Andrea Vahl began her Social Media Marketing World presentation by pointing out that Facebook organic reach is steadily declining. However, Facebook is still the cheapest place to put targeted ads. Here is Vahl’s Facebook ad strategy.
This presentation also began with the customer’s journey. In this case, you’re using Facebook to create an audience to find your ideal client. You will move them through your funnel. You begin by showing them a Facebook ad that will guide them to a web page. The web page offers a lead magnet which will get them on to your email list. If everything goes according to plan, you will turn them into paying customers.
Vahl stressed the importance of doing your own testing. You have to see what works for your market and your customers. Conduct Facebook ad comparisons such as which performs better—video ads or image ads.
She provided different examples for generating leads. For example:
Facebook ad to a website to a thank you page. The website should be running Google pixels and Google Analytics. If you are not getting the conversion you want with this setup, you should retarget.
At each stage of the funnel, you have an opportunity to retarget individuals who do not perform as you intended. Each time, you can get in front of them and make your case.
Other examples of Facebook ads include:
- Using chatbots
- Geolocations
- And offline conversions
Sequencing Your Messages
Vahl provided a strategy to improve messaging and advertisements.
First, use video to get your audience interested in your topic. One strategy she specifically uses is creating a miniseries where she releases one tip at a time. She ensures people know where they are within a series of tips. Do this to warm your audience up.
Next use image ads to convert into leads. These ads should point to a lead magnet on your website.
Retarget the sales message only to those individuals who have seen your ads and have gone to the webpage that you directed them to. Naturally, you want to exclude individuals who are customers. This will help you save advertising money.
Finally, she uses a last-chance ad for individuals who did not convert. I noticed that Vahl specifically uses the word “Last Chance” in her advertisements.
Limitations
Vahl also spoke about limitations that small businesses face because of the small amount of traffic that would go to a page or click on an advertisement. Ideally, you want to try to target at least 10,000 people unless you have your targeting audiences dialed-in.
Another limitation you may have is getting the right size for your retargeting audience. Vahl recommends a strategy of combining audiences if you don’t have the reach that you need.
Split Testing
Vahl went into quite a bit of detail on split testing and how to specifically do it. She used different strategies. Some of the split tests were based on different audiences going to a same image, description, and title.
In another case, she uses the same audiences but tests it with different images and a video.
In the end, you want to see what converts the best and keep on improving that.
Another strategy or tactic she recommended was splitting mobile vs. desktop and test how each one of those compared.
Scaling Success
Once your ad starts running, you can start increasing the budget every 2 to 3 days. Naturally, you want to give more money to ads that are performing well.
To replicate success, you can use the post ID of the successful advertisement in new ad campaigns. This will help keep the social proof for that particular ad.
Additionally, you can create look-alike audiences around the audiences that have converted.
Finally, ensure that you are capturing the metrics or conversion rate for each specific step to ensure that you are getting a positive return on your investment. At each step, you should be looking at your copy to ensure that it’s performing as well as it should. This is another place where you can also do A/B testing.
I thought Andrea Vahl gave a highly informative presentation. I walked away with new ideas for creating better Facebook ad campaigns.
Additional Reading
- #SMMW18 – How to Ensure Your Facebook Ads are Profitable Every Time
- #SMMW18: How to Use Facebook Custom Audiences to Get Better Ad Results and Lower Your Costs
- How to Retarget Website Visitors With the Facebook Pixel
Photo by Tim Bennett on Unsplash
