3 Keys to a Successful Facebook Advertising Strategy | Marketing Playbook 2021

When you’re managing a new business, running ads on Facebook could be a little overwhelming.

You might have the tendency to focus on implementing new Facebook advertising strategies while forgetting the fundamentals of digital marketing. 

So, I’m here to remind you three key principles you need to keep in mind when launching a Facebook Ads campaign. 

Mobile First

Mobile-first refers to content created and designed specifically for users on their mobile or tablet devices. 

Did you know that 88% of users access Facebook on a mobile device? 

Ad creatives built explicitly with portability drive better campaign performance. This is why it’s vital to optimize your Facebook campaigns while keeping this concept in mind. 

According to a case study for Chocomel, various formats of video ads performed better on mobile devices. 

Their retention rate among audiences was 2.5x much higher than those of ads from TV or desktop commercials.

Hence, it’s not advisable to resize your content from big screens into smaller screens and run the same video size on all device types.

According to another study by LiftOff, prioritizing content creation on mobile can drive up to 46% lift on brand recall. 

They figured out that the most effective and cost-efficient way is to build ad creatives that would fit the customers’ journey while users are on their phone. Then, implementing larger-sized creatives on desktop and TV placement can create a coherent brand recall. 

To wrap this up, here’s a quote from Ashley Vinson–Creative Agency Partner at Facebook–cementing the need for different content across different devices:

“Trying to use content created for a different medium and to use that same medium content to put it on a mobile phone that caters to a different context for users will not be as effective as it could be.”

Multiple Creatives

Multiple creatives refers to the creation of ads with different messaging and formats. 

It’s a common practice in online advertising, but some traditional companies are still used to running one ad creative during a campaign. The downside? They miss the opportunity to identify the best tone and creative elements that resonate among their audience. 

Running multiple ads on Facebook would improve your performance in the long run. You get to leverage their algorithm to deliver the right ads to the right person. 

After all, people want to consume content that’s relevant to them.

Another factor to consider is that user behavior varies throughout the day. 

As a marketer, you need to deliver the right message at the right time. 

Say, in the morning, one person sees an ad about the benefits of your product. 

During that time, he’s only browsing while eating his breakfast. He doesn’t learn more about your brand. 

In the afternoon, the same person sees another one of your ads that highlights a Buy 1, Take 1 promotion. It’s a compelling offer, and together with his exposure to your first ad in the morning, it drives him to browse your products and eventually make a purchase. 

This scenario is a perfect example of how running multiple Facebook ad variations can improve leads flows in your business.

Measurement Alignment

Measure alignment is the act of using non-proxy KPIs to measure success and align creative goals. 

Before we go through these non-proxy KPIs, let’s first clear proxy KPIs (aka vanity metrics) off the table. They are misleading indicators of a campaign’s results. 

Watch out for these three vanity metrics as they may mislead you of your campaign’s performance:

1. Likes and Reach

Here’s a secret: It’s easy to buy Likes, Follows and other Facebook reactions from a service provider like Fiverr–all for the sake of social proof.

But even if you gain many followers through this method, your engagement will eventually fall as these newfound audiences are not actually interested in your products.

Having Likes and Followers as your KPI won’t give you a better understanding of how you can improve your campaign and your customer journey.

2. Click-through Rate

Click-through-rates (CTR) can mean various things on Facebook Ads. A click could lead to your Facebook page, your landing page, or even the rest of your caption when they click on the “See More” button. 

This is why you shouldn’t rely solely on the CTR from Facebook’s reports. It’s best to compare the number of clicks to your Google Analytics data to see the actual website traffic generated from your ads. 

3. Relevance Score

Relevance score determines if your ads are delivered to the right audience. 

It also affects the advertising costs and bidding on your ads. 

However, you shouldn’t let this serve as your basis to change your copy or creatives. 

Instead, you need to revisit your target audience and develop a more targeted approach for your next campaign. 

Let’s explore the three metrics that are worth tracking.

1. Total Conversions or Results

Have you mapped out the journey of a user after they viewed your Facebook ad?

If not, you might end up picking a random metric (like the proxy KPIs above) to evaluate your campaign’s performance. 

Otherwise, you’re better off measuring the number of purchases in the context of your CTR. It shows the total number of users who bought your offer after clicking your Facebook ad. 

From here, you might encounter another issue: your campaign isn’t performing well despite a higher-than-average CTR. That’s your cue to check for roadblocks in your customer process flow.

If you aren’t generating your target sales number, you have two factors to consider:

• Your prospect is taking some time before making a purchase decision.
• Your checkout process has friction, which is driving away potential customers.

For example, Leon Cycle Australia once faced this problem: users were initiating checkout but not completing their purchase. 

Our first step was to check the Facebook ad creatives. The ads were performing well in terms of CTR and relevancy among our target audience. 

Next, we tested our product bundle’s add-to-cart process and found no issues in this part. 

Finally, the final checkout and payment process were running well. 

So, how did we identify the problem?

We thought it’s better to hear feedback from those prospecting audiences by calling them and conducting a short survey. 

Turns out that the featured product bundle–an off-road kit–was an essential item for them to unlock the restriction speed on their e-bikes. It’s an ultimate goal for their everyday use, which was why these audiences took more time to decide on whether or not to purchase the bundle. 

2. Frequency

If you keep showing the same ad to people, they’ll get bored. They might even ignore your ad creatives as banner blindness creeps in. 

AdEspresso found that as soon as the frequency of ads went up, users left angry comments on the ad posts and even “insulted the advertiser.”

You’ll also end up hurting your relevance score, as the annoyed users submit feedback to Facebook suggesting that the ad is not interesting. 

Additionally, Frequency will give you an idea of how broad or specific your target area or audiences are. 

Sometimes, when your Frequency is three or above, it’s a sign that you need to remove some filters and broaden your audience reach. You may also lower the ad set’s allotted budget so it will just serve the ad below the ad fatigue limit. 

Do take note that there’s no fixed number for the upper frequency cap. It depends on your product, ad campaign type, and industry. Generally though, you can expect your target audience to get overwhelmed after seeing the same ad from three to four times. 

3. Cost per Acquisition (CPA) and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

The money you spend and the money you make guide your future Facebook advertising strategies. Your return on ad spend (ROAS) gives an idea on how your campaigns are generating profit while your cost per acquisition (CPA) shows how cost-efficient your ad efforts are. 

With these metrics, you can find out your most and least effective campaigns, which can help you better reallocate your budget. 

After all, revenue alone isn’t reliable to measure the overall success of your ad campaigns. You’ll need to use your spending as a benchmark to determine how well your ads are performing. 

Unlocking Success with Your Facebook Ad Campaign

Facebook Ads can be overwhelming when you’re running your first campaign. You might get frustrated about producing results in the first few weeks of testing copies, creatives, and target audiences. 

You might also end up measuring vanity metrics just to prove the campaign is working. It’s a typical response, but if you want to improve your skills and data analysis, you need to go beyond. The most important metrics will show if you’re delivering profitable sales and good lead flows in your business. 

Don’t take the easy route focusing on just likes and followers. Keep these three foundations in mind when implementing your Facebook Advertising Strategies.

Do you need help in improving your campaigns? Book a free audit and consultation with bdmercado.com. We’ll help you navigate digital advertising and curate the best marketing efforts for your business.