Boosting Facebook posts is a great feature. It’s perfect for companies young and new to the advertising game. If you only want to advertise every once in a blue moon, it can help you accomplish your goals. However, if you’re starting to get the feeling you’d like more out of your advertising options, you’re ready to stop boosting your posts and move to Facebook’s Ads Manager.
Facebook Ads Manager is the first step in making social media advertising an intentional part of your advertising strategy. Facebook’s Ads Manager is a robust tool that provides more formats, more insights, and better targeting. The best part? It’s free to use. Facebook’s Ads Manager isn’t a program you have to buy (and it doesn’t require a minimum daily ad spend), so you can level up your advertising without leveling up your budget.
Here’s how to start working in it.
Setting Up Business Manager in 3 Simple Steps
1. Create a Facebook Business Account
Business Manager is the prerequisite to setting up your Ads Manager account. By visiting business.facebook.com, you’ll be prompted to set up your Business account where you can manage who has access, view new analytics, set up Facebook pixel (for tracking Facebook and Instagram users who visit your website), and more.
2. Connect Your Facebook Page to Your Business Account
Once you’ve filled out the details needed to set up a Business Manager Account, you’ll be able to access your new Business Manager home page. From that homepage, scroll down until you see the option to “Add Page.” If you're the owner of your Facebook company page, adding a page will be a breeze. As you begin to type in your company’s name, it should auto-populate the page so you can choose to add it. As an owner, the connection you request should be granted automatically, so you won’t have to wait for ownership permission. If you’re not the business owner, though, you’ll need to request access, and the owner or admin of the account will receive a Facebook notification to approve your request.
3. Add A New Ad Account for Your Business
Once approved, you’ll land back at the Business Manager homepage. Scroll down and click the option to “Add Ad Account” and then “Create Ad Account.” Facebook will ask a few details about your company, and voila, you’ll have your Ads Manager account set up as well.
Need help navigating the process? Check out our video below.
Creating Facebook Ads Using Ads Manager in 4 Simple Steps
Now to the fun stuff.
1. Access Your Facebook Ads Manager
Start by going back to your Business Manager homepage (business.facebook.com). It should look a little different now that you have your business and ad account set up. Select the top account in blue that’s listed under “Ad Accounts” to open up your Ads Manager. You can also access Ads Manager from Facebook on your desktop computer by clicking the blue arrow in the top right corner that reads “Manage Ads.”
2. Choose an Objective for Your Facebook Ad
To get started, click the big green “Create” button. This action will generate a list of objectives from which you can pick. When you hover over each option, Facebook will provide a brief description of what each ad objective is. Here’s what we recommend choosing:
Awareness
Always opt for Brand Awareness over reach. Brand Awareness measures reach, but it also measures Ad Recall Lift. Ad Recall Lift is when users not only see your ad but also remember seeing your ad approximately two days later. Facebook measures this either by polling users to see if they recall your brand or by checking to see if they’ve engaged with your company on Facebook or Instagram since seeing your ad. By choosing the Brand Awareness objective, you’re telling Facebook to show your ad to individuals who will likely remember your company instead of just trying to show your ad to as many people as possible.
Consideration
Consideration objectives try to catch users when they need more information before making a conversion but are already at least aware of your company. Consideration ads are formatted to give enough push to encourage users to want to convert. When choosing a consideration objective, pick which action is going to be most valuable to your company. An ad can’t do everything. Identify which ad objective is a step that your audience would likely take and is relevant to you. Consider some of these examples.
If you want your ad to start conversations and prompt appointment requests, select “Messages.”
Want to send people to your website? Choose “Traffic.”
Want them to watch your latest video talking about your new products or projects? Pick “Video Views.”
Conversion
If you’re ahead of the game with a pixel installed and Facebook catalog set up, any of the conversion objectives are available. At the very least, we recommend setting up pixel so you can track landing pages if they visit your website. Pixel is a little website code that you can place on your website that will allow you to run advertisements that target users who have visited your site. Learn how to do that here. If you’re not ready to install Pixel, focus on mini-conversion goals listed under the consideration objectives like “Messages.”
3. Identify your Audience and Budget
Once you've set your ad objective, Facebook will prompt you to identify your audience. It’s recommended to at least narrow your audience by key demographics like age, location, and interests to increase the likelihood that your ads will show to your preferred audience. (Pro tip: use Facebook Business Manager’s Audience Insights for creating targeted audiences.) You’ll then add your budget and any other required delivery details (e.g., scheduling).
4. Create Your Ad
Here’s where we encourage you to go the extra step. A single text ad with a single accompanying image is pretty standard (so standard that it’s easy for it to get passed up in the Facebook news feed). To give your audience more interesting, engaging formats, we recommend the following ad types:
- Video: show a short video about your company’s products or services
- Carousel: add multiple images and descriptions that give audiences information to flip through
- Offers: provide deals that will prompt users to save the discount and redeem it at your store
- Dynamic Creative: upload multiple images, descriptions, and headlines for Facebook to mix and match to create ads for you
*Offers and Dynamic Creative are only available if you choose the Traffic and Conversion objectives.
Input your images or video, add a short description, and you’re good to go. Don’t worry; Facebook will prompt you to fill out any content areas and provide guidelines for sizing, text length, and calls to action. Then, press “Publish.” Here’s a walkthrough for this process.
Then, press “Publish.”
Here’s a walkthrough for this process.
Just like that, you’re leveling up your advertising game.
If you want to do even more with your advertising strategy, feel free to reach out to us at info@mostlyserious.io!