How to Use, Optimize and Budget Your Facebook Ads: Facebook Marketing Guide for Online Store (Part 2)

Facebook Paid Marketing is a tool that, if used properly, could bless the fortunes of an online store. But that is something that is easier said than done. There are many aspects involved in choosing the right strategy and budgeting for your business and in this article we’ve tried to break them down for you to apply.

In the 1st part of our Facebook Marketing Guide for Indian Online Stores, we talked about the different types of ads a user can create and the different options he has to choose his target audience.

We now bring to you the rest of the details that’ll help you through the process, along with a few words of advice you should keep in mind while creating Facebook ads.

In the 2nd part of our guide, we go through the following topics:

• How to understand and use the Facebook ad interface.
• How to analyze data and track your ads’ performance.
• How much you should spend on Facebook.

Where Do I Run My Ads From?

Creating your First Ad:

As discussed in Part 1 of the article, a user can choose from a variety of ad types. You can go through them and what they do here.

So what do you want to achieve with your ad campaign? Increase purchases on your e commerce website or advertise your brand? Whatever your needs, choose an ad type accordingly, say a domain ad or a sponsored post. For domain ads, head over to https://www.facebook.com/advertising, click on the ‘Create an Ad’ button and you can get started with your first ad!

The heading of the ad can be no more than 25 characters long, while the body has to be limited to 90 characters. Keep the content short and informative yet catchy to generate a good response!

To create a sponsored post, simply choose the ‘Boost Post’ option under the desired post on your Facebook page.

Choose an Image:

What is the first thing that catches your eye in an advertisement? The image(s)! Even before you read the ad, half the message is conveyed by the image itself.

 Remember, don’t try to squeeze in more text by adding an image with too much text on it. Facebook will not approve the ad if text occupies more than 20% of the area on the image.

To check if your image crosses the text limit, you can use Facebook’s own grid tool for advertisers. Just visit https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay and upload your image to verify whether it is fit for approval or not.

 Choose Who Sees the Ad & How Much You Spend:

All you now need to do is enter the relevant target information and move on to budgeting and pricing of the ad. You will see that you have the option to set a daily budget, or you can specify a ‘Lifetime Budget’ for the entire campaign. After this, just set a ‘start’ and ‘end’ date for the campaign and place your order.

 You’ll be able to check detailed statistics about how well your ad is performing in the ‘Ads Manager’ section. Here you have access to details like In-depth performance and demographic information, response graphs etc. You can also keep a tab on the total amount spent on each campaign and pause and start ads.

How Do I Know If My Ads Are Performing Well or Not?

So you’re done with creating your ads and publishing them. But your work doesn't end there! How do you know how well your ads are doing? A lot of work goes into tracking your ads’ performance and optimizing it accordingly. There are many stats you need to keep an eye on after your ads start running. Some of them are:

• Impressions: An impression is nothing but how many times your ad has been shown to a Facebook user.
• Clicks: This is the actual number of clicks on the ad. A click is also counted if someone ‘Liked' your fan page right from the ad itself.
• Cost per Click (CPC): CPC tells you how much each click on your ad cost you. A good CPC is something under Rs. 2, while anything over Rs. 5 for one click would mean you are paying too much. CPCs usually lie in the range of Rs. 2-5, but if you do well, you can easily pull it under that range.
• Click through Rate (CTR): This is a measure of the number of clicks per impression. It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the total impressions. This is a very important metric to track, as the CPC of an ad is dependent on its CTR.

Remember: Facebook rewards ads with a better CTR by lowering their CPC. Similarly, ads with poor CTR cost higher for advertisers.

Cost per Acquisition (CPA): It is the amount spent on ads for every successful conversion. It is calculated by dividing the total amount spent by the number of conversions through advertisements. The lower the CPA is, the better you are doing on Facebook!

How Much Should I Be Spending on Facebook Ads

How much does it cost to run an ad campaign?

How much it costs you to run a Facebook ad depends on a lot of factors. The major ones would be how many people you want your ad to reach and how many visitors you require. You need to submit an ideal bid, which is neither too low to be stifled by competition and nor too high to cost you too much.

Remember, sometimes it takes a bit of time for ads to start performing, so you need to be patient. But that said, you should also not hesitate to kill ads that are under performing and costing your company valuable money. Constant monitoring is required to keep the Facebook ad-spend at an optimum level.

How much do I actually spend?

How much you actually want to spend on Facebook depends on the size of your business and the number of products that you want to sell. You should always set a realistic sales target and spend accordingly. If you aim to sell products worth, say, Rs. 10,000 through ads on Facebook, then you shouldn't be spending more than around Rs. 3,000-5,000 on the ads themselves. Also, you should always keep your total ad spend under 10% of the total sales that your store generates.

In the end, the success of your ad depends on a number of factors, including a little bit of luck. You must have a clear idea about what type of ad to use for which purpose, which type of audience to target and how to monitor and optimize your ads’ performance. A lot of the learning actually comes through experience. Every aspect involved is important and needs to be taken care of.

If you can use the power of Facebook advertising to your benefit, it is safe to say that you will see a noticeable spike in activity on your website. More people will be talking about it online and word about your business will spread fast. So use your options wisely and watch your business boom!