Last week we talked about the Do’s and Don’ts of Facebook for Business and one of the important things that you should do as a business is Facebook Advertising.
Facebook advertising has become more popular than other forms of advertising like Google Ads and other forms of traditional web advertising that might bring you a higher return on investment.
With over 2 billion users on Facebook it’s easy to figure out why. Facebook ads appear right in a user’s daily news feed or on the right column of Facebook when using desktop and as a platform built for targeting this has become many businesses go to when it comes to reaching their target audience and it’s easy for you to get started too!
But do not forget that Facebook is great for brand awareness but other digital marketing tools have a much better return on investment!
There are several different ad types for your posts on Facebook namely:
- Sponsored Ads
These types of Ads allow you full creative control as a Marketer because you have full control over the content within the ad that you create and post and you can use Facebook targeting to pick and choose the right audience for your content whether you are creating a standard ad (on the right hand side) or page post ad(promoted organic page post)
- Sponsored Post or Post Ad
These are normal post on a page that you can pay to boost as an ad, these can include any type of content from discussing your company history to simply sharing an interesting tid bit about your company
- Promoted Posts
These are similar to Post Ads in that they originate as a piece of content but are instead bought using the Promote Page tool and not the Ad Manager
Note: The pricing structure is different, with Promoted Posts, you pay a flat fee to reach a given number of users. Eg) $5 for 2k – 5k reach For Sponsored Stories, Page Post Ads and other Facebook ad types, as an advertiser you pay per impression or per click
Additionally promoted posts are only shown to existing fans of the page and friends of fans of the page but sponsored ads on the other hand are shown to general Facebook users chosen through targeting.
- Sponsored Stories
Sponsored stories are content created by the consumer’s interaction with a brand. Sponsored stories function similarly to organic stories: only the user’s Facebook friends can see the ad.
This ad type is based on user activity. Advertisers simply pay to highlight an action that users have already taken on the social network or within a Facebook-connected app. That action is shown to a user’s friends, either in the sidebar or in News Feed. Sponsored Stories cannot be used to reach an audience that is not connected to the page or app through a friend.
These types of ads are important because although they don’t generally translate into more likes they are key for getting your content in front of people that are or have already shown interest in your brand, are already on their buyers journey and more importantly are ready to complete a purchase.
Other types of Facebook ads include Carousel Ads which allow advertisers to include 3-5 images or video in a single unit and Canvas ads which are full screen mobile optimized ads featuring an interactive range of images, videos, text and links.
Although Facebook has billions of users, New Facebook algorithms now put preference on family and friends interaction which means as a business even if you have thousands of followers organic reach just isn’t as high as it used to be and Facebook Ads are instrumental in getting your brand in front of the right users at the right time.
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