I wanted to write a quick article regarding some changes to the Facebook Ads program. As time goes by, they are increasingly becoming an easier way to dial in your target audience while not wasting any of your ad budget.
Notable changes:
You can now set a lifetime budget for a Facebook Ad campaign (instead of a daily budget). This is valuable to that person who really wants to dial in their ad spend for a campaign. Rather than have to monitor your ads performance and spend daily, you can cap off the spend for the entire campaign. Their system will evenly distribute your ads across the entire campaign.
Facebook started providing social context metrics to its advertisers. These metrics, in a nutshell, will show you your ads performance when presented to a user when the user sees a “friend” that likes the ad listed (vs. just the ad). This is a great start and, as it stands, Facebook allows some very specific targeting for your ads. In the long run, however, the introduction of a targeting method which allows you to target users with a high number of friends could produce some high-performance ads. Imagine being able to only display your ad to users who fit your demographic settings AND have over 500 friends… That would be something.
Yesterday, Facebook added URLs to ads that point off-site. This is great news for Facebook advertisers. What this means is that you’ll get less uninterested clicks by people clicking, going off site, then bouncing. This should result in higher conversion rates for ads as people will know, before clicking the ad, that they will be leaving Facebook to go to your website.
Facebook’s introduction of the “Like” button is also important. I’ve talked about this in past blog articles. It’s “Like” button is spreading throughout the internet virally. How does this effect a Facebook Ad campaign? Facebook uses the information gathered by “Like” button users to deliver more relevant ads by basically incorporating the user’s web browsing history into the equation. Yesterday,Facebook shared some statistics about “Likers”. People who actively use the like button have 2.4 times the amount of friends and are 5.3 times more likely to visit an external website.
Are you a Honda dealer that wants people in your PMA who have visited your OEM or competitor’s website to see your ad? I’m betting you do.
As Facebook Ads gets more dialed in, it will increasingly become more inviting for advertisers.
With Facebook Ads, you can target your ad delivery much more than you can with Google.
Imagine being a Honda dealer able to target your ads this way….
Deliver to users in Los Angeles who:
Are/Are not connected to my Facebook fan page and/or Are/Are not friends of someone who is connected
That are single/married/engaged/in a relationship
between the ages of 25-40 (you can even schedule ad delivery FOR their birthday)
Have a Bachelors degree or higher
are male/female
Have a specific keyword in their profile (Honda, in this case, or maybe even Toyota)
Work at a specific company (or companies)
Speak a specific language
Have 500 or more friends
Have visited Honda’s OEM website and/or your competition’s (whether its brand or dealer competition) website in the last 30 days.*
You can’t do that with Google but you can with Facebook and it’s only going to get MORE targeted.
As the viral incorporation into apps and websites and the migration of users AWAY from Google and TO Facebook continues, the targeting will only get stronger. You’ll be able to maximize your ad performance while minimizing your ad spend in a way that NO OTHER DELIVERY SYSTEM can offer.
(*Note: The bold targeting categories do not currently exist, but they’re coming)
