Your Complete Guide to Running Facebook Ads

Facebook advertising is a great way to connect with nearly 3 billion people. If you don’t understand how to run Facebook ads properly, you might end up targeting the wrong people, mismatching your objectives, and spending a lot of money.

Building successful Facebook ads campaigns is important for promoting your company or your client’s brand. This involves reaching your ideal audience and delivering the right message.

Where do you begin? This guide will help you learn everything about setting up a Facebook account, launching a campaign, and monitoring metrics to optimize your results.

How to run Facebook ads: Account setup

You will need to create an account before you can launch a Facebook campaign.

Here are some suggestions:

Create a Facebook Ad Account

Open Facebook Business Manager to create a new Facebook advertising account. To open Business Settings, click the gear icon at the lower left corner.

Select Ad Accounts from the Accounts dropdown menu. Click the blue button to add a new account. Enter all information regarding your business and the payment method.

create a facebook ad account

Make sure that the correct people have access to your ad account after you create it. Access is required for anyone who creates or monitors ad campaigns.

Find your ad account under Business Settings, and click the gray Add People link.

You can select the employees who require access to your company’s advertising account and grant them the appropriate permissions. You have the option to give people partial or complete control of your ad account. To complete the process, click the blue Assign button


facebook ad account permissions

Connect data sources

Your ad campaigns might be focused on Facebook conversions in some cases. Campaigns can be focused on brand awareness, post engagement or Page likes.

In most cases, however, your ad campaigns should not be limited to Facebook. You might want to increase website traffic, drive ecommerce sales, and improve lead generation.

As long as you have the correct data source, you can track any off-Facebook conversion. To link a new source of data, navigate to Facebook Events Manager.


facebook ad data sources

Follow these steps to set up the data source. Many options will require installation on your website or integration to your CRM.

Most businesses don’t have to connect all data sources. If your app is available, you will need to connect a Facebook Pixel for tracking website conversions.

Catalogs of dd

Is your business selling products online? You might consider adding a catalog to your ad account if you do.

Select Catalogs from the Data Sources dropdown menu in Business Settings. Select Create a new catalog by clicking the blue button. Next, choose the type you wish to create. Give access to your team members and link it with the Pixel you have created.


create a new catalog for facebook ads

Navigate to Facebook Commerce Manager and add or manage catalog items. These items can be manually entered, uploaded to your data feed, relied on your Pixel or connected with a partner platform such as Shopify.


facebook commerce manager

Configure conversion events

After you have added data sources such as a Pixel or a catalogue, you need to do one more thing before you can track the conversions. Select the Aggregated event measurement tab in Events Manager. Click the gray Manage Events button.


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Click the green Add Event button and choose the conversion events that you wish to track. Facebook allows you to track up to eight conversion events. This includes everything from leads to purchases, content views and content views.


facebook ads event configuration

Are you looking for something more than standard results? Do you want to track unique outcomes that only your account can see? Add a custom conversion to your event configuration.


facebook ads custom conversion

How to run Facebook Ads: Launching an Advertising Campaign

Once you have created your Facebook advertising account, your first campaign can be launched.

Here are the steps to creating a Facebook advertising campaign.

Choose a campaign goal

Every Facebook advertising campaign begins with an objective. You need to choose carefully as your objective will have a significant impact on the way your ads work and who sees them.

This is because Facebook automatically targets people within your audience that are most likely to fulfill your campaign objectives. Facebook will show your ads to the most likely people to click on them if you want to increase website traffic.


campaign goals for your facebook ads

How do you choose the right goal for your campaign’s purpose?

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Select a Facebook ad goal that corresponds to the customer journey stage you wish to target.

Awareness

These are some of the awareness objectives:

Increase brand awareness. Your business, products and services can be introduced to new customers. This goal works great when you are launching new products and services. Reach as many people as possible in your target audience to spread your message. This is a great goal to achieve when you want to expand your reach into new markets.

Take into account

These are some of the consideration objectives:

Traffic. Traffic. Get people to click on the ad and go to your site. This goal is useful if you are looking to grow your remarketing audience, or to get people to visit your website. You will get more likes, comments, and responses to your events. App Installs. App downloads. Video views. Increase the number of people who view your videos, whether they are part of a complete video or just a portion. This goal is great if you want to share your brand story with prospects and get them to take your business seriously. You can get people to fill out a form and express interest in your company. You can use this objective to create leads and follow-up with prospects beyond Facebook. You can start conversations with people via Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram Direct. This goal is great if you are trying to convert customers.

Conversion

Conversion goals include:

Conversions. Conversions. This goal is great if you want your customers to do more than simply visit your website. To drive sales, display products from your catalog. This goal is great for e-commerce sellers. Local customers are encouraged to visit your brick and mortar business. This goal works best if your business is physically located where customers can visit.

Build your ideal audience

Campaign success is also affected by the audience you target. You want to reach people who will take up your offer and not just scroll past it.

Facebook offers many options to help you build your ideal audience.

Core Audiences


create a saved audience

Core Audiences can be a smart choice if you want to target Facebook users with your customer persona.

Targeting can be adjusted based on:

Demographics such as age, gender and locationExperiences like education, job titleInterests and behaviorsConnections to or interactions from your Page

Core Audiences work well together, but you can combine certain elements with other audiences types. To narrow your reach, Core Audience targeting can be layered onto Custom and Lookalike Audiences.

Custom Audiences



Choose Custom Audiences if you wish to use your data to connect to customers.

You can create audiences using:

You can retrieve customer data from your CRM and other tools, such as your email marketing platform.Facebook Pixel data can be used to identify users who visited your site, saw certain content or took specific actions.Facebook SDK Data can be used to identify app users or people who have performed certain in-app actions

Lookalike Audiences


lookalike audience

Lookalike Audiences are a great way to reach customers that are similar to your existing customers. Your Lookalike Audiences may be based on Custom Audiences. This allows them to resemble the most valuable or engaged customers.

You can either create smaller Lookalike Audiences more closely related to the source, or larger Lookalike Audiences with a wider range of matching characteristics. To fine-tune your bidding strategy and target audience, you can create multiple Lookalike Audiences.

Choose the best ad format

Choose the ad format that best communicates your message and displays your creativity. You can choose from these Facebook ad formats as an advertiser:

Although photo ads are the most basic, they can help you achieve your awareness and consideration goals. To optimize delivery and results, try to minimize the text in your photo ads.

Video video ads can be used to tell complex stories about your brand and show people how you use your products. You can also use Facebook’s slideshow maker to create animated still images if you have a small budget.

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Stories Stories are a great way to build relationships with customers. These immersive ads can appear more real, which can increase their effectiveness overall.

Carousel If a single image is not enough, you can create a carousel advertisement instead. This type of ad can display between 2 and 10 images in scrollable format. Each carousel card may have its own call-to-action (CTA), button and link.

Collection Ads are a great way to increase sales. The ad format shows a hero image, video and three product images. Clicking on a collection ad will take users to your Instant Experience. This can be a storefront, or a lookbook.

Messages Facebook sends message ads directly to users’ Messengers, WhatsApps, and Instagram Direct Inboxes. Message ads can include images and text as well as clickable buttons and interactive elements to encourage engagement.

Playables A playable ad is a great way to get your audience to download and use your app. These ads are immersive and show users how your app works. They also allow users to try it out.

How to run Facebook ads: Monitoring and optimization

Don’t expect perfection when you create a Facebook advertising campaign. To optimize performance, most campaigns will require constant testing and updates.

Check out Facebook Ad Campaigns

Facebook Ad Manager allows you to easily test any campaign, set of ads, or ad that you have. Here’s how:

When you launch any Facebook advertising campaign, create an A/B testing. At campaign level, switch on the A/B Test slider. Ads Manager prompts you to create a test copy immediately after publishing.


facebook ads ab test campaign level

An A/B test can be created from any ad or ad. Select New A/B Test and duplicate any ad set. Next, choose the variable that you wish to test. This includes the creative, audience, and placement.


duplicate your ad set

You can set up a manual testing for each campaign component. Make a duplicate of any campaign, ad group, or ad, and then adjust the element to be compared. Compare the results with your current campaign. Spend the remaining budget on the winning combination.

Monitoring Facebook Ad Campaign Results

Monitor the results of your Facebook campaigns regularly after they are launched. These tools will help you keep track of the important metrics and pinpoint areas that need optimization.

AdsReport

AdsReport is an easy-to-use tool that tracks important metrics such as reach, impressions and clicks. This tool by Agorapulse allows you to monitor click-through rates (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC), as well as cost per thousand impressions per campaign (CPM), in order to assess the campaign’s value.


adsreport from agorapulse

AdsReport allows you to track off-Facebook conversions such as adds to cart and purchases. This tool can even identify the best-performing ads from your campaigns, so you can know which ones work best for your audience.

Ads Manager

Facebook Ads Manager is a great tool for creating ad reports that you can share with your team, or to access detailed analytics. Facebook Ads Manager is a native tool that offers a variety of premade templates as well as custom reporting options to help your team track the most important things.

Find the most effective time to place Facebook ads

There is no one best time to use Facebook ads. You can make the most of your data to determine the best time to reach your audience. Open Ads Manager to create a report that shows results by day, date, or both. Sort the data to determine when your ads receive the most impressions, clicks or other results.


best time to run facebook ads

Your campaign schedule can be adjusted to suit your audience’s needs. Your findings can be used to create a schedule that works for your future campaigns.

The ideal length of a campaign

Be aware of these common reactions in your audience when your ads are running.

Ad Fatigue is when your target audience watches your ads too often and either a) glazes over or rolls their eyes at them from boredom, b), becomes annoyed and hides all ads on your Page. Ad Blindness is a result of consumers being bombarded with ads. Ad copy and images become more “copycatted” as users see them more often in their feeds. This causes consumers to be “blind” for stale tactics and ads. It is crucial to ensure that your ads are unique by testing copy, images, and colors.

How long should your Facebook ads be running? It’s not easy to determine the best campaign timing. Let the data guide you.

Here’s how:

Your budget-to-audience ratio should be balanced. Your budget and audience size will affect how much your ad is shown to selected users. Frequency is the number of times an ad has been displayed. It should be checked regularly. Your audience is more likely to get tired if your frequency is higher than it should be. This, along with frequency, can help you spot patterns. Rotate your images. Watch out for warning signs. Is your CTR declining or the cost per result increasing? Monitoring your Ads Manager reports can help you spot trends and spikes in the wrong direction. These could be indicators that your campaign is too long.


facebook ads performance review

How to run Facebook ads: Client account management

You should have mastered the above process to be able to manage Facebook ads for clients. If you are managing ads for an agency client rather than your own business, there will be some additional steps.

Ad accounts for dd clients

Instead of creating new ads accounts for clients, request access to existing accounts. This can be done from your Facebook Business Manager’s Business Settings.

Select Ad Accounts, then click the blue Add button. Select Request Access to an Advertising Account, and enter the ID of your client. Select the level of permission you require. Send your request.


request access to ads account

You can also give your clients your agency ID and ask them if they would like to be added as a partner.

Get together to create campaigns

To collaborate with clients on Facebook ads that require approval before publication, you can use Facebook’s Creative Hub. In Creative Hub, you can create mockups of ads, share them with clients and get their approval.



With just one click, you can then transfer mockups directly to Ads Manager. This will allow you to quickly get campaigns up-and-running.

Reports on Facebook advertising

You can share reports with Ads Manager regardless of whether your clients need them every week, every month or at the end each campaign. Click the gray Share button to create a report for your client.


share link to adsreport

Click to share the link to anyone who has access to your ad account. You can also download any report from Ads Manager, and email it to clients.

In conclusion

You now have the knowledge to manage Facebook Ads for clients and your own business. This will allow you to start reaching your ideal audience on a large scale. You can increase your business’s effectiveness by constantly optimizing, monitoring, and testing your ads.

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