That metric will give you the percentage of users who are
seeing your ad for the first time. If that metric is below 50 percent,
then you have a problem. That means most of the individuals in your
audience have already seen your ad.
Figure 17.1 The first time impression ratio
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To avoid wearing out your audience, target a different group by
creating a Lookalike Audience. By doing so, you’re not targeting the
same users. Rather, you’re targeting users who are similar to your
current customers. Also, to avoid sending ads to people who already
converted, set up a remarketing campaign that only targets people
who clicked on your ad without performing your desired action, such
as a purchase.
If your audience isn’t the cause of your advertising problems, look
at your creatives. When was the last time you updated your ad? If the
answer is three weeks ago, then you found the source of your troubles.
If you don’t refresh your ads by changing your media and copies
every two weeks, your audience will suffer from ad fatigue, and your
relevance score will plummet. I can’t stress the importance of an ad
refresh. Yes, it’s a pain in the neck, but it’s absolutely integral to the
success of your campaign.
What if your audience and your creatives aren’t the problem? What
should you look at next? Check your placements. Do you only place
your ads on one or two placement options? If the answer is yes, then
too few placements is your problem. It may sound counterintuitive,
but placing your ads on more placement options will help you optimize
your results and save money. Let’s say you placed your ads on Facebook
News Feed. Because it’s too overcrowded and too competitive, bids
costs more. In contrast, Audience Network is inexpensive. While you
could have maximized your budget on Audience Network, you’re
instead spending too much money on News Feed alone. Don’t be afraid
to experiment with ad placements and to find the one that works best
for your ad.
Let’s say you nailed your targeting, ad refreshing, and placement
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Chapter 17. Troubleshooting Ad Issues
strategies and yet your ad is still underperforming. How frustrating!
But have you looked at your conversion window? When creating an ad
with the conversion objective, instead of choosing the one-day click
conversion window, try the seven-day window. By choosing the sevenday window, you’re telling Facebook to send your ad to people who are
likely to purchase within seven days, which is enough time for people
to see your ad, contemplate, and purchase. Often, customers don’t buy
the first time they see your ad. Rather, they may take some time to
deliberate.
If you’re experiencing technical issues, for example, Facebook won’t
take your credit card or your ad has been under review for too long,
try contacting Facebook for support. The list I provide here contains
links to contact forms for Facebook advertising and payment issues, as
well as to applications for developers and mobile carriers. Remember
to log in to your Facebook account to gain access to these links. They
will not appear to you otherwise. Once you’ve submitted your form,
Facebook’s support team will contact you within one business day.
Facebook and Instagram Advertising Issues
https://www.facebook.com/business/support/contact-us
Payment Issues
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/1129731163763184
Credit Card Issues
https://www.facebook.com/help/
contact/?id=139470636104003
Ads API Application
https://www.facebook.com/business/standardadsapi
Pending Facebook Ads Issues
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/515460121837726/
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Partners
I’m a mobile carrier who wants to partner with Facebook
Home
https://www.facebook.com/help/
contact/?id=555823267772403
I’m a mobile operator, and I want access to the Mobile Partner
Program
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/774119655987777
Figure 17.2 Facebook contact URLs
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Chapter 18. Understanding The Learning Phase
CHAPTER 18.
UNDERSTANDING THE LEARNING PHASE
New to Facebook advertising and aware of the success stories
floating around in the internet, you are eager to see good results at
the beginning of your campaign. To your dismay, not only do your
campaigns show disappointing results, but they also show fluctuations
in the data. What the heck is going on?
There’s an explanation for the period of time in the beginning
of your campaign when results fluctuate. When you select your
objective, Facebook will optimize your campaign for that objective. For
example, if you choose the traffic objective, Facebook will show your
ad to people who are most likely to click on your ad. However, to find
those people, Facebook must first show your ads to different types
of users within your target audience, collecting data to determine
which audience will most likely respond to your ad. This period of
data-gathering is called the learning phase. Let’s say you want to
run your sandals ads to everyone in the United States. As the orders
increase, Facebook will detect, for example, that most of the customers
purchasing are from states like Hawaii, California, and Florida, where
beaches are very popular. As a result, Facebook will show more ads
in those areas. The learning phase is important because it allows
Facebook to gather data needed to optimize for the best results.
The learning phase ends after 50 optimization events per ad set
per week. Meaning, if you are running an ad with the app install
objectives, the learning phase ends after 50 app installs per ad set per
week; if running an ad with the lead generation objective, the phase
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will end after 50 leads per ad set per week; if running an e-commerce
store with the conversion objectives, the phase will stop after 50
purchases per ad set per week. You get the idea. If you turn your ads
off too soon (before the 50 optimization events), Facebook won’t have
enough data for optimization, and consequently, the delivery will
often slow or the CPMs will increase. Because the learning phase is
integral to ad optimization, don’t pause your ads too soon and don’t
make significant edits to your ads lest the learning phase will restart.
Significant edits include changing the targeting or the creative,
pausing your ad for a week or longer, changing your optimization
event, and adding a new ad to your ad set. It is possible for the learning
phase to end before the 50 optimization events. For example the
learning phase can end even if you only achieved three optimization
events after running the ad for an entire week. If your ad doesn’t
acquire 50 optimization events after enough time has passed, it’s a sign
that your ad isn’t performing well. In this case, you must edit your ad
by changing the targeting or creative.
For the learning phase to continue without any delays or issues,
you must have a large enough budget. Depending on the number of
ad sets you are running, your budget can either be lower or higher.
For example, if you’re running app install ads, and each install costs
two dollars, you would need a weekly budget of $100 (50 app installs
multiplied by two dollars). If you’re running a campaign with five
different ad sets, you would need to increase your weekly budget
to $500 (50 app installs multiplied by two dollars multiplied by five
different ad sets).
Delays with the learning phase may arise if you are advertising for
an expensive item. Imagine you are running ads for Tesla, and you
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Chapter 18. Understanding The Learning Phase
want to increase sales of the new Roadster that costs $250,000. Because
of the higher cost, it may be difficult to generate enough conversions,
and consequently, enough data during the learning phase. Customers
need to deliberate longer when it comes to expensive purchases.
They wouldn’t impulsively buy an item for $250,000. In this case, you
change the pixel event from a conversion event (purchase) to an addto-cart event or a page-view event. Although these events may not
provide the quality of data that you would get from individuals who
would purchase, it would still satisfy the learning phase requirements
and ensure that your Facebook ads continue to receive data for your
ads to thrive.
Once the learning phase ends, only then can you make data-led
decision. If your ads aren’t performing well, go ahead and turn them
off. If they are performing well, I recommend that you scale. Because
of the learning phase, you need to let your ad run for a few more days
to get better performance data. If you run your ads for two days and
saw bad results, give it a few more days before killing the ads.
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Chapter 19. Understanding Facebook’s Contribution Window
CHAPTER 19.
UNDERSTANDING FACEBOOK’S
ATTRIBUTION WINDOW
If you’re a digital advertiser working with clients, you’re likely
advertising in more than one platform. In addition to Facebook,
you’re likely also running other ads from platforms like Snapchat,
Google, or Pinterest. In this case, it’s important to know the platform
that is generating results, that is working for you. This is especially
important if you are working with a client who is using you in addition
to competing advertisers using different advertising platforms.
If a purchase occurred because of your Facebook ad, you want to
make sure that purchase is credited to you and not to the competing
advertisers.
Facebook has a feature called attribution window, which attributes,
or credits, purchases of off Facebook, like your website, to your
Facebook ad. Using this tool, you can confidently show clients that a
purchase occurred because of your ad and not because of someone
else’s. The attribution window is the period of time between the click
or view of your ad and the purchase of your product. For example, if
a user clicked your ad then purchased after 10 days, the attribution
window is the 10 days that it took the user to convert. You can adjust
that attribution to your preference, with options ranging from one day
to 28 days, the default option. Let’s say you set an attribution window
of four days. When a user clicks on your ad and purchases your
product two days later, because that purchase occurred within four
days, Facebook will attribute (or credit) the purchase to your Facebook
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ad. Contrastingly, if that user purchased the product five days later,
Facebook cannot attribute that purchase to your Facebook ad because
the conversion did not occur within the four-day attribution window
that you set.
There are two types of attribution windows. You have the click
window and the view window. The click window is the period of time
between when a user clicks on your ad and purchases your product
while the view window is the period of time between when a user
views your ad and purchases a product. You can change your
attribution windows for those two option in the settings of Business
Manager. Click the tab ad accounts on the left menu, and you’ll find the
attribution option on the right side of your screen. Slide the bar left to
right to change your attribution windows.
Figure 19.1
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
The burning question you likely have is this: what is a good
attribution window. Of course, there is no magic number. I can’t tell
you, for example, that a seven-day attribution window is better than a
nine-day attribution window. However, I can tell you what you should
consider when choosing your attribution window.
First, remember that almost all of your customers won’t purchase
as soon as they click or see your ad. It doesn’t happen that way, which
is why marketers have strategies such as the marketing funnel.
Usually, customers will deliberate before purchasing from you,
especially if those customers are a cold audience and especially if
you’re selling a more expensive product. For this reason, it may not be
ideal to have a one-day attribution window. Rather, you may want to
set your attribution windows to seven days or more.
Second, consider your clients’ desires if you’re working with
clients. Most of my clients in my agency prefer a seven-day attribution
window while some prefer one-day attribution. If you’re not sure
which to choose, ask your clients for their preferences.
It’s important to give credit where credit is due. You want to get
the credit for purchases your customers make. You don’t want your
competitors to claim credit for your hard work. That’s the difference
between having a client and losing a client to a competitor. You want to
show your client you’re the winner. For this reason, make sure you set
your attribution window to where you want it to be.
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Chapter 20. The Psychology Of Facebook Ads
CHAPTER 20.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FACEBOOK ADS
The Five Ps of Marketing and Other Elements
There are several reasons people purchase, reasons that are often
referred to in marketing books as the five Ps. The five Ps are product,
price, placement, promotion, and people. If used correctly, the five Ps
can push your customers to convert.
Product
Customers will most likely purchase from you when you offer a
superior product or service that meets their needs. Let’s say a customer
is considering buying two cars that are identical in size, color, and
speed. However, one car gets 25 miles to the gallon and the other gets
50 miles to the gallon. If that customer has long commutes, she will
most likely purchase the car with the better gas mileage. When it
comes to Facebook ads, you need to show customers that your product
or service is better than your competitors’.
Price
Customers will also most likely purchase from you if your product
is fairly priced, especially in comparison to your competitors’. If your
and your competitors’ products are similar in appearance, type, and
functionality, customers will most likely purchase the product with
the lowest price (unless they delight in purchasing the most expensive
products in an ostentatious display of wealth). It’s important that you
sell a product with a competitive price, especially when customers can
easily compare prices online.
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Placement
Another element that compels customers to buy is placement, or
the location of your product. Imagine coming across a man selling cold
bottled water as you trek through a blisteringly hot desert. Incredibly
thirsty, you ask to buy one, and the man says he charges six dollars,
a ridiculous amount. You buy anyway because you’re thirsty and
desperate. The water man succeeds in ripping you off because he is
at the location where the demand and need for his product is high.
Similarly, strategic placement of your Facebook ad is key. For example,
if you own multiple brick-and-mortar stores, you can create store
location ads to target people within your store location, or you can
place ads in areas that your audience frequently visits, whether that’s
on mobile News Feed, desktop News Feed, or right column.
Promotion
A promotion can quickly urge your
customers to bite on your offer like a
hungry bass biting on a fisher’s hook.
Promotions are more than just good
deals—they’re temporary deals that, due
to the sense of urgency and exclusivity
they instill, cause customers to hastily
Figure 20.1
purchase. Imagine you’re shopping for a new credit card. You find two
cards with the same APR, same spending limit, and same travel points.
However, one card charges you zero percent interest on purchases for
the first 18 months. You would choose the zero percent APR credit card,
of course, because it’s a better deal. Offering a promotion can often
be a strong tactic to drive customers to purchase your product rather
than your competitors’ products.
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Chapter 20. The Psychology Of Facebook Ads
People
The fifth P, people, pertains to
friends’ and public figures’ influence
on someone’s purchase decision.
Experts believe that customers are
more likely to purchase a product
when it has been recommended
or praised by friends, family,
a public figure, or a celebrity.
Recommendations and praises from
these people are called social proof.
Social proof is so effective that
numerous companies scramble to
Figure 20.2 An example of social proof
work with influencers to gain it. That’s
why you often see ads feature a celebrity, why public figures sponsor
brands.
Adding social proof is an important strategy. Although there are
multiple ways you can include social proof, such as adding customer
reviews to your ad creatives or partnering with influencers, all News
Feed ads contain social proof by default. Much like regular Facebook
posts, News Feed ads also have comments and engagement sections
on the bottom of the ad that function as social proof by showing users
how many engagements (likes, comments, reactions, and shares) the ad
has received from the public.
When creating your Facebook ads, always keep the five Ps in mind.
Remember that the quality of the product, the price, the location of
your ad, the promotion, and the recommendations by others are five
elements that may push customers to purchase.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Evoking Emotions
If there’s one thing that’s true about humans, it’s that they are
impatient. You’ve seen it: a frustrated man honking at still cars in
traffic, an exasperated woman tapping her feet impatiently as she
waits in line at the DMV. You’ve undoubtedly felt untethered rage
while waiting for your slow web browser to load. In a fast-moving
world, we want things to move quickly. If people are naturally
impatient in their day-to-day lives, you can imagine how impatient
they are when browsing the Internet. On Facebook, especially, every
second matters. People scan through their News Feeds faster than
ever. On average, a user will view your ad on a mobile News Feed
for 1.7 seconds and for 2.5 seconds on a desktop News Feed. 7You
have around three seconds to grab users’ attention with an ad that is
relevant to them. There are a few ways you can do that. First, you can
stop them mid scroll by creating eye-catching, high-quality creatives
and compelling, concise copies. Then you maintain their attention by
creating an ad that evokes emotions, spurring them to purchase. If you
want to compel your audience, you have to manipulate their emotions,
whether that’s instilling a sense of urgency, kinship, or difficulty.
Urgency
Creating a sense of urgency is
one of the best ways to compel a
user to complete a desired action.
In fact, some of the most successful
ad campaigns I’ve ran are the ones
that instill a sense of urgency,
Figure 20.3
7
Facebook data, Q3 2015.
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with copies that announce “24 hour sale” and “this deal expires at
midnight.” I’ve seen its effectiveness, and it is no surprise that this is
a tactic popular among advertisers. There’s one emotion that makes
the urgency tactic effective: fear. People fear a lost opportunity, and
people fear regret. When creating your ad, manipulate your customers’
fears. Make them believe that they will regret ignoring your offer.
Scarcity
Much like urgency, by instilling
a sense of scarcity, you play on
people’s fear of a lost opportunity.
When people think a product is in
low supply, they feel compelled to
take action, fearing the loss of the
item. Scarcity tactics often work well
alongside sales or discounts that
provide the benefit of buying your
product. Examples of copies that
instill a sense of urgency are “only 50
left at this price” and “first 25 people
get this special offer.” Although
scarcity tactics can increase sales, it’s
wise not to overuse them because
Figure 20.4
customers will become skeptical and, consequently, doubtful of your
business. For example, your customers may become skeptical when
your deal-ends-in-24-hours ad continues to run for a week.
Difficulty
If there’s one adage that has followed me from economics class in
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high school to present day, it’s “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
The adage communicates a valuable lesson all advertisers must learn:
nothing comes for free. If you obtain a product for free, someone else
must pay the price. For that reason, free giveaways may ring false to
your customers. They may believe that a giveaway that is too good to
be true is simply that—too good to be true. People’s skepticism, their
fear of unrealistic offers, is justified considering the number of scam
ads that exist on the Internet, promising victims free items that cost
double the original price of shipping, that will never arrive in their
mailboxes, or that are of extremely low quality. For skeptical buyers
wary of scams, the word “free” can equate to too good to be true.
To alleviate your customers’ skepticism, you can offer free items
as an incentive to take a certain action. Try offering free items once
customers have liked or followed your page, taken your short survey,
or left a positive review about your business. By using free items as
incentives, you’re giving skeptics a realistic offer that will allay their
doubts.
Kinship
If you want customers to be more receptive to your ad, you must
speak to them as if you were one of their own. After you position
yourself as your customers’ peer, they will be more likely to respond to
your ad because people tend to accept those who are similar to them.
To be more relatable to your customers, try speaking their language
in your copy. That means speaking like a 21-year-old woman if you
have to (as I do with the ads for one of my clients who sells women’s
clothing) or speaking like a 60-year-old man (as I also do for another
client who sells gold IRAs). Once you connect your brand with your
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customers, your ad will be more effective.
The Psychological Impact of Colors
It’s highly unlikely that you’ll pay much attention to your ad’s color
scheme. In fact, you likely won’t give the color scheme any thought
at all. Black, brown, purple, or fuchsia—it makes no difference to you.
On the contrary, color does make a difference. Color, as it turns out,
evokes certain feelings and tones that can influence your audience’s
psychology. Take a look at the chart below, which contains the effects
of certain colors.
Yellow
Orange
optimism, clarity, youthfulness, warmth, and
cheerfulness
friendship, cheerfulness, confidence, warmth,
intuition, optimism, spontaneity, cordiality,
freedom, impulsiveness, motivation,
excitement, enthusiasm, caution, aggression,
action, courage, success
Red
excitement, youthfulness, boldness, passion,
activity, energy, leadership, willpower,
confidence, ambition, power, hunger, love,
appetite, urgenc
Purple
creativity, imagination, wisdom, eccentricity,
originality, individualism, wealth, modesty,
compassion, eminence, respect, fantasy,
royalty, success
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Dark blue
trust, trustworthiness, strength, order,
loyalty, sincerity, authority, communication,
confidence, peace, integrity, control,
responsibility, success, tranquility, masculinity,
water, serenity, satiation, coldness,
productivity, security
Light blue
spirituality, thoughtfulness, contentedness,
control, help, determination, self-sufficiency,
modernity, goals, awareness, purpose,
accessibility, ambition
Green
peacefulness, growth, health, balance,
restoration, equilibrium, positivity, nature,
generosity, clarity, prosperity, good judgement,
safety, stability, health, tranquility, money,
growth, relaxation, wealth, fertility
Gray
Pink
balance, neutrality, tranquility
love, tranquility, respect, warmth, femininity,
intuition, care, assertiveness, sensitivity,
nurture, possibilities
Brown
Tan/beige
friendliness, the earth, the outdoors, longevity,
conservatism
dependability, flexibility
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Turquoise
Silver
Gold
Black
White
spirituality, healing, protection, sophistication
glamor, technology, gracefulness, sleekness
wealth, prosperity, value, tradition
protection, drama, class, formality
goodness, innocence, purity, freshness, ease,
cleanliness
Figure 20.5
The different psychological impacts of colors
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Chapter 21. Creative Best Practices: Copy, Images, & Video
CHAPTER 21. CREATIVE BEST PRACTICES:
COPY, IMAGE, & VIDEO
Because your ad’s design is important, you must learn how to create
Facebook ads without teaching you how to create them well. Over the
years, I’ve discovered the best ways to create Facebook ads. Some of the
discoveries were the result of my own experience A/B testing different
creatives for my clients and some come from my extensive readings
about creative best practices. In this chapter, I give you tips on how to
improve your ad creatives.
Copy
Although the ad’s image or video is the most prominent part of the
creative, the ad copy is just as important as the media it complements.
The copy contains the heart of your message, relaying what the ad is
about and what you want customers to do after seeing your ad. Good
copy can contribute to the success of your ad—it does matter.
Your ad copies will appear in three areas of your ad: the text
above the image, the headline under the image, and the description
under the headline. It’s important to know the text specification for
those three areas because if your copy is too long, your text can get
truncated. Here are Facebok’s ad copy requirements.
Format: Videos, Single Images, Slideshows
Text: 125 characters. Text over 125 characters is allowed but may be
truncated.
Headline: 25 characters. Text over 25 characters is allowed but may be
truncated.
Link description: 30 characters. Text over 30 is allowed but may be
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truncated.
Format: Collection
Text: 90 characters. Text over 90 characters is allowed but may be truncated.
Headline: 25 characters. Text over 25 characters is allowed but may be
truncated.
Format: Carousel
Text: 125 characters. Text over 125 characters is allowed but may be truncated.
Headline: 40 characters. Text over 40 characters is allowed but may be
truncated.
Link description: 20 characters. Text over 20 is allowed but may be truncated.
Format: Dynamic Product Ads (DPAs) - can be single image or carousel
Text: 255 characters
Use the Before and After Effect
For your copies to be effective, make sure they are relevant and
compelling and that they provide a solution to a problem. See the
before-and-after chart below. Your copy should illustrate the state of
your audience before your product or service and after your product
Before Your Product
After Your Product
(Dish Soap)
(Dish Soap)
Your Customers Have
dirty dishes
Your Customers Have
frustrated
Your Customers’ Average Day tiring
clean dishes
accomplished
productive
Your Customers’ Status
winner
Failure
Figure 21.1
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or service. In the example below, I use dish soap as the product.
These are the copies I wrote to illustrate the before-and-after state
of my customers after purchasing my dish soap product. The before
state is underlined and the after state is in bold.
Your Customers Have
Tired of dirty dishes? Get squeaky clean ones with the AdvertiseMint dish soap.
Your Customers Feel
Hard-to-wash dirty dishes can frustrate you. With the AdvertiseMint dish soap,
you’ll feel accomplished after every washing session.
Your Customers’ Average Day
Every day is exhausting when you spend too much time scrubbing hard-to-clean
dishes. The AdvertiseMint soap will leave you feeling productive at the end of
the day.
Your Customers’ Status
Not getting rid of the grease off of your dishes may leave you feeling like a
failure. Easily scrub those grease away with the AdvertiseMint soap—feel like a
winner.
Know Your Audience
When creating copies, you must know your audience. Know who
you’re writing for, know how that person thinks, and know what that
person needs. To know your audience, create a fictional character, a
persona, who possesses the same demographics, behaviors, attitudes,
lifestyles, and needs as your target audience. Let’s say you’re selling
designer handbags. Which group is likely to purchase your products?
Affluent women ages 25 to 50 would most likely buy those products.
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Why would they want those products? They want to stay in fashion,
they want to stay relevant, or they want to flaunt their wealth. After
you’ve created your persona, use it to craft your copies. When you
speak to your audience, speak to them as if you were a woman aged 25
to 50 who wanted to stay fashionable and relevant. Only then will your
audience relate to you and trust you enough to buy your product.
Don’t Be too Salesy
Your copy must not sound too salesy. Remember that your audience
is on social media to socialize with peers rather than to buy your
products. Because your audience has zero buying intent, they are
more likely to feel annoyed by ads. Your ads must take a gentle selling
approach. Rather than pushing a sale, suggest an idea and provide a
solution to a problem that shows your audience what life would be
like with the product, using the before-and-after effect I discussed
earlier. For example, instead of scrawling a giant “BUY THIS GREAT
PRODUCT NOW” copy across your ad, try something like this: “Finally,
you can get rid of those pesky, persistent stains.” Unlike the first copy,
the second copy provides a solution to a problem and a reason for your
audience to buy without pushing hard on the sale.
Reuse Headline Formats That Work
If certain headline formats have historically worked for you, don’t
hesitate to reuse them. Here are a few common examples.
●● How to
How to remove carpet stains in 3 seconds
●● Listicle
Five ways to quickly remove carpet stains
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●● Who else wants [your product or benefits of the product]?
Who else wants an easy way to get rid of carpet stains?
●● The secret of [beneficial insider knowledge]
The secret of removing carpet stains in 3 seconds
●● Here is a method that is helping [your target audience] to [a
helpful benefit]
Here is a method that is helping moms quickly and easily remove carpet
stains
●● Little known ways to [a solution to a problem or a benefit]
Here are little known ways to remove carpet stains in 3 seconds
●● Get rid of [a problem] once and for all
Get rid of those pesky carpet stains once and for all
●● Here’s a quick way to [solve a problem]
Here’s a quick way to remove carpet stains
●● Now you can [have something desirable] [great circumstances]
Now you can quit your job and make even more money
●● [Do something] like [world-class example]
Remove carpet stains like Mr. Clean
●● Have a [blank] you can be proud of
Have a clean carpet you can be proud of
●● Build a [blank] you can be proud of
Build a career you can be proud of
●● What everybody needs to know about [blank]
What everybody needs to know about removing carpet stains
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Chapter 21. Creative Best Practices: Copy, Images, & Video
Images
Your ad’s image is the most important, most dominant part of
your ad because, due to its large size, it’s the first thing users see.
Unfortunately, your image only has a few seconds to capture the
attention of users rapidly scrolling through their feeds. To stop them
mid scroll, use images with eye-catching colors that are vibrant and
that contrast against elements within the ad or against the News Feed.
When choosing an image for your ad, never choose an image with a
light background because it will blend in with the feed. If you’re using
stock photos, do use color overlays to place over your stock photos,
a great way to make stock photos unique to you. After all, because
stock photos are open for use by everyone, it’s very likely that other
advertisers are using those photos too.
You can also improve your photos by adding text on the image.
If you want to quickly communicate your point to busy, impatient
Facebook users, add your CTA or offer on the image itself. This will
allow you to communicate your message as quickly as possible on the
area of your ad that receives the most attention. When adding text to
your images, you must remember to abide by Facebook’s 20 percent
rule. The rule states that texts in ads cannot be more than 20 percent
of the image. (See the chapter on Facebook’s ad policies for more
details.) If you don’t want to break this rule and risk the approval of
your ads, then make sure that your text does not dominate the image.
People and Objects
Slapping a few words on a colored background, dusting your hands
off in self-satisfaction, and calling it a day is not the best way to create
your ad images. You have to try different types of images, such as
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images featuring people or objects. In fact, some research shows that
images with relatable and recognizable people perform better than
images without recognizable people. Research conducted by Keywee,
a company that helps publishers successfully advertise their content,
revealed that ad images with recognizable people outperformed ads
with unrecognizable people. 8That’s because customers trust people
they recognize. This tactic is so popular that many brands scramble to
hire celebrities who can sponsor their products: Kylie Jenner for Sugar
Bear Hair, John Malkovich for Squarespace, and Selena Gomez for
Coke, to name a few. These well-known celebrities lend brands more
credibility, and they can even sway their fans into buying the products
they’re promoting.
You can also add credibility to your ad by featuring the logos,
objects, and symbols of widely recognized companies. Of course, I’m
not saying that you should steal other brands’ logos and symbols.
Rather, include them in your ad if your product or service integrates
with those brands. For example, if you’re an advertiser promoting
your advertising agency’s services and you work with big brands such
as Victoria’s Secret, Coke, and Nike, include those logos in your image.
Associating those big brands that people know, use, and trust with
yours will give your business credibility.
If you choose to feature objects rather than people in your
Facebook ads, go a step further and feature your products. Doing so
will achieve two things. First, if the featured product looks attractive
in the image, people will be more likely to click on the ad. Second,
if you feature your product in the ad, people will be able to imagine
8
“All Things Creative: Creating Facebook Posts that Convert—Keywee.” Keywee, January 31,
2017, accessed July 26, 2017, http://keywee.co/all-things-creative-building-facebook-adsthat-convert/.
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themselves with your product. They will be able to see the product
in their hands, see what their life will be with it. You can help your
customers visualize your product in their lives by featuring a model or
an actor using your product.
If you want to feature your own products in your ad, to show
customers how they work and how they can be used, then I
recommend using the carousel or video format. With a Carousel Ad,
you can show the several ways customers can use your products in a
string of carousel cards. Think of it as a how-to ad. Display each step
in each carousel card with helpful images and instructional headlines
to match. Do remember that you can only upload up to ten images in
a Carousel Ad. The video format also works exceptionally well with
how-to ads. I’ve done a few of those for several of my clients, and the
results for those video ads are better than the results of the ads with
static creatives. Because users prefer watching short videos, I always
keep my video ads under one minute.
Incorporate the Three Es
When crafting your creatives, whether that’s a photo, gif, or
video, always remember to entertain, educate, and engage, which we
marketers call the three Es. The three Es are so important to your ad’s
performance that you should ask your graphic designers to write them
on a Post-it note and stick it on their computers.
Entertain
Social media users don’t go to Facebook to shop. Rather, they go to
Facebook to be entertained, whether that’s by a meme, a video, or a
friendly banter in the comments section. To catch people’s attention,
your ads should fulfill their need to be entertained. Make sure your ads
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make people smile, laugh, or cry. Make
them experience love, wonder, mystery,
or fear. Making sure your ads entertain
your target audience is one way to
improve your results.
Educate
Teaching people something they
didn’t know, such as a new skill or a
little-known fact, is the second tactic to
Figure 21.2
improving your results. Educational content will often cause curious
and knowledge-hungry users to stop mid scroll. If you want to watch
a few examples of great educational videos, watch the videos of Tasty,
Tastemade, and Nifty, companies that successfully create helpful
DIY videos that last less than two minutes. Media companies that
create educational ads that provide solutions to problems work so
well because they give users something in return for their time and
attention: knowledge and a solution. For that reason, you should create
content that educates your customers about your products and shows
them how your products or services are the best solutions to their
problems.
Engage
This is probably the most important of the three because Facebook’s
algorithm makes engagement essential to ads’ and posts’ rank on the
feed. Posts that have a lot of engagement will appear higher on the
feed than posts that have little engagement. This means you need to
create irresistible ads that your target audience can’t help but engage
with. Sometimes engagement will happen effortlessly when you create
killer ads that entertain or educate well. Sometimes, however, your
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ads will not have any engagement at all. If that’s the case for you, then
you need to encourage your audience to engage with your ad. For
example, ask users for their opinions or feedbacks, or you can make a
controversial statement that provokes a discussion. With every ad, you
need to stop and ask yourself, “Am I talking to someone, or am I talking
at someone?” You must speak to your audience in a way that will make
them feel part of a conversation that they can easily participate in.
Video
If you’re planning to use only Single Image Ads for the rest of your
advertising career, then forget it. Pack your bags, go home, and make
a career change. Years of Facebook advertising drilled into my brain
one important lesson: you must always try different ad formats to
combat ad fatigue. Users will overlook or ignore your ad if they see it
too often. An overused ad on News Feed is like the guy telling the same
joke at parties. People that hate to hear his overused joke avoid him
at all costs. It’s the same with ads. Tired of seeing the same ad on their
feeds, users will quickly scroll past your ad, barely taking notice. Ad
fatigue is your enemy. It will cause your relevance scores to plummet
and your costs to rise. To avoid ad fatigue, change your ad format—
graduate from image to video.
Video, unlike the other ad formats, works exceptionally well with
storytelling. With this type of moving creative, users can watch your
story unfold, whether that story is about your product, your service, or
your brand. My team and I often use video ads for a few of our clients,
including one who sells magnetic mounts for electronic devices. We
constantly create new videos for that client, videos in which actors use
the mounts in their everyday lives. Video ads work well for us because
the video allows us to tell a story about our client’s product: how
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customers can use the product and how it can impact their lives.
Four Tips to Remember
There are four things you need to do when creating video ads. First,
you have to make sure it’s short, with a length of one minute at the
most. Users will not likely watch the entirety of your video if it’s too
long. Second, place the story’s important message within the first few
seconds of the ad. Because viewers scroll out of a video if it has not
captured their attention within the first fifteen seconds, it’s crucial
that you hook your viewers and communicate your message within
those few precious seconds. Treat your videos like a news article
following the pyramid format: use the most important points first
followed by the least important points. While doing so, make sure that
your video still makes logical sense according to your story. It should
still be cohesive despite the inversion. Third, you should always create
your videos for sound off because most users watch without sound.
You can cater to those users by adding subtitles or including captions
that encourage your viewers to watch with sound on. Fourth, make
sure that your video’s story is easily comprehensible even without
captions or sound.
Video Ad Specs
Of course, all of your videos need to follow Facebook’s ad specs.
Otherwise, they’ll appear strangely on your ad—and you don’t want
that.
Instagram
Facebook Screen Safe
Facebook / Instagram Stories Vertical
Horizontal
Pinterest
Facebook Images
1080 x 1350
1080 x 1620
1080 x 1920
1920 x 1080
600 x 900
1200 x 628
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Best Practices for Instagram Stories
If you want to place your videos to Instagram Stories, you have
to make sure that the video works well for the Instagram Stories
audience, who are different from your regular Facebook audience.
People who view Stories are more impatient. They want to see videos
for sound on that are short and that are more intimate and personal.
Here are my top five advice about Instagram Stories.
1. Make It Relevant
According to Facebook, ads that are relevant to its audience
perform well on average. When creating your Instagram Stories ad,
make sure that the content is relatable to the audience it is targeting.
For example, if I want to target women aged 17 to 25 for an ad about
designer handbags, I would include women of that demographic in the
video. I would also showcase the product.
2. Keep It Short
You’ll hear this over and over again: keep your videos short.
No audience is as impatient as your audience on the internet. The
Instagram Stories audience is even more impatient. Keep your video
length at 15 seconds at most. Exceed that length, and you will lose your
audience’s interest. Because your video has to be short, make sure your
main point appears at the beginning of the ad.
3. Design for Sound Off but Delight with Sound
According to Facebook, people usually view Stories with sound
on. For that reason, the company recommends using delightful music
that people will enjoy hearing. However, in case someone does decide
not to view Stories with sound on, it’s important that you design all
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of your Stories for sound off. That way, everyone—both sound-on and
sound-off listeners—can understand your ad’s message.
4. Use Fast Paced Videos
If your Stories ad contains more than one scene or clip, edit the
clips together to make a fast-paced video. According to Facebook, topperforming ads, on average, include brief clips with quick scenes.
5. Experiment with Instagram’s Creative Tools
Throughout the years, Instagram has rolled out tools that allow
people to decorate and beautify their otherwise mundane Stories.
I encourage you to use Facebook’s tools. They’re easy to use, and
they certainly take your ads from meh to amazing. Here are a list of
Instagram tools you can use.
●● Text: allows you to add text to your Story
●● Color: changes the color of your text
●● Color picker: picks out a color from your Story and imitates it so
you can use the new color for your text and pens.
●● Pens: you can draw and write on your Story using three different
pens: sharpie, highlighter, neon, eraser, and chalk
●● Emojis: you can add emojis to your Story
●● Gifs: you can beautify your Story with gifs
●● Stickers: stickers can be static or moving
●● Super zoom: you can zoom in to an object with three sound effects
●● Mention: you can mention other accounts on your story
●● Rewind: record your actions backwards
●● Boomerang: takes a looping stop-motion video
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Chapter 22. Managing Your Facebook Page
CHAPTER 22.
MANAGING YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE
Creating a Facebook page with the intention of only using it to
access Business Manager is a fool’s dream. You can’t create one and
neglect it forever. You have to improve it and maintain it. After all,
your page will represent all of the ads that appear on Facebook’s
platforms. Users will be able to see the page associated with your ad,
and they will be able to click on the page to visit it. For that reason, it’s
important that your page be professional, active, and up to date. This
chapter is dedicated to managing your Facebook page, from adding
page roles, verifications, and followers to leveraging important page
tools.
Updating Your Settings
When your page goes live, you must immediately update
your settings to fit your business goals. Although there are many
preferences you can adjust from your page’s settings, most of which
you likely won’t need to change, I have discussed a few that I believe
are the most important. (You can access your page from the left
column of News Feed, and you can find your page settings on the left
side of your page’s header.)
Assigning Page Roles
If you work with a social media team, this will be the first thing
you need to do. Managing a page alone can be difficult, especially if
your page receives a constant flow of comments and messages from
hundreds of followers. With a business to manage and a personal life
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to maintain, you likely have very little time to review and respond to
every message, notification, comment, and review. Fortunately, you
can assign page roles such as editor, advertiser, admin, and analyst to
your team, who can help you manage your page.
Step 1: Go to Settings >> Page Roles
Step 2: Assign role
Step 3: Re-enter password
Step 4: You’re done
Updating Preferred Audience
In your settings, you can also create a preferred audience the
audience to whom you want Facebook to show your page when
giving page suggestions. Creating your preferred audience is a similar
process to creating your target audience for ads: you can set the age,
gender, and location of your audience, to site a few examples. If your
audience shifted or a new audience is interested in your business, you
can change your preferred audience to target the new audience you
discovered in your insights.
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Chapter 22. Managing Your Facebook Page
Step 1: Click Preferred Page Audience
Step 2: Click Edit
Step 3: Edit preferences. Save
You can edit your audience’s geography, age, gender, and language.
For example, you can select or exclude any country, state, and city. The
more information you provide, the more specific will be your target.
Keep in mind, however, that you should not make your preferences too
narrow, lest you exclude a good potential audience.
Step 4: You’re done
Adding an Instagram Account
If you want to create Instagram ads without connecting your
Instagram account to Business Manager, add your Instagram account
to your Facebook page of which you are an admin or an editor.
Remember, you can’t advertise on Instagram without connecting your
Instagram account to either your Business Manager or your Facebook
page.
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Step 1: Go to Settings >> General >> Instagram Ads
Step 2: Click Add an Account
Step 3: Click Add an existing account
If you already have an existing, active Instagram account, choose the
first option then enter your Instagram username and password. If you
don’t already have an existing Instagram account, choose the second
option to create an account.
Step 4: You’re done
Blocking Words and Profanity
Cyberbullies and trolls are a menace to the internet. Often they
prowl the comments section, looking for an opportunity to insult,
argue with, and annoy other internet users. I don’t know about you,
but I certainly don’t want cyberbullies trolling my page and my
followers. Fortunately, can block certain words and profanity from
appearing anywhere on your page. There are many benefits to filtering
offensive words and profanity, just in case you don’t think doing so
is worth the effort. Not only does it maintain a safe place for people
to share ideas, but it also keeps your page clean and professional and
encourages people to return to your page. If you want all three, then I
recommend filtering offensive words and profanity from your page. To
block certain words from appearing in the comments’ section of your
posts or on people’s posts on your timeline, follow these steps.
Step 1: Click General >> Page Moderation
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Step 2: Enter words to block. Save Changes
Step 3: You’re Done
Facebook will immediately mark the blocked words as spam as soon as
they appear on your page.
Filtering profanity works differently than blocking words. While
you choose the words you want to block, Facebook determines which
profane language to block based on commonly reported words and
phrases marked as offensive by the community. It also blocks profanity
according to the degree you choose. Choosing medium will block
moderately vulgar profanity while choosing strong will block only
strongly vulgar profanity.
Step 1: Click Profanity Filter. Choose degree. Save
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Step 2: You’re done
Profanities that fall under the degree you chose will be blocked from
appearing on your page.
Adding Features and Followers
Adding a profile picture and filling out your page information is not
enough. You need to make your page look thorough, professional, and
active. In this section I discuss the four important things you must add
to your Facebook page: verifications, followers, CTA buttons, and cover
photos.
Verifying Your Facebook Page
If you own a Facebook page categorized under local business,
company, or organization, then your page is eligible for a gray
verification badge. You’ve likely seen this before. Have you ever
noticed small blue check marks next to celebrities’ profile photos
on various social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, or
Twitter? Then you’ve seen a verification badge. Verification badges
let your page visitors know that your page is authentic. While blue
verification badges are for public figures, celebrities, and brands, gray
verification badges are for businesses and companies.
If you want to verify your page, you can do so from your page’s
settings. Note, however, that only pages with a profile and cover
photo are eligible. If you own a Facebook page categorized under local
business, company, or organization but you don’t have a profile or
cover photo, then you’re not eligible for the badge. You can verify your
page with a phone number or with a document. I’ll show you how to do
both.
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Chapter 22. Managing Your Facebook Page
Phone Number
Step 1: Click Settings >> General >> Page Verification
Step 2: Click Verify this Page
Step 3: Provide business phone number
Enter the publicly listed phone number for your business or
organization then click “Call Me Now.” Facebook will call the number
you provided and give you your verification code.
Step 4: Enter verification code
Document
Step 1: Click “Verify this Page with documents instead”
Step 2: Upload Document
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You can upload a business utility or phone bill, business license,
business tax file, certificate of formation, or articles of incorporation.
The information you share will not be shared to the public.
Step 3: Wait
You will receive a confirmation stating the document you provided
is under review. You will hear from Facebook via email within a few
days.
Uploading a Cover Photo to Your Page
This might sound silly, but I would never dare run a page that didn’t
have a cover photo. Not only is it required to obtain a verification
badge (it’s that important), but it also adds style, personality, and
aesthetic appeal to your page. There’s a reason it’s hard to find a
Facebook page with no cover photo (go on, try it. I challenge you).
Without one, your page may look bare and unfinished
Step 1: Click Add a Cover >> Upload Photo.
Step 4: Choose photo
Step 5: Drag to reposition photo and save
Step 6: You’re done
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Chapter 22. Managing Your Facebook Page
Adding a CTA Button to Your Page
CTA buttons are a great way to encourage followers and page
visitors to make a desired action. CTA buttons can encourage them to
shop at your online store, book an appointment, learn more about your
business, and sign up for email notifications, among numerous others.
With CTA buttons, you can easily and quickly connect with a potential
customer.
Step 1: Click “Add a Button”
Step 2: Add CTA button >> Website URL >> iOS destination
The website URL will direct users to the URL’s landing page after they
click on the button.
Step 3: Promote your button
Doing so will notify followers about your new button.
Step 4: You’re done
Inviting Your Friends to Like Your Page
The purpose of starting a Facebook page is mute when you don’t
collect followers. How do you begin? How do you start a following? To
start, you can invite Facebook friends to like your page.
Step 1: Click “Invite friends to like this page” on the left side of your
page feed.
Step 2: Click Invite friends >> Close
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Important Page Tools
Creating a Facebook pages opens doors to your business. With a
Facebook page, you can get data on your audience, easily connect with
your followers, and create promotions—that’s only a few of the things
you can do. However, before you can use your page to its full potential,
you must know what the important page tools are and where you can
find them. Fortunately, I’ve listed all of the important page tools in this
section so you won’t have to spend hours searching for them.
Messages
Keeping in contact with your followers allows you to appear more
approachable and friendly. The more approachable and friendly you
are, the more likely fans will remain loyal and the less likely they’ll
unfollow your page. You can connect with your fans with Messenger,
which is accessible from the page header and from the menu options
underneath your cover photo.
Notifications
You are likely familiar with the little globe-shaped button on the
upper right side of Facebook that stores all of your notifications. This
is different from the notifications tab located on your Facebook page.
Although Facebook notifications show both notifications from your
profile and your page, the notifications tab from your page only shows
page notifications.
Notifications are important because they keep you updated on
activity within your page. If someone comments, likes, reposts, or
reacts to any of your posts, Facebook will notify you so you can
respond and interact with your followers. When you interact with
your followers, you encourage them to engage with your content and
remain subscribed to your page.
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Chapter 22. Managing Your Facebook Page
Insights
Insights, which keeps you updated on your pages’ performance, lets
you view your followers’ activity on your page. For example, you can
view the data on your page’s views, likes, and reach. When you visit
your insights page, you will see a list of subsections to the left.
●● Overview: Shows a summary of page activities from the last seven
days. Information includes page views, page likes, reach, video
views, and page followers.
●● Promotions: Allows you to create and buy promotions for four
types of page objectives: increasing calls, increasing website
visitors, increasing local awareness, and promoting your page.
Think of promotions as ads for your page.
●● Followers: Provides data on the sources of your page follows and
your total followers. The data for the latter can be broken down
by unfollows, organic followers, paid followers, and net followers.
●● Likes: Provides data on page likes. You can view a benchmark
report that compares your average likes over time along with
organic likes, paid likes, new likes, and unlikes. You can also view
where your page likes occurred, whether it occurred on your ads,
your page, or on mobile.
●● Reach: Provides data on your posts’ total reach and engagement.
●● Page views: Provides data on total page views. You can view the
age and gender of the individuals who viewed your page; their
country and city; the device the view occurred on; and the source
of the view.
●● Actions on page: Provides data on the total actions on your page,
including clicks to get directions, to call, and to go to a website.
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●● Posts: Provides data on your posts. You can view data on when
your followers are online, which posts received the most
engagement, and how much engagement each post received.
●● Events: Provides data on your events. You can view data on reach,
views, engagement, ticket sales, and audience.
●● Videos: Provides performance insights on your videos.
Information includes the minutes viewed and total video views.
●● People: Provides insights on your followers. Information
includes their age, gender, and country. You can also see which
demographic engages more with your content.
●● Local: Provides insights on people within your location.
Information includes activity and peak hours, demographics of
people near you, and people near you who were reached by your
ads.
●● Messages: Provides data on total conversations.
●● Instant Articles CTA: Provides data on CTAs in Instant Articles.
Information includes total sign-ups, total impressions, sign-ups
by age and gender, and sign-ups by location.
Publishing Tools
Managing your business’ social media is time consuming. Posting
twice a day every day takes a lot of work and disrupts the normal flow
of your schedule. Publishing tools is a godsend to those who struggle
with managing social media. Publishing tools makes your job a lot
easier by allowing you to schedule posts that will automatically publish
on your selected date—it’s a free social media automated tool. Instead
of paying for a monthly fee, you can use publishing tools instead. To
schedule posts, follow the steps below.
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Chapter 22. Managing Your Facebook Page
Step 1: Click Schedule
Step 2: Set date. Click Schedule
Step 3: You’re done
Your scheduled posts will appear in your publishing tools under
“Scheduled.”
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Chapter 23. Messenger Bots
CHAPTER 23.
MESSENGER BOTS
I won’t blame you if you haven’t heard of Messenger bots before.
These bots exist covertly: they don’t appear to you unless you search
for them or unless you message a business with a bot installed.
Although a slightly extraneous topic, it didn’t feel right to omit
Messenger bots from this book. Granted, as a beginner, Messenger
bots are the least of your worries. In fact, you will probably never
use Messenger bots in your entire advertising career, but currently,
chatbots are gaining more popularity, and I wanted you to know of
this option in case it will help you manage your business. For those
reasons, I’m dedicating this chapter to Messenger bots: what they are,
where you can learn more about them, and where and how you can
create them.
Messenger bots, more than 100,000 of which currently exist on
Messenger, are AI chatbots that send automated messages on behalf
of businesses. When a customer sends a message to a business, the bot
will recognize the keywords of the message and respond accordingly
with a selection of relevant actions, such as visiting a website, booking
an appointment, or making a purchase. If you want to interact with a
chatbot, simply visit
Messenger and enter the name of the business you want to contact.
Once you click the bot you want to interact with from the search
option, a conversation between you and the bot will open, including a
greeting from the bot to start you off.
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Figure 23.1 A conversation with a chatbot
Messenger Bots, the Future of Marketing
Before chatbots, customers primarily communicated with
businesses through phone calls and emails. However, as technology
advanced, particularly, as smartphones evolved to become even
smarter phones, customers are moving away from email and phone
calls to messaging. Currently, Facebook Messenger has 1.3 billion
monthly active users while another messaging app also owned by
Facebook, WhatsApp, is among the most commonly used app in North
America. By 2021, it is predicted that users of messaging apps will
rise by 23 percent, according to a study by Facebook in the article
“Why Messaging Businesses Is the New Normal.” Clearly, people find
messaging apps valuable. Look at the findings Facebook reported in
the same article on figure 19.2. It will change the way you think about
Messenger bots.
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●● 67% of survey respondents said, over the past two
years, their messaging has increased.
●● 80% of adult survey respondents said they use
Messenger daily.
●● 51% of survey respondents said messaging has replaced
other forms of communication.
●● 61% of survey respondents said, in the past three
months, they messaged businesses.
●● 71% of survey respondents across Colombia, Germany,
Mexico, and the US said they’re open to messaging
businesses.
●● Businesses exchange 8 billion messages with
customers.
Figure 23.2
It’s not surprising that people value messaging apps. Those apps
allow them to quickly, easily, and creatively communicate. Unlike
emails, with messaging apps, people can quickly send, receive, read,
and reply to messages. Unlike phone calls, with messaging apps, people
can communicate while on the go, while at a place where they need to
be quiet (like a library, an office, or a classroom), or while performing
a task (for example, texting while at working, while waiting in line
at Starbucks, while standing in a crowded, noisy subway car). And
unlike emails and phone calls, users can easily and seamlessly send
multimedia messages, such as reactions, gifs, videos, images, and links.
The benefits of instant communication doesn’t only apply to people
who want to better converse with friends and family. The benefit
also applies to businesses. In the age of technology and social media,
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Chapter 23. Messenger Bots
where people spend two seconds looking at content, people want quick
results. If people want an answer to a question, they want the question
to come to them as easily and as quickly as possible. Why do you
think Google now processes over 3.5 billion search queries each day?
Instantaneous replies are exactly what messaging apps provide.
Although messaging apps provide fast and easy communication,
that communication can’t occur without a person on your end of
the conversation. Let’s say you have a business page on Facebook.
Hundreds of customers send you hundreds of Facebook messages a
day, spawning thousands—even billions—of conversations in a single
day. For conversations to continue, for inquiring customers to be
happy, you would need a dedicated customer service team. But with
chatbots, you don’t need a team. The chatbot will send automated
replies on your behalf when you’re away from your computer or
phone.
The Benefits of Messenger Bots
Why should I invest in Messenger bots when I already have a
perfectly working email, you may argue. Yes, messenger marketing is
similar to email marketing. In messenger marketing, you build your
list by acquiring new leads then send those leads marketing messages,
hoping that they will turn into regular, paying customers. Email
marketing also works the same way. However, messenger marketing
provides benefits that email marketing does not.
First, messenger marketing is more conversational than email
marketing. When you send marketing message through email, you
create one email and send it to all of your subscribers. Often, those
subscribers can’t respond to the email. If those subscribers can’t reply,
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they certainly can’t have an ongoing, one-on-one conversation with
you. With messenger marketing, however, not only can customers
respond to your mass message, but they can also message you at any
time and receive instant replies from your chatbot. By the end of the
conversation, if the bot is programmed correctly, your chatbot should
give your customers an action that fulfills their queries.
Second, messaging apps have less friction than email. Think about
the obstacles your emails face just to be seen. Not only do they have
to face spam folders, but they also have to compete against hundreds
of unread emails. Competing emails can easily push yours down to
the bottom of customers’ inboxes. With hundreds of emails to read,
your customers likely won’t open yours until several days later. With
messaging apps, however, your messages won’t likely have to compete
for attention as people’s messaging apps usually aren’t bombarded by
hundreds of marketing, work, and personal messages a day.
Third, messaging apps are optimized for mobile whereas most
emails are not. In fact, when I
These are several companies that will create
receive emails containing images
Messenger bots for you.
on my phone, my Gmail app
automatically removes the images
from the email. When I do click
the option to reveal the images,
the images take too long to load,
and they don’t fit into my screen
correctly. The result is one ugly
and unreadable email.
●● ChatFuel
●● Botsify
●● Kik
●● OnSequel
●● It’s Alive
●● Rebotify
●● ChattyPeople
●● MEOKAY
●● Smooch
●● Beep Boop
●● BotKit
●● FlowXO
Figure 23.3 Companies that create
Messenger bots
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Chapter 23. Messenger Bots
These are resources that provide helpful information
and how-tos about chatbots.
●● Facebook for Developers: tools, support, news,
videos, and documents
●● Chatbot Academy: how-to blogs and courses
●● Chatbot Magazine: tutorial and news
●● Chatbot: case studies and news
●● Botswiki: tutorials and articles
Figure 23.4 Chatbot resources
How to Use ManyChat
Although there are numerous chatbot building tools you can
use, for example, Chatfuel, Botsify, and Kik, I use ManyChat for my
company because it’s user-friendly, especially for people like me who
didn’t study coding, who is completely new to bot building. If that’s
you too, then I suggest starting with ManyChat. You can try it for free
and see if you like it enough to purchase the monthly subscription.
With ManyChat, you can create a chatbot that will automate
Facebook Messenger responses to customers’ requests, comments, and
queries. You can use ManyChat to achieve several different business
goals. For my company, I use it to direct traffic to my website. Each
day, I send my subscribers links to the latest AdvertiseMint articles
that provide actionable advice on digital advertising. One of my clients
also uses ManyChat to increase sales by sending discount codes to
subscribers. If neither of those business goals applies to you, you can
use ManyChat to acquire subscribers by creating a Messenger ad that,
once clicked, automatically adds users to your subscribers list once
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they are redirected to the their Messenger apps. Those three examples
are only a few of the many ways you can use ManyChat to grow your
business.
When you log in to your ManyChat account, you will notice the tabs
in the left column of your page. There, you’ll find the tabs dashboard,
audience, live chat, growth tools, and broadcasting.
●● Dashboard: contains information about your account, such as
number of subscribes, unsubscribes, and net subscribers.
●● Audience: contains your list of subscribers. Here, you can search
for subscribers, remove subscribers, find more information
about subscribers, add or remove a tag for subscribers, and move
subscribers in different sequences.
●● Live Chat: contains the non-automated conversations you have
with your customers. If you want to speak directly to your
customers, you can do so here.
●● Growth Tools: contains overlays, pop ups, and widgets you can
create for your website to encourage people to message you on
Facebook Messenger.
●● Broadcasting: Allows you to schedule and send broadcast
messages to your subscribers.
●● Automation: Here, you can create automatic messages that your
bot will automatically send to people who message you.
How to Create Growth Tools
Widgets appear on your website. Once clicked, they will open a URL
destination so visitors can take a desired action.
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Chapter 23. Messenger Bots
Creating a Button Widget
Step 1: Go to “Initial State” and choose the button type, background
color, size, and text. Choose the text that asks for the action you want
people to complete. For example, if you want people to subscribe to
your Messenger list, choose the text “Subscribe in Messenger.”
Step 2: Go to “Submitted State,” enter URL destination, choose “In a
new tab.” The submitted state is what happens after visitors click on
your widget. For my example, I entered the URL for my Messenger so
that once people enter the conversation, they will be automatically
subscribed to my Messenger list.
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Step 3: Go to “Opt-In Actions” and choose the opt-in message.
This is the message customers will receive in Messenger after
completing the action you wanted them to take. In my example, my
chatbot automatically sends a thank-you message.
Step 4: Go to “Setup” and copy the code for your widget. Embed the
code into the page where you want your widget to appear.
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Chapter 23. Messenger Bots
Creating a Box Widget
Step 1: Write your headline and your description. Both should describe
what will happen after customers click on your CTA button. For my
example, I’m telling customers that they will be added to the
subscribers list for daily tips.
Step 2: Go to “Submitted State” and choose either “Show a new
message” or “Redirect to URL.” If you choose the former, a message will
appear on widget. For my example, I chose “Thank you for
subscribing!” If you choose the latter, your customers will be
redirected to your URL destination.
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Step 3: Go to “Opt-In Actions” and choose the opt-in message.
Step 4: Go to “Setup” and copy the code for your widget. Embed the
code into the page where you want your widget to appear.
Creating an Overlay Widget: Bar (Message
Appears on Top of Your Screen)
Step 1: Go to “Initial State” and click “Allow to hide bar” to allow
customevrs to close your widget. Choose the button type, background
color, size, and text. Choose when you want your overlay to display
on screen and when you want the widget to appear to the same user
again, if at all.
Step 2: Go to “Submitted State,” enter URL destination, choose “In a
new tab.”
Step 3: Go to “Opt-In Actions” and choose the opt-in message.
Step 4: Go to “Setup.” Enter the full URLs of the pages where you don’t
want your widget to appear or the URLs of the pages where you only
want your widget to appear. Otherwise, your widget will appear in
every page.
Creating an Overlay Widget: Slide-In, Modal, and
Page Takeover
The slide-in widget slides in from the side while the modal widget
appears in the middle of the screen. The page takeover occupies the
entire screen. All three require the same steps to create.
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Chapter 23. Messenger Bots
Step 1: Write your headline and your description. Both should describe
what will happen after customers click on your CTA button. You can
choose to hide the description by sliding the Show Description bar to
the left. Choose button design, text, slide-in placement. Indicate when
you want the display to appear, when you want it to appear again, and
whether or not the widget will appear again after closing.
Step 2: Go to “Submitted State,” choose “Show new message” or
“redirect to URL”, turn on or off widget description, and choose color.
Step 3: Go to “Opt-In Actions” and choose the opt-in message.
Step 4: Go to “Setup.” Enter the full URLs of the pages where you don’t
want your widget to appear or the URLs of the pages where you only
want your widget to appear. Otherwise, your widget will appear in
every page. Then choose the devices where you want the widget to
appear.
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How to Create a Messenger Bot
Step 1: Create a welcome message.
The welcome message, which you create in the Automation section of
ManyChat, is the automatic response customers will receive once they
message you on Facebook Messenger. This is the first message they will
get from you. For my example, I greet customers with a simple “Hi!
What can I do for you?” followed by options for what to do next. Make
sure your welcome message contains actionable options.
My first action encourages customers to call my agency. Once users
click on the Call Agency button, my bot will open Facetime on their
apps and call the number I provided.
My second action encourages customers to see my agency rates. To
ensure customers will be redirected to the pricings page of my website
once they click the button, I entered the URL for the web page that
contains the rates for my agency’s services.
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Chapter 23. Messenger Bots
My final option takes customers to my services page. Again, I provided
the relevant URL that takes customers to the services page of my
website.
This is what my welcome message looks like on Messenger.
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Step 2: Create Keywords
Bots respond to the keywords in the messages customers send to
you. For example, if I created the keywords “send me daily tips” and
instructed my bot to subscribe customers to my daily tips tag, then
every time someone messages me with the keywords “send me daily
tips,” the bot will subscribe that person to the daily tips. You can create
keywords in the Automation section of ManyChat.
To start, type in the keywords you want your bot to recognize, save
the keywords, then choose an action. The action is the event that will
happen once the bot recognizes the keyword. For my example, the
keywords “start” and “subscribe” will automatically subscribe the
customer to my list. Make sure your keywords match the action you
want to occur. For example, it makes sense to choose the keywords
“stop” or “unsubscribe” when you want your bot to unsubscribe a
customer from your list. It doesn’t make sense, however, to send those
customers a greeting when they type those keywords.
Step 3: Create a default reply
Sometimes, your customers will message you with words that your
bot can’t recognize. For example, I may have created the keywords
“start,” “subscribe,” “stop,” and “unsubscribe,” but if customers send
me a message that says “I need help,” containing none of the keywords
my bot recognizes, my bot won’t know what action to take. For this
situation, you need a default reply.
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Chapter 23. Messenger Bots
The default reply is the response your bot automatically sends
to customers whose messages don’t contain the keywords you
programmed your bot to recognize. If your bot can’t recognize a
keyword, it won’t know how to reply because it relies on keywords
to know which automatic message and action to send. When a bot
doesn’t know what to do, ManyChat will send you a notification that
a customer is waiting for your response on Messenger. The next step
you must take is personally responding to the customer’s message.
To create a default reply, which you can do in the automation
section of ManyChat, first, write your message. In my example, I let
customers know that I can’t help them at the moment. I then provide
the approximate time when I can respond to their messages.
Afterward, I create a button that customers can click to respond.
Once clicked, customers will receive a reply from my bot.
This is what the conversation looks like on Messenger
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Messenger bots may not be your first priority as a new Facebook
advertiser ,but once you get a good grasp of Facebook advertising, I
recommend using Messenger bots for your business.
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Chapter 24. Facebook Resources
CHAPTER 24. FACEBOOK RESOURCES
As a Facebook advertiser, it’s important that you keep yourself well
informed of the latest trends and news in digital advertising. When
Facebook adds new features to Ads Manager, you want to be the first
to know. To keep myself informed, I often read articles and blogs from
several websites, including Jon Loomer’s, another Facebook ads expert;
AdEspresso, and Business 2 Community. Here are the top ten sources I
use to keep myself informed of the changes in the digital advertising
world.
Facebook for Business9
Facebook for Business is a good source if you want to know
the latest Facebook advertising updates. It covers changes made
to Business Manager, additions to social media features such as
Messenger, News Feed, and Facebook Live, and announcement
on events such as the Annual Facebook Awards. Unlike most tech
publications and digital advertising blogs, which derive their Facebook
news from Facebook for Business, Facebook’s business blog includes
video tutorials that accompany their posts, as well as Q&As for those
with burning inquiries and success stories. If you want to know
everything about Facebook’s world, this is the website to visit.
Advertising Age10
Advertising Age, although also specializing in entertainment and world
news, provides news related to digital advertising. It has covered news
related to Super Bowl ads and Facebook’s attempts to copy Snapchat,
9
https://www.facebook.com/business/
10
http://adage.com/
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among numerous others. If you want to read opinion pieces and news
about current digital advertising trends, then Advertising Age is a
great resource to look at.
Mashable11
Much like Advertising Age, Mashable also covers news about the
latest in technology, current events, business, and entertainment.
Unlike Advertising Age and Facebook for Business, however, it doesn’t
cover news about Facebook advertising. Rather, it focuses on social
media stories, such as the rivalry between Facebook and Snapchat, and
social media features that have launched or that are being tested. If
you’re interested in social media updates, Mashable is the way to go.
Jon Loomer12
If you want more help with the nitty-gritty of Ads Manager and
Power Editor, then you should read Jon Loomer’s blog. Comprising
product updates, how-to guides, podcasts, free webinars, strategies,
and best practices, Loomer’s blog is dedicated solely to Facebook
advertising.
AdEspresso13
Have you ever asked yourself whether an ad with an emoji in the
copy performs better than an ad without an emoji? Maybe you’ve
wondered whether an ad image with a man outperforms an ad image
with a woman. If you want access to guides and best practices that
have been tested and proven, then AdEspresso is the resource for
you. AdEspresso, a platform that allows you to easily manage your
11
http://mashable.com/
12
https://www.jonloomer.com/
13
https://adespresso.com/
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Chapter 24. Facebook Resources
Facebook ads, provides information on A/B test results and digital
advertising guides for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat.
Business 2 Community14
A good resource for advertising best practices and tips, this
website contains hundreds of guest posts from marketers, advertisers,
entrepreneurs, and social media experts from around the globe. These
guest writers share some of their tips and tricks, how-tos, guides, and
best practices on their mastered industry. You’d find any topic related
to marketing and advertising here.
Emarketer15
Emarketer, which grants you access to charts, articles, interviews,
case studies, website conferences, and videos, among numerous others,
is the best source for research and data on e-commerce, B2B content,
search marketing, advertising budgets and spending, and social media.
Social Media Examiner16
A source very similar to Business 2 Community, Social Media
Examiner provides step-by-step how-to blogs, product updates,
podcasts, and guides for the business, marketing, and advertising
industries. Business 2 Community has content for Facebook,
Instagram, and Twitter advertisers.
Nanigans17
Nanigans, a company that offers advertising software for in14
http://www.business2community.com/
15
https://www.emarketer.com/
16
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/
17
http://www.nanigans.com/blog/
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house advertisers, is a treasure trove for all sorts of resources: digital
advertising-related blogs, ebooks, case studies, reports, videos, tools,
and infographics. Visit this site if you’re looking for advertising tips
and tricks, insights verified by research, and benchmark reports for
various social media advertising platforms.
Instagram’s Blog18
Although not the best resource for advertising, Instagram’s blog,
which focuses on human interest and celebrity stories, is the place
to check for Instagram-related updates. If you’re interested in the
changes or additions made to its platform and policies, Instagram’s
blog is the best place to go.
Facebook IQ 19
If you need data on several topics to help inform your Facebook ad
campaigns, then visit Facebook IQ, a website that contains numerous
resources, such as articles, infographics, and guides, across different
verticals, platforms, and topics. Reading through Facebook IQ, you will
learn about audience behavior, popular conversation on Facebook and
Instagram, and tips on media planning and buying—and those are just
a fraction of what Facebook IQ has in store.
Tech Crunch 20
Tech Crunch is a news website that focuses on technology and
social media. If you want to know about every new product launch
from major social media networks, if you want to know about every
single update about Facebook and Instagram, then visit this website
18
http://blog.instagram.com/
19
https://www.facebook.com/iq
20 https://techcrunch.com/
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Chapter 24. Facebook Resources
each week—there are new posts that appear every day.
Entrepreneur21
Entrepreneur is also a news website, much like Tech Crunch.
However, while Tech Crunch focuses on social media and technology,
Entrepreneur covers a wider range of topics, including business,
advertising, and marketing. In addition to news articles, Entrepreneur
contains guides and actionable advice from seasoned marketers.
Mari Smith22
Mari Smith is a Facebook marketer who teaches social media
marketing. Among her expertise includes Facebook advertising. Often
appearing in speaking events, Smith keeps a blog on her website
dedicated to digital and social media marketing.
Neil Patel23
Neil Patel is an influencer, author, and marketer, recognized as the
top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30. Patel owns his own blog,
which contains actionable tips on digital advertising, marketing, and
business. Some of the topics he covers includes app marketing, social
media, email marketing, and SEO.
Oberlo28
Oberlo’s blog is filled with a variety of informative and helpful
blog posts. Topics range from email marketing to social media to video
marketing to entrepreneurship to commerce. Oberlo’s blog is perfect
for those who want to quickly gain some knowledge—if you look at
21
https://www.entrepreneur.com/us
22
https://www.marismith.com/
23
https://neilpatel.com/blog/
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the right-hand corner of each posts, you’ll see the estimated amount
of time it’ll take for you to read the post. Times range from 9 to 30
minutes.
AdvertiseMint29
I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but my company does have a
blog that contains news, how-to, and actionable articles related to
social media (particularly Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat), digital
advertising, and digital marketing. I added the AdvertiseMint blog here
because there are so many helpful tips you can learn from the blog,
which our team of writers update daily.
Facebook Blueprint Certification
Facebook advertising, thanks to its self-served platform, makes it
easy for anyone to create ads and advertise. All you need is a Facebook
profile, a business page, and a Business Manager account. You don’t
even need to be rich to purchase Facebook ads. In fact, you can spend
as little as five dollars a day if you want. Anyone can advertise on
Facebook, the novice media buyer and the seasoned advertiser, the rich
and the middle class.
Unfortunately, opening advertising to everyone comes with
drawbacks. Even people who aren’t highly skilled can dabble and
experiment on Facebook. For this reason, Facebook launched Blueprint
Certification on September 2016 to establish credibility in the industry
and to set a standard for media buying on its platform.
Blueprint Certification is a credential that proves you are a skilled
and qualified Facebook advertiser. Think of it as your diploma from
college that proves you are trained and qualified for the field you
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Chapter 24. Facebook Resources
studied. You can earn two certifications, the Facebook Certified
Planning Professional and the Facebook Certified Buying Professional.
To obtain the Facebook Certified Planning Professional certificate, you
must pass the Facebook Advertising Core Competencies test and the
Facebook Certified Planning Professional test. To obtain the Facebook
Certified Buying Professional certificate, you must pass the Facebook
Advertising Core Competencies test and the Facebook Certified Buying
Professional test.
Facebook Advertising Core Competencies ($150, Exp. 18 months)
This exam, a core requirement for all Blueprint Certifications,
measures your knowledge in Facebook tools, advertising policies, and
best practices required to manage Facebook ads. It also teaches you
how to create, purchase, and manage ads, select and use advertising
objectives, target audiences for maximum impact, and understand the
role of Facebook media planners and buyers. Before you can take the
other two exams, you must first pass this exam.
Facebook Certified Buying Professional ($150, Exp. 18 months)
This exam measures advanced-level skills in managing,
creating and purchasing ads, improving performance and delivery,
troubleshooting ad issues, mapping ad formats to advertising
objectives, targeting audience, analyzing reports, mapping KPIs to
buying objectives, understanding and testing the Facebook Pixel and
SDK, and leveraging consumer insights and the product catalog.
Facebook Certified Planning Professional ($150, Exp. 18 months)
This exam measures advanced-level kills in managing pages,
selecting and using advertising objectives, targeting audiences for
maximum impact, using audience insights, optimizing reach and
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frequency, implementing planning strategies and best practices,
understanding and learning from measurement solutions, and
expertly tying Facebook products into a successful marketing and
communication strategy.
I took the Blueprint Certification test as soon as it launched
in 2016, and it has certainly helped me with my business. Because
the certification differentiates between qualified and unqualified
advertisers, my certification has given me credibility among potential
clients. Additionally, it has set me apart from my competitors.
I recommend you take your certification test if you want more
credibility, if you want a career in Facebook advertising, and especially
if you manage tens of thousands of dollars. If you manage large
budgets for your clients, it’s important that you are qualified to
do so—certification will take you to that qualified level. Although I
recommend you take it, if you’re new to Facebook advertising and you
only spend a few hundred dollars on Facebook ads a month, then you
don’t need to sweat. Certification isn’t necessary for you.
What to Expect During the Test
The Blueprint test is a proctored exam that takes around an
hour and thirty minutes. To take it, you must go to a pre-assigned
testing center or to a private room where you can take the test on
your computer. If you choose to take it on your computer, you must
download a program that shuts down all the other programs on your
computer. This stops you from cheating. You will also be monitored
by a proctor through your web cam. Before you begin your test, the
proctor will ask to examine the room to make sure you don’t have
anyone or anything (such as cellphones and notebooks) with you in
the room. If caught cheating, or if someone walks into the room, the
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proctor will end the test, and you will have to retake your exam—no
refunds allowed.
The test is multiple choice, but don’t let that fool you. The test is
difficult. It describes scenarios to which you need to provide the best
solution. To test your expertise, Facebook presents choices that all
seem to be the right answer—that’s the tricky part. Once you’re done
with the test, you can return to your answers and review them or click
finish. Right after submitting your exam, you will receive your score
that indicate whether you passed or failed. If you passed, you will
receive an email confirmation from Pearson VUE. Soon after, you will
receive your certification and badge from Facebook. Your certification
is valid for 18 months.
Like I said, the test isn’t easy. In fact, Facebook recommends
that you have at least one year of experience before taking the test,
and I agree. Advertise on Facebook for a year, familiarize with the
tools and the platforms, and learn how to strategize. Also, study.
Read all of Facebook’s recommended study materials, including
Facebook Blueprint. Carefully read the information and take the
time to understand it. Take the practice quiz until you get all answers
correctly. Review the questions you got incorrectly and find out why
you got them wrong.
Because you can’t leave the room during the test, make sure you
drink water and use the restroom beforehand. Also, wear comfortable
clothing. Because you’ll be in the room for a long time, wear
comfortable clothing.
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Afterword
AFTERWORD
Congratulations, you made it. I commend your determination and
patience by sticking through my how-tos and explanations until the
end. If you feel like you don’t need me anymore, that you can manage
Facebook ads on your own, great. I’m happy that this book helped
you. Although you may feel like you know enough to be a Facebook
advertising expert, I urge you to never stop asking questions, to never
stop learning. Facebook advertising changes frequently. Nearly each
month, Facebook announces a new feature or an update. The Business
Manager you know now may change in a few months. For that reason,
you must be eager to learn.
If after reading this book, you still have burning questions that
need answering, or if after dabbling with Facebook ads, you find
yourself stumped, don’t hesitate to use the resources I provided in this
book or to connect with me. There are a few ways we can get in touch:
1. Connect through Social Media
You can reach me through email, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,
and LinkedIn.
Email: brian.meert@advertisemint.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/advertisemint
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/advertisemint
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/advertisemint
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianmeert
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
2. Join Our Facebook Group
You can join our Facebook group, a group of Facebook advertisers
who will answer any of your inquiries. The group provides exclusive
walkthroughs, live training, interviews, tips from the pros, and more.
Visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/advertisemint/ to join.
3. Let’s Talk on Clarity
If you want one-on-one time with me to help you solve your
problems, you can find me on Clarity, a consulting website (www.
clarity.fm/brianmeert)
Before we part ways, I want to leave you with three pieces of advice.
First, keep your A/B tests simple. Test two things at a time. Don’t
overwhelm yourself. Second, check your account every day. Facebook
ads are like newborns. They require a lot of time and attention to
survive. If you don’t constantly watch your accounts, you won’t be
able to prevent the ROIs from plummeting. Third, don’t be afraid to
make mistakes. When I started advertising on Facebook, a time when
such a thing was still new, there were no instructional books to help
me navigate through the platform. Completely alone in my endeavors,
I had to master Facebook ads through trial and error. Don’t penalize
yourself too much when you make mistakes. Rather, learn from them
and fix them the best way you can.
I hope this book has demystified the complexities of Facebook
advertising, and I hope you pursue your endeavors as a Facebook
advertiser. It is truly a revolutionary platform, and I wish you the best
of luck on your campaigns. Now go forth and create Facebook ads.
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Promotions
PROMOTIONS
Career Opportunities
You may think, Facebook advertising seems cool and all, but can I
make a real career out of it? Well, I certainly did. I even went as far as
to create my own advertising agency. Facebook advertising presents
many career options, and not all of them related to advertising and
marketing. Here’s a short list of career options you can pursue.
1. Facebook Ads Account Manager
This is the obvious career choice. If you love creating ads, managing
accounts, talking to clients, and analyzing reports, then you’ll be happy
and invigorated in the account manager position.
2. Sales Manager
Although you don’t get to create ads and scale campaigns like
account managers, you do get to talk about Facebook advertising all
day long to prospective customers. If you like connecting with people
and flexing your persuasion skills, then you could pursue a career in
sales. An advertising agency can’t exist without clients, and clients
can’t connect with agencies without a sales team.
3. Graphic Designer
Ads, as you know by now, need to be refreshed every two weeks.
But that can’t happen unless you have a dedicated graphic designer.
If you love taking photos and editing them, then you can be a graphic
designer. Graphic designers take photos, beautify them, or create
something new for Facebook ads.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
4. Video Editor
Many of my clients have content that need to be reformatted for
mobile—that’s when a video editor comes in. Video editors often work
with what they already have. They will receive videos that they can
reformat for the right specs, videos that they can edit with music and
text.
5. Photographer
Do you consider yourself a creative person? You can be one at a
Facebook advertising agency. While some clients come to my agency
with folders of media my team can use, some don’t have any assets at
all. This is where the photographer comes in. The photographer creates
fresh content for clients every two weeks or per request.
6. Videographer
Videographers have a place in Facebook advertising, too. Because
clients will need new videos several times a month, it’s important to
have a videographer in the team to produce fresh, original content.
7. Messenger Bot Developer
If clients want to create Messenger ads, they would need a chatbot
to help them automate their responses to the customers who click on
those ads. For this reason, a bot developer is often needed, one with
technical and coding skills.
8. Customer Service Representative
Because Facebook ads all have a comments section, customers
can easily respond to ads with complaints that the public can see.
(By public, I mean millions of people.) It’s important that a dedicated
customer service representative monitors the comments section and
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
addresses all complaints. This keeps the company appear professional
and trustworthy.
9. Copywriter
All ads must have copies, and who better suited for the job than a
talented copywriter? Copywriters have assignments nearly every day,
creating copies for different brands. If you like variety in writing, then
copywriting is the perfect fit for you.
10. Blogger
Advertising agencies often have a blog that contains posts related
to their industries. My website advertisemint.com has a blog updated
every day with news, how-to articles, guides, and advice related to
social media, digital marketing, and digital advertising. The blog gives
my company credibility and my website higher ranking for SEO.
11. CEO
Before I built my company, I worked as a freelance Facebook
advertiser on my own, helping clients scale their campaigns with my
laptop. A few years later, I hired account managers to help me manage
my accounts. Bloggers, copywriters, salespersons, photographers,
graphic designers, and video editors followed shortly after. You can be
the CEO of your company too. You just need the skills, the drive, and
an amazing team.
If you’re looking for a career in Facebook advertising, and you want
to be part of an amazing team, check out my company’s career page at
https://www.advertisemint.com/careers/.
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Promotions
AdvertiseMint Partner Program
I appreciate anyone who brings me more business. That’s why
I created the AdvertiseMint Partner Program. Connect me to a
prospective client, and you get a slice of the revenue once that prospect
signs a contract with my company. Here’s how it works.
●● You must submit your referral through the sign-up form.
●● Your referral must be a new lead, not currently in our database.
●● The client you refer must have a total ad spend on Facebook,
Instagram, Snapchat, and Google combined of over $10,000 a
month to quality for a referral payment. If a client monthly spend
falls below $10,000 in a month, no referral payment will be issued.
●● Payments will continue for a 12-month term as long as the client
remains active until the end of each month. If a client cancels
the agency agreement with AdvertiseMint prior to the end of a
month, the referral payment will also be canceled.
●● For full-time employees, all payments will be processed as a
bonus.
●● For part-time employees, payments will be processed a standalone
check, and a W-9 must be signed prior to the first payment.
●● Payments will be submitted by the 10th of each month, for the
previous month’s ad spend.
●● Payments will only be submitted if the client has paid the invoice
by the 10th of the month.
●● You must remain employed with the company for referrals
to continue. If you leave or if you are terminated from
AdvertiseMint, any referral payments will cease.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
●● There is no limit on the amount you can earn. If you want to sign
up Disney who is spending $5,000,000 per month in Facebook
ads, then you would be making $25,000 a month for 12 months.
Sample Referral Payments
Client
Monthly Ad Spend
AdvertiseMint
Agency Rate
AdvertiseMint
Monthly Revenue
Your Monthly
Payout
(up to 12 months)
$10,000 - $49,999
15%
$1,500 - $7,500
$150 - $750
$50,000 - $249,999
10%
$5,000 - $25,000
$500 - $2,500
$250,000+
5%
$12,500+
$1,250+
Messenger Bot
Learning is a never-ending process. Even after you read this
book, you still need to read everything you can about strategies and
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Promotions
news related to Facebook advertising because things often change.
Strategies change, Facebook advertising products change, and
customer behaviors change. If you want to be on top of the latest
changes, subscribe to my company’s Messenger Bot. Each day at 2 p.m.
PST, the bot will send you tips and advice related to Facebook ads.
Here’s how you subscribe to the bot
Step 1: Go to https://m.me/advertisemint
Step 2: Type “Start” and send.
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Unlock Facebook’s hidden Ad Targeting
UNLOCK FACEBOOK’S HIDDEN AD
TARGETING
Did you know that Facebook provides to certain advertisers
hidden ad targeting options? These fields are not included in the
targeting section of Ads Manager. Instead, they must be unlocked by a
representative at Facebook or through a Facebook advertising agency
like AdvertiseMint. An advanced resource for companies growing their
Facebook ad campaigns, The Complete Guide to Hidden Facebook Ad
Targeting includes more than 2,000 additional ad targeting options
To download the printable version of this guide, visit the
AdvertiseMint website at https://www.advertisemint.com/completeguide-hidden-facebook-ad-targeting/.
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Glossary
GLOSSARY
A
A/B Testing
Also called split testing, this is a method in which advertisers test
which ad elements, such as headlines, copy, images, calls to action,
and targeting, work best on your target audience. A/B testing can help
you compare the performance of multiple variables in a campaign and
determine which one is best for your objectives.
Account ID
A unique ID for an ad account represented by a series of unique
numbers. It may be needed if you are sharing access with your account
or determining the difference between two accounts with the same
name. You can find your ad account number in the drop-down menu
located on the top left corner of Ads Manager.
Account Settings
An area of Facebook where you can view and edit account preferences.
For example, you can edit your name and email address, notification
preferences, and security features.
Actions
The data type that shows all actions taken by users within twenty-four
hours after viewing an ad or sponsored story in a campaign. You will
only see this data if you are promoting a page, event, or app. Actions
include page and post likes, event RSVPs, and app installs.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Active Conversations
The number of Messenger conversations between your Facebook page
and your customers.
Ad Account
The grouping of all your specific ad activity. Your ad account includes
different campaigns, ad sets, ads, and billing information. You can
manage multiple ad accounts through Business Manager.
Ad Auction
The method advertisers use to purchase ads. In the auction process, all
Facebook ads compete against one another, and the ad with the best
bid and value score wins.
Ad ID
This unique numerical ID differentiates between every ad created. This
number is normally provided to Facebook’s support team when asking
for support for a problem.
Ad Reports
Ad reports contain all of the important metrics pertaining to your ad.
Reports, which can be scheduled and saved for future use, can include
date ranges, graphs, customized columns, and tables. Ad reports can be
created or exported to ad accounts in Ads Manager.
Ad Set
All targeting for Facebook ads is done on the ad set level. An ad set can
include multiple ads, bidding preferences, a budget, and a schedule.
You can create an ad set for each of your audience segments by making
the ads within the ad set target the same audience. This will help you
control the amount you spend on each audience, decide when each
audience will see your ads, and see metrics specific to each audience.
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Glossary
Ad Targeting
Ad targeting contains all of the target options you choose to define
for your target audience (e.g., location, gender, age, likes, interests,
relationship status, workplace, and education). All Facebook ads
require you to create a target audience using its over 850 targeting
options.
Ads API
The Ads API allows you to create and manage ads on Facebook
programmatically. The API also allows Facebook Preferred Marketing
Partners to build solutions for marketing automation with Facebook’s
advertising platform.
Ads Manager
The part of Business Manager where you can create ads and view, edit,
and access performance reports for all of your campaigns, ad sets, and
ads. You can also view all of your Facebook ad campaigns and payment
history, change your bids and budgets, export ad performance reports,
and pause or restart your ads at any time.
App Install Ads
Facebook ads that urge users to install an ad. Once clicked, the ad will
direct users to the App Store or to Google Play to install the app.
App Installs
The number of times users have installed your app because of your ad.
Audience
The group of people who can potentially see your ads.
Audience insights
A Facebook tool designed to help marketers learn more about
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
their target audience, including information about geography,
demographics, lifestyle, and purchase behavior. With audience
insights, advertisers can run reports on any Facebook user, including
people connected to their fan page or people in a Custom Audience.
Audience Network
The Audience Network is a placement type that allows advertisers to
place their ads in the apps and websites of Facebook’s partners.
Autobid
Also known as Optimized CPM, autobid is a setting that automatically
optimizes bids to reach an advertising goal by adjusting spend to reach
users who are most likely to complete a goal, whether that goal is
impressions, clicks, app installs, or conversions.
Average Cost Per Click (Average CPC)
The average cost per click for an ad.
Average Cost per Impression (Average CPM)
The cost incurred for every 1,000 impressions of an ad or for every
1,000 times an ad was displayed in front of a user.
B
Bid
The amount advertisers pay to have an ad displayed on Facebook’s
platform.
Boosted Post
A boosted post is a regular post that you pay Facebook to advertise.
Boosted posts, like Facebook ads, will appear on the News Feeds of a
target audience.
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Glossary
Broad Categories
The predefined targeting categories Facebook provides that groups
users according to their likes and interests, the apps they use, and the
pages they like, among other criteria.
Budget
The maximum amount you are willing to spend on each campaign.
Business Manager
A website that helps businesses and agencies manage their Facebook
pages, ad accounts, and apps in one place. Business Manager also
allows advertisers to centrally manage different permission levels of
team members working on ad accounts or pages.
C
Call-to-Action Button (CTA Button)
The button that appears on a Facebook ad that takes users directly to
a landing page. The button includes calls to action such as “shop now,”
“book now,” “learn more,” “sign up,” “download,” “shop more,” “contact
us,” “apply now,” and “donate now.”
Campaign ID
A unique numerical ID associated with a campaign.
Campaign Level
The campaign level contains one or more ad sets and ads. When
creating an ad at the campaign level, advertisers can choose an
objective.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Carousel Ad
Ads that include up to ten images or videos within a single ad unit
that direct users to specific locations on a website. Each Carousel Ad
contains up to ten carousel cards that users can swipe through and
click.
Click-through Rate (CTR)
The number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times
your ad is shown on the site (impressions) in the same time period.
CTR All means the click-through rate for the total number of clicks you
received—off-site clicks, likes, event responses—divided by the number
of impressions.
Connections
Connections targeting is a targeting option in which advertisers can
target or exclude the people who liked their page or location, installed
their app, joined their event, used their app in the past thirty days, or
checked in to their advertised location within twenty-four hours of
viewing or clicking an ad or sponsored story.
Conversions
Conversions are the number of times people completed a desired
action, such as purchases on a website or sign-ups for a newsletter.
Core Audiences
Core audiences is a targeting option that allows advertisers to reach
precise audiences based on four main targeting types: location,
demographic, interests, and behaviors. Facebook pulls data from
the information users share on their profiles and the behaviors they
exhibit online and offline.
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Glossary
Cost Per Click (CPC)
The amount advertisers pay each time a user clicks on their ads. The
CPC for any ad is determined by the advertiser, and some advertisers
may be willing to pay more per click than others. If advertisers bid on a
CPC basis, they will be charged when users click on their ads and visit
their websites. Total charges are based on the amount spent on the ad
divided by all the clicks the ad received.
The average cost per ten-second video view, calculated as the amount
spent divided by the number of ten-second video views.
Custom Audience
A Custom Audience is an ad targeting option that allows advertisers
to target an audience from an uploaded customer list. The list can
comprise people from a customer file or people tracked by the
Facebook Pixel who have visited or took actions on a website, app, or
Facebook page.
Custom Conversions
Custom conversions allow advertisers to track and optimize for
conversions without adding anything to the Facebook Pixel code
placed in a site. Custom conversions can be used with Standard Events
or URL-based variables. Custom conversions replaced the Facebook
conversion pixel, which was discontinued in 2016.
D
Delivery
The delivery status indicates whether a campaign, ad set, or ad is
currently running.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Dynamic Product Ads
Help businesses sell products online by showing relevant products
from their catalog to the people who want to buy them. Dynamic
Product Ads give marketers a powerful set of tools to promote
the right product to the right person at the right time, and with a
personalized message.
F
Facebook Pixel
A piece of JavaScript code that tracks the actions and locations of users
in a website.
Frequency
The average number of times an ad was shown to each user.
I
Impressions
The number of times an ad is displayed on a user’s screen.
Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories is a feature that allows users to share ephemeral,
twenty-four-hour videos and photos that vanish forever a day after
the post was posted.
Instant Articles
Instant Articles is a Facebook feature that allows publishers’ articles to
quickly and easily load and open within its app. Instant Articles is also
a placement option for Facebook ads.
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Glossary
Instant Experience Ad Ad
Instant Experience Ad is an immersive Facebook ad that, once clicked,
opens full screen in users’ phones.Instant Experience Ads can comprise
videos, images, carousels, and call-to-action buttons, which users can
swipe through, tilt for a panoramic view, or zoom in and out of.
Interest Targeting
Interest targeting is a targeting option that allows advertisers to target
an audience with particular interests such as activities, music, movies,
and TV shows.
L
Landing Page
A landing page is a single web page that users arrive to after clicking
an ad.
Lead Ad
A Lead Ad, a Facebook ad type, is a digital form that collects users’
information. Lead Ads are typically used to collect contact information
to grow leads. The most common information collected are first and
last name, phone number, and email address.
Leads (Conversion)
A lead is a potential customer who responded to a Lead Ad and gave
the advertiser his or her contact information. When analyzing data, it
can also refer to the number of new leads acquired as a result of an ad.
Lookalike Audiences
An audience that closely resembles a target audience. Advertisers
create Lookalike Audiences by uploading a Custom Audience to
Facebook.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
M
Messenger
A Facebook standalone app that lets users send instant messages to
friends.
Messenger Bots
AI technology that functions as an automated response tool for
businesses with Facebook pages.
N
Native Advertising
On Facebook, native advertising is a type of disguised online
advertising in which marketers create ads that match the look, tone,
and function of regular, unpaid posts.
Net Likes
The difference between the number of people who have liked a page
and the number of people who have unliked a page over a specific time
period.
News Feed
News Feed, a scrollable trail of posts, is the main part of Facebook
where the posts of friends, family, followed pages, and ads appear.
New Users
In website analytics, a metric that measures the number of times a
website visitor visits your website or web page. If a visitor enters your
website twice in one reporting session, the new users metric will count
the activity as committed two new users, even if the activity was only
committed by one.
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Glossary
O
Objective
The goal for a Facebook ad. Objectives include traffic, engagement, lead
generation, and video views, among numerous others.
Offer
A discount or digitized coupon code users can claim from a Facebook
ad.
P
Pixel Helper
A Chrom extension that helps advertisers check whether their
Facebook Pixel is working properly on any website.
Placement
The location where ads will appear. Placements include desktop News
Feed, mobile News Feed, and Audience Network, among many others.
R
Reach
The total number of users who saw an advertiser’s ad.
U
Unique Clicks (All)
The total number of unique users who clicked on an ad. For example, if
ten people click on the same ad five times, the ad will have ten unique
clicks.
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The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Unique CTR (All)
A value calculated by dividing the number of people who clicked
anywhere in an ad by the number of people reached. For example, if an
ad that was shown to 1,000 users received ten unique clicks, the unique
CTR would be 1 percent.
Unique Users
In website analytics, a metric that measures the unique number of
web visits within a reporting period. If a user visits your website three
times in one day, the metric will only measure the activity as only
occurring once.
V
Verification Hold
A temporary charge on an advertiser’s account used to validate a credit
card. The $1.01 charge will be removed from the credit card within
three to five business days.
Verified Page
A Facebook page that has been verified by Facebook as authentic.
Verified pages contain a check mark alongside their names.
Video Ads
Video ads are ad formats that, when clicked, play a video.
Video Views
The number of times users viewed a video for three seconds or more.
Video Views to 25 Percent
The number of times users viewed a video to 25 percent of its length,
including views that skipped to that point.
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Glossary
Video Views to 50 Percent
The number of times users viewed a video to 50 percent of its length,
including views that skipped to that point.
Video Views to 75 Percent
The number of times users viewed a video to 75 percent of its length,
including views that skipped to that point.
Video Views to 95 Percent
The number of times users viewed a video to 95 percent of its length,
including views that skipped to that point.
Viral Reach
Viral reach is the number of unique users who saw a page post from a
story published by one of their Facebook friends.
W
Website Action Value (All)
The total value of the actions tracked by a Facebook Pixel on a website
after users clicked an ad.
Website Actions (All)
The total number of actions tracked by a Facebook Pixel on a website
after users clicked ad.
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Submit Your Photo And Get Featured
SUBMIT YOUR PHOTO AND GET FEATURED
If you submit a photo of yourself with this book, you will be featured
in this page. Here’s how you do it: post your photo on instagram with
the hashtag #facebookadsbook and tag @advertisemint. That’s it.
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About the Author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Meert is the CEO of AdvertiseMint, the leading agency
specializing in Facebook advertising. With more than 15 years in digital
marketing experience, Brian founded AdvertiseMint after the launch
of the Facebook Ads Manager and after seeing its potential as an
advertising channel.
Brian began his digital advertising career in college, using his
cafeteria money to run paid search ads for a start-up business. He
completed his MBA in marketing and quickly moved to Hollywood to
pursue entertainment marketing. He founded and sold Gofobo.com,
a ticketing system for movie screenings now used by Disney, Warner
Bros, and Paramount Pictures.
When Brian isn’t monitoring Facebook ads, talking with clients,
or holding team meetings, he enjoys crossfit, wakeboarding, hiking,
and spending time at the beach. You will often find him teaching
workshops on Facebook advertising, where he met his wife, Maricia,
who also works in social media. An avid traveller, Brian has lived in
Fiji, Australia and Greece.
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