Due to changes in Facebook’s algorithms, designed to deliver more relevant content that its users will enjoy the most, organic Facebook posts are less effective than they once were. However, there is some good news on this front: Facebook ads are ideal for small businesses looking to drive relevant traffic to their website or generate leads or sales inquiries.
Here are some of the reasons that Facebook ads work for small businesses:
1: Facebook ads are inexpensive
Facebook ads can be incredibly cost-effective, especially compared to other forms of online advertising. Not only can you achieve results with a relatively small budget, but you also have complete control over your budget and can define exactly how much you want to spend. There are options to set either daily or lifetime budgets, and you can also tell Facebook how much you are prepared to spend per result, which is a great tool for anyone who already knows how much a lead is worth to their business.
There is a staggering amount of real-time data available, and not only can you tell very quickly whether or not an ad is performing well, you are also able to react to that data and improve your accuracy, which ultimately will result in a lower cost per action.
2: Targeting options with Facebook ads
Facebook makes a lot of money from users sponsoring their page posts using the “Boost Post” function, without a real understanding of how to select a relevant audience. Learning how to target your ad spend will give you a much better return on your investment.
What if you were a dog groomer who wanted promotional leaflets delivered in the local area, and I told you that I could guarantee to only deliver the leaflets to the houses of dog owners, saving you from paying to print and deliver the leaflets that were less likely to be read?
Ad targeting on Facebook allows you to do just that. That’s to say that Facebook allows you as an advertiser to drill down to exactly the target audience your business would want to reach. If your target audience comprises of people who are predominantly 25–35 years old, yoga enthusiasts, and live in a particular area, then you can use an interest-based audience to target exactly those people, focusing your ad spend on the people most likely to produce the desired end results.
3: Facebook ads work because of the ability to test
Facebook allows you to split test your ad campaigns, serving different versions of your ad to your target audience to see which they react to more favorably. You can choose different images, for example, alter your caption, or test a single image against a carousel or video creative. Where there is a clear winner, you can choose to allocate the remainder of your budget to that version of the ad. If you’ve ever run advertising campaigns based on gut instinct before, as many small businesses do, this is a revelation, both in terms of how painless it is to set up and in terms of ensuring your advertising really does work.
4: Custom audiences and the Facebook pixel
If you’re not familiar with it already, the Facebook Pixel is a clever piece of code that you add to your website. It will then help you to re-market to warm leads such as previous visitors to your website or even those who have abandoned the checkout process without completing their transaction. This ramps up the conversion rate you achieve from all your website traffic, regardless of its origin, plus it works across a wide variety of scenarios. Whether you want to encourage more candidates to register their resumes on your site, executives to sign up for your training course, potential clients to book a call, or a whole host of other highly desirable business outcomes, the Facebook Pixel will help those goals be achieved.
In case that’s not exciting enough by itself, did I also mention you can use the pixel data to create lookalike audiences based on the attributes of existing website visitors who are completing the actions you’d want your prospects to take? Imagine attracting more of your ideal customers to your business on demand—that’s the power of exploiting the Facebook Pixel to the fullest.
If you’d like to ramp up your social media marketing results further, book a free session with our social media expert now.
