Facebook Ads: Best Practices For Optimizing Your Ads
Reading Time: ~3 Mins
There is no single perfect strategy to get successful results in Facebook Ads, but there are some industry best practices. Here are some tips that you can apply today with no prior experience in Facebook Ads to start getting better results.
Keep It Simple
Many marketers who use Facebook Ads believe that when creating their account structure, they need to make it super detailed and granular in order to meet all their needs. They will create a campaign for every new product/service they are promoting or a new ad set for every segment of their target audience. This kind of excessive account structuring limits the scalability of your ads account.
In reality, it is almost always better to keep your account structure as simple as possible in order to give Facebook a chance to get up and stretch its legs when looking for your ideal target audience:
Create a single campaign for each marketing objective you wish to achieve. I.e. one Web Conversions campaign for all your web conversions, such as purchases.
Create ad sets only if it is essential for your business. DO NOT create a new ad set for every segment of your target audience (Consolidate ad sets instead).
Use Audience Exclusions to make Ad sets mutually exclusive from each other to avoid as much overlap as possible.
Start small. Start with 2-3 ads per set. Don’t create too many ads in each ad set if your budget doesn’t support it.
Always Be Testing
You don’t want to miss out on getting great results because you didn’t test new ad copy or creative. Facebook is a robust platform with powerful machine learning capabilities that we can utilize in getting the best results for us. Some of the best ways to test your ads on Facebook Ads are:
Using the A/B testing feature.
Create controlled tests where you observe changes in one variable at a time (ie. ad copy, creative, scheduling, etc.).
Use Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO)
To see which ad sets in a campaign are most successful and allocate budget accordingly.
Add different text options in the Ad Creation menu.
These features allow Facebook to do the heavy lifting for us and determine which pieces of ad copy, creative, etc, and combinations of each, are most likely to generate results.
Use The Best Data Available
The way we consistently reproduce ad content that gets results is by using data to influence our content design. More data is always better when it comes to making marketing decisions. But oftentimes we only have access to what we’ve got. What are examples of good data sources we can use to influence our decisions?
Facebook Conversion Data
Google Analytics Audience Overviews (Geographics, Demographics, and Interests)
Current existing sales or leads data (who has made purchases or got in touch with you?)
Data from other platforms you are using (Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, etc.)
Whenever we see parallels between our data sources, we can start to see the full picture of who our ideal target is. Don’t limit yourself to what you have access to when making data driven decisions about your marketing strategy.
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Related: Facebook’s Algorithm and How to Increase your Organic Reach
