Facebook is one of the most popular platforms, and you want to get in on their advertising. We are here to help you find the best Facebook Ads for your needs.
Facebook Ad Objectives
When you first go to set up your Facebook ads, a list of Facebook Ad Objectives pops up. This step tells Facebook what type of ad you are trying to run.
Choosing the your objective ensures that you only pay for the action that you want taken. For example, if your only goal is to boost your posts, you will only pay for likes, comments, and shares. Choosing your objectives also will help you to set up the rest of your ads, and who Facebook serves your ad to.
On-Platform vs. Off-Platform Ads? (00:20)
On-Platform Ads are used if you want someone to take action without leaving the website of Facebook . This can be used if your goals are to leave an impression, gain page likes, increase engagement (post likes, comments, shares) or increase video views.
Off Platform Ads, on the other hand, are used if you want someone to take action outside of Facebook. This is most beneficial to use if your digital goal is to bring quality site traffic to your website, increase downloads, increase email signups, or increase engagement of your content.
On-Platform Ad Types
Boosted Posts (02:29)
This is the most popular ad type in which your goal is to get more likes, shares, and comments on your Facebook posts.
Page Likes (02:55)
This is when you pay for your Facebook fans. Although it is a very popular ad, we do not recommend it because it ends up drawing a lot of spammers and bots that are not a good foundation to build your Facebook platform on.
Video Ads (03:06)
This is a great way to get more views on your video if you have a video content. Facebook does not link up with YouTube, so in order to use this type of ad, you must upload the video directly to Facebook. You pay for a view, which is counted as three seconds in Facebook. Three seconds may not seem like a lot of time, but it does end up being effective because it is cheap and people do tend to watch a video for more than three seconds.
Lead Generation Ads (03:29)
These ads are used when you want to collect email addresses or get people to sign up for an interest form. All you have to do is upload a custom form and the questions you want to ask, and your participants can fill it out without ever having to leave the site. Facebook already knows a lot of the information about the people filling it out, so the process is made very user friendly with the pre-populated answers.
Off-Platform Ads
Clicks to Site Ad (04:21)
This ad is a very simple ad that brings the users off of Facebook, and onto your website. Simply upload a picture or a video with some text of what you want people to attract people onto your website, and you are good to go!
Conversion Ads (04:40)
This is essentially a more complicated version of the Clicks-to-Site Ad. If you have a specific action that you want people to take, Facebook will track the activity of the user, and you will only have to pay when someone completes the intended action. For example, the Cancer Research Institute had the goal of trying to get people to sign up for their Patient Portal. They sent the users to a “sign up” page and tracked the “thank you” page, and thus, only had to pay when people reached the “thank you” page. This is a very efficient ad because you are only paying for what is most meaningful to you, rather than useless clicks.
Note: You have to use the Facebook Pixel for this ad, which you can learn about in this article.
That’s it! Those are the most important Facebook ads to understand. Do not overwhelm yourself, just start with your digital goals and what kind of impact you are trying to make, and then choose what ads best fit that need. Want to dive deeper? Watch our recorded hour-long webinar Going Beyond Boosted Posts: How to Build, Manage, and Track a Facebook Ad Campaign.