Part of holding this identity constant is making sure that your advertising is aligned with your Page content. That means keeping the style and character of your ads consistent with the status updates, photos and videos you’re posting on your Page. This principle is not just limited to Facebook, either — what you post on Twitter, share in print or on television, and promote on other digital channels, should all work in concert to benefit your brand.

Why Is Consistency Important?

You want your fans to have the best possible experience on your Facebook page, and part of having a great user experience is great content — content that is engaging, informative and appealing. But, brand recognition is also essential. After all, how will people recognize your brand if your voice varies on different channels?

On Facebook, content is advertising. The Page Post ad is the epitome of this: it takes a post that you’ve created on your Page and turns it into an ad unit. You wouldn’t want to promote ads or posts that aren’t reflective of your Page’s identify. Imagine clicking on an ad with a funny viral video and being redirected to a political action group — that is a poor user experience. You’re not likely to consume any more of the group’s content because it’s not what you’re interested it and not what you clicked on.

Or, say you saw a commercial for a chain restaurant where they discussed the kid-friendly nature of their establishments and special weeknight deals for families. If you visited their Facebook page and saw no mention of either of those features, you’d probably be disappointed. You might even be confused about whether or not it was the same restaurant. At the very least, you’d be less likely to visit with your children, not knowing if what was advertised was real because it wasn’t represented across all channels.

Good Pages will instead sync their advertising with what is on their Page. See below for an example of a “good” Page Post; here, the content SocialCode has published on their page is highly relevant to fans of SocialCode, and they’ve turned that content into an ad. Users who click though the ad to the SocialCode page will see very similar articles and information. There is nothing misleading or tricky; the user gets exactly what is advertised.

The same holds true with other types of ads on Facebook; the Page Post is just the most obvious. Any time your ads don’t match the tone of your page, you have a problem. So, how do you avoid this?

The Benefits Of Unified Control

One of the easiest ways to unite messaging across both Facebook Pages and Facebook Ads is to maintain unified control over both. Spreading the responsibility between multiple partners or agencies makes it more difficult to ensure that messaging remains consistent, as communication is often minimal between such parties.

Smaller businesses have a unique advantage in this respect. Although they may not have the budget to work with big agencies and thus can’t rely on such resources and knowledge, they have the benefit of unified control across all channels — and there’s really no better position to be in when it comes to consistent messaging.

You can easily coordinate your marketing efforts when you maintain unified control. You know what type of language you’re running on search or in print, and you can tailor your Facebook content to match. There’s no need to source information from multiple agencies; it’s all at your fingertips.

You can make decisions faster without having to wait for approval from multiple groups. If you see a particular piece of content resonating, you can go ahead and turn that into an ad to get it out to more people. Your ability to make quick decisions allows for greater flexibility, too. If a planned strategy isn’t working, you can choose to chuck it without needing to consult anyone else. You can also keep up with the rapid-fire pace of social media, where conversation topics rise and fall extremely quickly, without having to wait for anyone. You know that what you’re putting out there is exactly what you want to say. All this means more effective advertising.

What If My Page Is Too Big To Manage Myself?

Of course, not every company running Facebook ads can exercise this level of control. When you get to a certain size, it’s just not feasible for one person or group to be managing both the content and advertising. When that’s not possible, it is essential that the two groups work extremely closely together, requiring a great deal of upfront planning and communication.

Instead of thinking about each channel as a separate entity, think about your entire marketing strategy as a whole. Many successful brands use a “hub and spoke” model, where their marketing content is based around a central channel and all the other channels branch out from there.

Think about a big brand like Dunkin’ Donuts — when they introduce a new product, the focus of their marketing efforts may be on television and in print, but the launch is also supported on billboards, Facebook and Twitter. They use a conversational, friendly style throughout, keeping the language similar and often focusing around a central phrase or keyword as well.

Naturally, this content is tailored slightly to fit each specific channel — what Dunkin’ posts on Twitter is not exactly the same as what they post on Facebook. As we’ve said before, content from one channel, like SEM, will not map directly to Facebook and Twitter. It’s obviously important to tailor your strategy for each separate channel — but, at the same time, each channel and its content should fit into the overall strategy like puzzle pieces.

Accomplishing this is not easy when the work is split among a variety of teams. It necessitates strong leadership, a collaborative approach to overall strategy development, and an understanding of how each individual channel can contribute to the bigger picture. Tactically, rules such as style guides and exact specifications for how to use logos and the like are easy to interpret and follow, and these will help to maintain this consistency of voice.

When these strategies are used correctly, the result is a consistent voice, as with Dunkin’ Donuts. However, increased turnaround time and the need for consensus between many teams over time necessitates longer-running, less responsive campaigns than might otherwise be possible. This does not mean they aren’t powerful or effective — but, there will always be things that such involved campaigns cannot do that a more agile operation can accomplish.

The primary (and most exciting) use case for creating unpublished posts is message testing. Before “dark posts,” Pages that wanted to test post content would have to blast said messages out to their entire fan base, and most were naturally averse to doing this. When you’ve carefully built your fan page population, the last thing you want to do is spam them or give them a reason to unlike your Page.

Still, it was important for Page Managers to understand what type of content their fans were interested in. Some of this measurement could be achieved through a carefully crafted posting and promotion strategy.

Managers could lay out specific post types and content in advance and then look at the relative response rates of each type. However, such exploration takes time and isn’t optimal, because it still requires Managers to share all content with all users.

Targeted Posts

Some of these problems were solved by the introduction of targeted posts, which allow Page Mangers to limit their posts to specific groups of fans. The most prevalent usage of this capability is to gate posts by location. For a large coffee chain with franchises across the country, creating geo-targeted posts is a great way to tailor the geo-specific content on their page to only those fans that live near the particular store location.

However, there are substantial limitations to this type of post-gating. For example, there are only six means of targeting posts: location, language, gender, age, relationship status, education status, and gender interested in.

That does allow you to segment your audience in a lot of different ways, but there is no ability to target by what is arguably the biggest differentiator on Facebook: keywords. Nor is there the ability to target Custom Audiences. Plus, targeted posts still live on the Page for all those within the target, and it doesn’t necessarily promote that content via ads.

Unpublished Posts

Unpublished Posts give Page Managers total control over who sees what message. For the first time, you can create posts for the sole purpose of promotion. And, that content never has to show up on your Page.

To create a dark post, log into Power Editor, add your message, photo, or link as normal. Until you select “Publish Post,” the post will remain unpublished, but is still available for promotion. You can use unpublished posts to find the optimal post content without committing all your ad spend to one message.

For example, the large coffee chain could create several unpublished posts, each containing different language about a product launch. One post might highlight the taste, another the calories, another the date of arrival in stores. They could then designate some of their ad spend to each post and see which content had the highest engagement rates. With data to back them up, they would feel comfortable selecting one message to share and promote on their Page.

The other major use case for unpublished posts is to cater messaging to certain populations of people. As we mentioned, some of this capability exists with targeted posts. But the added layer of interest targeting makes unpublished posts an even better option.

Perhaps our large coffee chain is now offering free Wi-Fi in its stores. They might create a dark post about this new offering targeted only to businesspeople or those with specific job titles. None of the coffee chains’ fans would be offended by a post about free Wi-Fi in their store locations – but it’s not really relevant to them, either.

Don’t Get Carried Away!

Although unpublished posts are a great resource for message testing, it’s important to always stay true to your brand on Facebook. Don’t use dark posts as an excuse to deviate from the overall voice of your Page. Doing so will ultimately prove to be a bad thing.

Remember that your Edgerank is measured by both the number and quality of engagements on the Page. Promoting unpublished posts that have nothing to do with what your Page offers, what your product does, or what your brand is about are misleading and will only result in your losing fans and Edgerank.

The feature allows you to match phone numbers, email address, or user IDs gathered offline to actual Facebook users. That contact information might come from customer loyalty programs, applications on Facebook, prospective customers or elsewhere. Any contact list that you have is usable.

Custom Audiences is the same basic form of retargeting available on many other ad serving platforms, but it’s relatively new on Facebook, where concerns about the privacy of its users has often outweighed its desire to keep up with ad serving competitors. This new foray has certainly caused a buzz among major advertisers.

Finally, they are able to connect online and offline behaviors, addressing many marketers’ concerns that the people they interact with on Facebook are not the same individuals who are coming in their stores or purchasing their products.

How To Create A Custom Audience

Implementing the Custom Audiences feature is free and easy for Facebook advertisers. Simply take your list of email address or phone numbers and input into Power Editor. Facebook will encrypt the data and look for matches among real Facebook users. Thus, your Custom Audience is created.

According to Facebook, match rates for these lists range from 50 to 95 percent, further demonstrating and validating just how large the social network’s reach is. So, it’s likely that the majority of your list will also be active on Facebook.

Once the Audience has been created in Power Editor, it is accessible for use in any future advertising campaigns.

What Are The Benefits?

Custom Audiences can be used in any type of Facebook campaign, from fan acquisition to direct response.

Fan Acquisition: For a fan campaign, think about using the Custom Audience as a qualified group of people who have already expressed interest in your brand. They are part of your loyalty program, or they’ve given you their email address to receive communication about your product.

If they aren’t already fans on Facebook, they should be! They will likely be very interested and engaged in the content you share on your page, so go after them. Create fan acquisition ads targeting this group that exclude current fans of your page, so you’re not reaching folks who have already “liked” your brand. Acquiring these fans may be cheaper and, in the long run, more beneficial for your brand, than going after the general Facebook population.

You can also use that opportunity to learn more about your consumer base and how it aligns with your Facebook fans. Use granular targeting techniques against the Custom Audiences to give you a better idea of who this audience is.

Layer Facebook’s highly specific targeting capabilities on top of the Custom Audience to find out if your Custom Audience is male or female, where they live, and if they are interested in sports or shopping, for example. Is this population similar to your existing Facebook fans? This exercise could also potentially highlight targeting parameters that you haven’t thought of before, useful for informing future campaigns.

Direct Response: The most obvious situation in which to use Custom Audiences is for direct response campaigns. Again, the Custom Audience you’ve created is a population of people who are pre-disposed to be interested in your content. You have a built-in audience of potential customers, and their potential for purchase is certainly higher than that of the general Facebook population. Take advantage of that!

If your Custom Audience is created from a list of prospective customers, create an ad campaign that exclusively targets those users. Craft copy that calls out to this specific group. If it’s a list from a loyalty program, offer additional rewards for purchases by a certain date.

There’s also no limit on the number of Audiences you can create. Make Audiences for all types of consumers, and then make more that are additionally geo-targeted. You can be as precise as you like.

It’s Free, So Use It!

On a very basic level, Custom Audiences are just another facet of Facebook’s insane targeting, and as such, you should be using it to your advantage. Initial results from SocialCode’s campaigns have shown that Custom Audiences are extremely valuable targeting groups, both from a cost and engagement perspective. And, don’t forget that using this feature is free, so go try it!

As Facebook says, the goal of Sponsored Results is “… help [Facebook users] better find and discover the brands, products, and experiences relevant to them.” For advertisers, it’s a great way to increase exposure and to send more people on to your Page or Application.

The Details

Sponsored Results ads do require some creative. While the image, title, and Page/App details will be pulled directly from the Page or App you’re promoting, advertisers do have the ability to add in text to be displayed with the ad. Character limit here is 70, just enough to highlight a feature of your Page or insert an incentive to visit your App.

A strong call to action is key to get users to click through; remember, they weren’t actually searching for your Page in the first place. Make sure you encourage them to suspend their search to check out what you’re offering. Include details of what they can find on the page, or a basic introduction to what your Page is about. App or game ads will benefit from invitations to play or mention of prizes.

You can test various text options. As with a standard Facebook ad, try a couple different approaches to see what works best. Does the call to action have to be at the beginning or end? Are users more interested in prizes or game content?

Basic targeting of Sponsored Results is the same as other Facebook types. The only thing you can’t control here is placement; by definition, placement for Sponsored Results is limited to the search bar.

Targeting Entities

Unlike AdWords, where you buy keywords, with Sponsored Results, you’ll be buying Facebook objects (Pages, Places, or Applications). Facebook refers to these as “Targeted Entities.” Whenever a user searches for that Targeted Entity, your ad could appear, depending on its bid.

So, what should you target? The best plan is to target entities similar to your own Page or App. Targeting dissimilar Pages is unlikely to generate a very high CTR; you want to be reaching users who are already disposed to be interested in your Page based on what they are searching for.

So, if you’re a soft drink brand, target your competitors. If you’re a game, target other games with similar objectives. Using one entity per ad is the best way to determine what search terms are most effective for your Page.

Limitations

Volume is a significant concern with Sponsored Results. There just aren’t enough people using the search features to make it feasible to spend a substantial amount on this ad type. Additionally, layering any hyper-specific targeting on top of the Targeted Entity reduces its reach so much as to make it essentially useless. The chance that a 30-year-old woman in Florida who likes Coca-Cola will search for the keyword [social], for example, is fairly remote.

Removing any extra targeting or targeting multiple entities at once can help solve the problem. But ,you should still expect that you’ll only be able to spend about $50 per day.

Finally, although it’s possible to generate fans from Sponsored Results, it should not be the central goal of the campaign.  Click-to-conversion rates are typically low and cost-per-fan quite high.

Why Use Sponsored Results?

If they can’t get volume or generate fans, what’s the point of using this ad type?

The most effective use of the Sponsored Results ad is as a conquesting tool.

Use Sponsored Results to own all the entities most closely related to your Page, particularly competitors. Imagine a user searching for a competitor Page and instead seeing your Page at the top of the list with an engaging text calling them to visit for a chance to win. Which Page do you think they’ll click on?

So, bid high to own the Facebook entity. Remember, if you’re bidding on a CPC, you won’t pay anything unless someone actually clicks on the ad. Plus, it’s unlikely that you’ll actually pay that CPC, due to Facebook’s modified Vickery auction system. And, even if he or she doesn’t click, your ad is being seen every time that user searches for that entity.

Metrics-wise, CTR is substantially higher for Sponsored Results than in other Facebook ad types, typically over 1%. Click-to-engage is also much higher. So, even though the volume is low, the clicks you do get will be valuable.

Next Steps

Even after six months, it’s clear that not many advertisers are taking advantage of Sponsored Results. Perhaps many believe that not enough people are using the Search function to make these ads viable. In any case, Sponsored Results certainly aren’t a replacement for standard Facebook ads.

With last week’s introduction of Graph Search, it’s also unclear how long Sponsored Results will continue to exist in this form. It’s likely that they’ll change in some manner. But, because competition for the space is currently so limited, the opportunity is worth the small investment.

Offers can be beneficial to businesses both on and off Facebook. On Facebook, you can spread the word about your product or service to your fans, as well as to their friends. At the same time, you’re driving traffic off Facebook to your store or website and getting Facebook users to become actual consumers of your product. It’s a great way to see in real-time what your Facebook presence is worth.

What Is An Offer?

A Facebook Offer is a coupon created and shared exclusively on Facebook. Admins can create these Offers on their Page, and Facebook users can then claim the Offer to use at a business via an email confirmation.

Offer ads act like Page Posts, in that they live on the Page’s Facebook wall and can be promoted via Page Post Ads. When customers claim your Offer, stories about this redemption will appear in the desktop and mobile Newsfeed. You can also pay  to promote the story to even further increase its reach and potential for claims.

Offers allow business owners to reach and engage with potential customers in the hopes that the coupon will encourage them to become actual customers.

How To Create An Offer

Offers are available to most Pages; simply visit the Content Creator box and select Offer. You can choose whether your offer is claimable in store, online, or both, and you can set an image, headline, redemption code, terms and conditions, expiration date, and any targeting restrictions.

As always, eye-catching images and engaging text will advance the success of your Offer. Be very clear about what the Offer is: calling out dollar amounts or percentage off will do well. Make your expiration date and claim numbers reasonable, and the means of claiming, in-store or online, easy.

If you’re planning to run your Offer for an extended period of time, consider periodic creative refreshes to keep the post fresh. Try a new image or copy and see if those changes have a significant effect on the number of Offer claims.

Once you’ve set all the parameters for the Offer, you can select your method of promotion. Facebook has two options: to set a simple lifetime budget and let Facebook do all the work, or to promote later using another ads tool. The first method is more than sufficient for a first time poster who just wants to get the Offer seen by a number of people.

However, if you’re interested in targeting your offer to a specific group, or evaluating performance of different demographics or keywords, you’ll want to promote later. This will allow you to create your own customized ads for the Offer, being as specific as you see fit.

How To Promote An Offer Via Ads

Once you’ve chosen to “promote later,” your Offer will remain un-posted on the page until you’ve created the first ad. This gives you the opportunity to design your ad strategy before the Offer has been claimed.

Promoting the Offer means you’ll be able to get your offer out to more potential customers. You can also learn a great deal about whom those customers are. Although (as with all FB ad types), you won’t be able to see which individuals claimed your offer, you’ll be able to see what types of people claimed it, based on the targeting you’ve set up.

As we said, Offer ads function in the same way as Page Posts. The content of the ad is pulled directly from the Offer (image and text), and you can run both standard ads and Sponsored Stories. The Offer ad will also highlight the number of people who have claimed the Offer.

The aspect advertisers have control over is targeting, choosing who will see the ad. As always, think about the type of Facebook user who will be interested in your Offer and what his or her interests might be. Fans are the most obvious choice, having previously expressed an interest in your brand or product. Take advantage of these users by targeting them heavily.

Geographic targeting is often important, as well. If the Offer is only claimable in stores, you’ll want to limit the ads to those areas that could feasibly use it. If the Offer is for a clothing or jewelry store, consider running your ads toward females and retail-specific keywords. An Offer for a food product would benefit from targeting fans of other similar restaurants or cuisines. You’ll learn only as much as you’re willing to put into it, so make sure to test a lot.

Post-Offer

Once the Offer has ended, take time to look at the engagement data and understand who claimed it and why.

If the response was less positive than you would have liked, was it the actual Offer that was unappealing? Or, could your targeting strategy have been more refined? If the Offer was wildly successful, consider making it a regular feature of your page to engage fans and encourage users to come back for more.

Use the demographic and keyword data to inform future campaigns. And, of course, make sure to measure the actual coupons used in store or online to assess if the promotion actually turned Facebook users into customers!

One of the most major announcements in recent months is the introduction of placement targeting. Previously, marketplace ads were only shown in the right rail. Now, advertisers can choose to serve their ads to specific placements, like Desktop and Mobile Newsfeed.

Obviously, this allows advertisers to collect a great deal more data, and, more importantly, permits campaign-specific placement targeting.

That is, you can stipulate specific placements for specific ad types to best align with campaign goals. As with all other Facebook targeting options, certain placements are best suited to certain types of ads.

What Placements & Ad Types Are Available?

In total, advertisers now have five options to choose from: 1) desktop, or right-hand rail and Newsfeed; 2) feed, or Newsfeed on mobile and desktop; 3) desktop feed, or desktop Newsfeed only; 4) mobile, or mobile Newsfeed only; and 5) home, or right-hand rail only (limited to premium). You can also chose to target all placements; but, keep in mind that you won’t receive any data on specific placement performance.

The two central targeting options are now desktop and mobile. Desktop means the traditional, computer-based browser experience with the full site at a user’s disposal.

Mobile includes users browsing from a mobile browser as well as via any Facebook-specific mobile applications. Within the Desktop placement are additional options distinguishing between the right rail and the Newsfeed.

Unfortunately, not all ad types are eligible for placement targeting. At this time, only Sponsored Story ads have placement options. That means Sponsored Like ads and Page Posts.

Mobile Vs. Desktop

Mobile ads are the biggest game-changer. Part of the appeal of mobile ads is the fact that they feature a seamless integration into the mobile Newsfeed. Unlike mobile banner ads, mobile ads on Facebook are as unobtrusive as possible; they look and feel like a native part of the user experience.

Not as much has changed with the desktop placement. Obviously, mobile ads are brand new, whereas ads have always been shown on the desktop. However, now advertisers can decide on what part of the desktop to serve their ads, the biggest difference being that the Newsfeed is now open for targeting.

Initial results have shown mobile ads to have significantly higher click-through rates than ads targeted to the desktop. However, they have shown significantly lower engagement rates as well.

Desktop feed-targeted ads show the exact opposite. It seems as though users are apt to click on the ads but less likely to like, comment, or share the content within them. That makes sense when you think about it; it’s much easier to engage on desktop with a larger screen, keyboard, and full complement of options.

What Does This Mean For Advertisers?

You should be tailoring your placement targeting to your campaign goals and ad types. This shouldn’t be a surprise. From our other conversations, you should know that Facebook advertising is what you make of it. It’s only as successful as you want it to be. And, whenever there are things that you could be doing to make your ads reach an even better audience, you should certainly be doing them.

As we said, eligible ad types are limited. But if you’re running a campaign with either Sponsored Like ads or Posts, definitely test out the different placements. Not only will you have a much greater depth of data about ad performance, but you now have the opportunity to make those ads even more effective with a custom ad placement.

Page Post campaigns will benefit significantly from desktop Newsfeed targeting. Instead of serving your ads to all placements, limit your Page Post ads to this specific one in order to increase the rate of engagement. As we said before, users are much more likely to like, comment, or share your content while on a computer. Although they may click from their phones, those clicks will be less cost-effective with regard to engagement. Ultimately, with a Page Post-focused campaign, the goal should be getting people to interact with the post, and using desktop Newsfeed targeting serves this end quite well.

Likewise, a Sponsored Like fan campaign will be at a disadvantage without the use of placement targeting. Although you will theoretically reach users in every placement with “null” targeting, you want to be able to isolate and drive more impressions to the placements that are driving the lowest-cost fans. Preliminary data has shown a marked difference in cost between placements. For a well-known recognizable brand, mobile may be the way to go because of the instant recognition. Lesser-known brands will benefit from the expanded ads in the desktop Newsfeed.

Again, the introduction of placement targeting on Facebook is just one more way to tailor your ads to the right audience. Take advantage of this opportunity and your campaigns are sure to be even more successful!

Evaluating Success

It’s a fairly straightforward process to decide if your campaign was successful. Did you get fans? Conversions? Sign ups? Did you fulfill your campaign’s original goals? That should be easy to measure.

The optimization strategies outlined in my previous column should have allowed you to make the most of the dollars you spent on Facebook. You’ve (hopefully) come away feeling satisfied that it was money well spent.

Don’t forget about the less tangible successes of the campaign. Not only did you get fans or sign-ups, but you now know more about the users who are interested in your product or brand. You’ve learned about the messaging that resonates best with different groups of people, or the keywords that drive the highest conversion rates.

Take time to look at the data on a deeper level. Isolate individual ad elements and evaluate their performance over the lifetime of the campaign, using the important metrics you determined during the optimization phase.

Look for trends or interesting data points to pull out. Perhaps older males way outperformed younger males, but middle-aged females outperformed both. Maybe creative focused on your product’s features, and that had higher click-to-like rates than copy that was more brand-centric.

Making The Most Of What You’ve Learned

One of the most obvious ways in which to use the data is to guide the creation of future Facebook ad campaigns. Use what you’ve learned to run an even more efficient campaign the next time. As we discussed before, there are a wealth of ad types and targeting options that are available to advertisers. Take advantage of them!

Get more fans by targeting people who you know will be interested. If [cooking] was a low-cost, high-volume keyword for the first campaign, try targeting users with interests in home and garden magazines, popular chefs, or cooking shows for your second go-around. If college-educated users had high click-to-like rates, look into targeting alumni of specific colleges.

Once you’ve acquired said fans, think about how you can utilize them. It’s not enough to get them; you have to keep them engaged.

Create Page Post ads to promote specific content on your page and boost your EdgeRank. Retarget fans with a conversion-focused campaign. Users who have already expressed an affinity for your brand by liking it are much more likely to sign up for a sweepstakes or submit their email for a mailing list. Try Facebook’s new Offer Ads, which allow business owners to create coupons for services or products. Turn those new Facebook fans into legitimate consumers.

Outside Of Facebook

The information that you’ve generated through Facebook advertising is not limited to Facebook. It can easily be applied to other media channels, and you can use the data to inform your entire marketing strategy.

Through keyword testing, perhaps you uncovered a population of users outside of your normal customer pool, which you haven’t been reaching with your traditional approach. You now have an entirely new understanding of who your customer is.

Creative-wise, you can also convert Facebook to SEM, for example. If product-focused text does indeed have a higher CTR, think about tweaking some of your SEM copy to focus similarly. If it’s the brand name that’s doing it on Facebook, it’s likely that it will also resonate well on Google.

Once you feel comfortable on Facebook, take your brand or product to other social platforms. Twitter is obviously the first that comes to mind. Try promoted Tweets (see below) to get your content out to more Twitter users, or use Promoted Accounts, to encourage users to Follow you.

Although Twitter is quite different in many ways, it’s easy to see how the interests of your Facebook fans would map to users on Twitter. If your Facebook fans like [cooking], it is safe to assume that potential Twitter followers would feel similarly.

Keep Trying!

Don’t let this be your first and last foray into the world of Facebook advertising. It can certainly be daunting to start out, but you’ll learn quickly as you go. The aim of this column was to help you feel confident enough to advertise on Facebook. Hopefully, you now understand the different elements of a Facebook ad, how to create a campaign, and how to optimize your ads for best performance.

Keep in mind that Facebook requires (and deserves) attention. Continue to build your page and keep your existing fans engaged.

Also remember that Facebook is constantly rolling out new capabilities for advertisers. Stay up-to-date with the latest developments. Be willing to try new things, to experiment, and you’ll be rewarded with a robust and active consumer fan base.

You aren’t best served by creating ads, running them for several weeks, and then checking them after they have finished spending. You will see much better results if you’re willing to optimize on a regular basis during the lifetime of the campaign.

Determining Your KPIs

So what is optimization? As we mentioned before, optimization is a term for improving performance of a given key performance indicator (KPI) over time. The KPIs for optimization are directly tied to the campaign’s goals. As always, it’s essential to keep these goals in mind. If you’re optimizing to a metric that isn’t aligned with your campaign’s objectives, you will not be successful.

Basic metrics provided on Facebook are similar to those you’ll find on most other types of digital advertising platforms: impressions, clicks, click-through-rate, and cost per click.

Facebook, however, also offers a wealth of other data points unique to the site. These include all the social metrics (social impressions, clicks, and so on) as well as downstream behavior only possible on Facebook, like connections to a page, or likes, comments, and shares on a post.

Understanding what metrics are relevant to the type of campaign you are running is key. If the end goal is fans, then the KPIs should be metrics like cost-per-fan (CPF) and click-to-like rate. If it’s a conversion-based campaign, then you’d need to focus on click-to-conversion rate and cost-per-conversion.

In advance of the campaign start, it is also important to determine what a successful campaign means to you. Driving fans may be the overall goal, but what do you expect those fans to cost? Will you be happy if they cost $2 each, or is that price $1.50 more than you’d like? Set a goal CPF, CPC, or conversion rate so you know where you should be aiming. Once you’ve determined your key metrics and the optimal values for those metrics, you can start to optimize.

Two Ways To Optimize 

There are two key ways to do so. First, you can spend more against what is working, and less against what is not. This concept seems obvious, but how do we determine what is working and what is not? Use the metrics and values that you’ve set for each campaign as a benchmark to evaluate them. For our sample CPF campaign, we’ve determined that our main metric is cost-per-fan, and our goal cost is $1.25 per fan.

We can then look at the data we’ve generated and find campaigns or ads that fit those parameters. We can choose to bid up individual best-performing ads so that they’ll serve more in Facebook’s auction environment, or we can increase the campaign budgets so that campaigns will spend more.

We also know that we’ll find campaigns and ads that don’t fit those parameters, where the cost-per-fan is way over $1.25. Our best move is to either remove those campaigns entirely, or bid the ads within them way down so they aren’t served as much and don’t continue to spend.

The other means of optimization is creating new ads based on what we’ve discovered is working. That means looking at the data on a deeper level and evaluating which individual elements are the most successful in terms of your KPIs. Start by focusing on each element separately. With body text, are there visible trends? Is it apparent that ads using the “Direct Like” text category have CPF much lower than any other?

Do the same thing for images, headlines (if applicable), and any targeting parameters. Hopefully, you’ve set your campaigns up in such a way as to make this data collection easy. Isolating one variable per ad is the best way to see what drives performance.

After understanding performance of individual elements, combine the best image, body text, headline, gender, age, and interest targets, etc., together to create an optimized ad set. We assume that if we combine all the best elements into a single ad, that ad will perform better than the elements did on their own.

Likewise, we can use those best performing elements to help us make new sets of ads with entirely new creative and targeting elements. For example, if we see that the keyword [shopping] has a $.60 CPF, we might try targeting specific retail stores or luxury clothing brands, with the hope that those similar keywords will perform as well or better than the broader ones we started with.

Perhaps images of people have the lowest CPF; so again, we might choose other similar images, or if “Direct Like” text has a great click-to-like rate, we’ll choose more of those, too.

Don’t Slack Off!

Using these two methods in conjunction will help your campaign efficiently reach its goals. Remember – it’s important to do both so that you’re refreshing your ads with the top-performing elements. An average ad on Facebook tends to fatigue after two or three days, so regular optimization is very important.

As we said before, Facebook ads don’t do as well when left to their own devices; they need a little bit more attention than that. Structure your campaigns in a way that makes data collection easy, analyze the data, and make subsequent decisions based on the top-performing elements. This will ensure that optimization is (somewhat) painless and effective.

More than any other element, targeting is what sets Facebook advertising apart from other channels. Anything that a user inputs into his or her Facebook profile is targetable: age, gender, relationship status, location, interests, level of education, and more.

These capabilities allow you to reach customers at a much deeper and more customized level. Instead of waiting for your customers to come to you, you can bring highly relevant content to them.

Don’t Oversimplify

Overlooking or oversimplifying your targeting approach limits the kind of success you can have. The abundance of targeting capabilities on Facebook is only what you make of it. The more you are willing to delve in and test, and the more information you can learn, the more aptly targeted your ads, and the better they will perform.

So with all the possibilities, where does one begin? As with creative, research plays an important part in determining what targeting should be used. Knowing exactly what you are promoting is essential. Think about the product or brand and who uses it. What else are these people interested in? Where do they live? Do they have children, and are they married? This type of exploration helps clarify how you’re going to reach your audience.

Although testing is extremely important, it’s also important to think about testing strategically. It’s not feasible, nor is it useful, to try everything at once. Rather, a successful ad campaign will lay out objectives for learning and design a targeting strategy around those goals.

Identify What You Want To Learn

So, decide in advance what you want to know. Don’t forget that each additional targeting parameter you layer on reduces the number of people you can reach. It’s key to be aware of this reach via the Facebook Ads Creator and make sure the targeting you want to test is actually viable.

Once you’ve decided on your strategy, you can start to execute. Start with the basics: age and gender. Every campaign should isolate males and females, and at least some age breakouts as well.

Unless you’re working with a very small target age range, it may not be possible to test individual ages, so bucket ages into groups of five to ten years. That way, you’ll see what is performing best, and can still key in on a particular age group later on.

The next targeting element to add is keywords. On Facebook, these keywords map to interests in a user’s profile and usually generate the most interesting data. Keyword performance can fluctuate wildly. Males and females may not differ too greatly, but users interested in home decor magazines will likely perform differently than users interested in extreme political movements. This is where research comes in: know your audience and cater to them.

At the same time, don’t get boxed in. Begin with broad keywords that will hit large populations on Facebook. You can than isolate and hone in on top performers, and you may discover something about your customers that you didn’t expect.

Interests Can Be Proxies For Other Things

Keywords can also be effective proxies for other parameters that aren’t available on Facebook. For example, if you’re looking for users with a high household income, you can proxy by using luxury car keywords or executive-level job titles.

Facebook allows you to target users based on their country, state, city, or ZIP code, so you can get extremely specific. If what you’re advertising is only relevant in a certain area of the world or country, you need to target your ads to the right population and reach only those users who are actually able to use or  purchase what you’re promoting.

For a national campaign, geo targeting can also be a great way to find out where your customers live.

Beyond these “standard” targeting options, there are more that can even further distinguish your target user. A campaign for a diaper brand would benefit from targeting married users, so take advantage of the relationship status option.

Be Creative When Thinking Of Ways To Find Your People

If you’re trying to reach business owners, try users who graduated from college with a major in finance or marketing. You can target users on their actual birthdays with special offers or coupons. Designate a workplace to reach users who are employed by a specific company. And there’s Facebook connections targeting, allowing you to reach users who are already connected to a specific Facebook page, or their friends.

So, there’s a lot to think about. Here are some final tips.

• Don’t wait for your audience to find you; find them first. Hit them with ads so relevant and specifically tailored to them that they will have to click.
• Take advantage of the options that Facebook offers! Don’t be afraid to experiment and test.
• Keep reach in mind. If you layer on every type of possible targeting, you’re going to reach a point where the ads you’ve made are no longer viable.
• Every campaign is different. What works on one campaign will probably not work on another, so don’t be complacent.

Remember, your goal is to reach users that will genuinely be interested in what you’re advertising. So go find them!

In the many campaigns SocialCode has run, we’ve seen massive variance in performance across different text elements.  Here is an opportunity to showcase what your brand or product is about, to distinguish yourselves from other ads or potential competitors, and to capture even more data.

Again, Facebook is a unique platform and as such requires unique creative. Not all ad types allow for creative input, but the most widely used Standard Click and Like Ads do offer creative control, and we’ll focus on those.

Keep The Objective In Mind

As always, keeping the goal of the campaign in mind is hugely important. Creative must be designed to solicit the exact desired response and must be tailored for every unique campaign. A general rule of thumb is to assume the average Facebook user is somewhat dense. The plainer you can be about exactly what you need him/her to do, the better.

It’s also important think about what kind of data you hope to gain from the campaign, and write creative that allows you to do that. A campaign around a new product, for example, should include multiple creatives that each focus on one of its major features, so you can determine exactly what aspects are driving the most interaction.

We also want to make sure we understand what it is we’re advertising, and that the copy is both relevant and brand-appropriate.  Incorporating any existing messaging about the product or brand is a great way to tie your Facebook campaign into other marketing initiatives.

One effective way to cover all these bases is to create categories of copy and work outwards. Working with categories allows for more specific headlines and text, focuses efforts on the specific campaign goals, and also enables testing both across categories and different campaigns.

Here are some examples, for a campaign driving Likes to a well-known brand:

Direct

This is the most succinct and clear. It tells the user exactly what to do with a strong call to action. These tend to be extremely successful when targeting users who will recognize the brand being advertised.

Incentive

Coupons and offers are obviously a great way to encourage people to like your page. Be clear about what the user is getting as benefit and deliver on what you are promising to avoid backlash. 

Ideally, we’d have a few from each category. Remember that for a fan campaign, the headline is locked as the name of the page; if we were writing copy for Standard Click ads, a headline would be required.

Headlines can be categorized in the same way as body copy, and are another way to show your stuff. Again, categories will be informed by the campaign’s objectives; not every category will be applicable to every campaign. Still, it’s important to have a variety so that you can evaluate exactly what is driving performance.

There’s also need for variety within those categories. Changing elements like length or word count, call to action, capitalization, and punctuation can actually make a huge difference, and also help to combat creative fatigue.

The graph below was created at the conclusion of a major fan campaign and demonstrates just how significant these changes can be.

As this graph illustrates, it seems as though campaigns with the goal of driving Page Likes benefit from shorter, more concise creative. On the other hand, conversion-focused campaigns tend to do better with longer text that spell out exactly what action needs to be taken.

You can also try using different calls-to-action; is it better to say “Click ‘Like’” or “’Like’ us”? Change up the word order to evaluate whether placement of the call-to-action affects conversion rates. Experiment with punctuation and capitalization, too. Will an exclamation point drive more interaction than a period?

And don’t forget to sweat the small stuff. When you’re working with such strict limits (90 characters for the body, 25 for the headline), every character counts. Check for misspellings, wasted space, and format correctly.

As I said before, you can use creative to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. Remember that it’s a representative of your brand or product — devote time to refining it.

Part of what makes successful Facebook advertisers is the ability to tailor their creative approach for every unique campaign, and the willingness to test a variety of different things.

Putting in the additional time to create Facebook-specific copy will make the campaign much more successful, and ultimately, effective Facebook creative can be used to inform future media buys on other channels.