Every ecommerce marketer should have their eye on Facebook ads. I’ve heard many negative stories of marketers throwing their money at failed Facebook ad campaigns, but those are likely chalked up to a few small mistakes that were entirely tweakable.
Whether you are already using Facebook ads or just getting started with them, there are a few essential things that you need to know for success. The following will help you develop an effective strategy to master your Facebook ad campaigns and drive conversions.
Audience Data, Data, Data
Facebook’s advertising platform is highly appealing to digital marketers because it offers advanced targeting options. Extending far beyond simple demographic data, Facebook ads can be hyper-targeted to audiences for more relevant ad experiences. But that will only go as far as what you know about your customer.
The advanced targeting capabilities won’t do you much good if you don’t know who you are targeting in the first place. Don’t make the mistake of targeting a large audience, believing that it will increase your chances of attracting more customers.
Get to know everything about your customers, including what they are looking for online, and target them by groups. Zeroing in on specific customers is what drives conversions on Facebook.
Build Custom Audiences
Custom Audiences is a Facebook feature that allows you to build audience segments using your existing customers. These are people who have already expressed interest in your business, which means that they are a warm lead. Upload your email contact list or your website inquiries, and you can create a specific audience for them knowing they are already familiar with your brand and/or products.
Create Lookalike Audiences
Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences feature helps you locate audiences who share similar traits to your existing customers. This is a powerful feature that allows you to easily expand your reach to a greater number of highly qualified leads.
Facebook has also introduced value-based Lookalike audiences, which lets advertisers reach consumers who are similar to their existing high-value customers. If you know the lifetime customer value (LVT) of your customers, then you must use this feature!
What would be some great ad content for these audiences? Perhaps offer them a free trial or GWP (gift with purchase) to generate interest in your brand. Just be sure to follow Facebook’s customer data preparation best practices so that you can increase your match rate.
Conversion Rate Tracking Is A Must Have
Next to targeting the right audiences, setting up conversion tracking is essential if you want to maximize conversions and help your CPA metrics. An easy way to start this is by installing Facebook’s pixel, you can see, in real-time, your conversions, remarket to consumers, and optimize your campaigns. Facebook’s pixel is simply a piece of code that is placed on your website and connects to your Facebook ads. This lets you know which actions your visitors are taking and allows you to continue to build new custom audiences based on the characteristics of people visiting your site.
