The Secret To Running Successful Facebook Ads

When it comes to running successful Facebook Ads, half the battle is just getting started.

The other half is having a tested funnel that you have optimized and understand.

This is what we will cover in today's blog post, how to know when you have optimized your funnel to the point where you can start your Facebook ad campaign.

What Types Of Facebook Ad Campaigns Can I Run

There are 5 essential ad campaigns that you can run for your Facebook ads.

• Evergreen - We will cover evergreen ads in this post.

• DABA - These are Facebook ads based on the products in your catalog.

• Dynamic Ads - Facebook uses its signal data to show Facebook ads to those who are in the market to buy your product. You can also use Dynamic ads for your Abandon Cart Facebook ads.

• Retargeting ads - You can find my post on retargeting ads here.

• Remarketing ads - My last post was on how to set up remarketing ads, feel free to read that post.

How Do I Know When I'm Ready For Facebook Ads?

Facebook ads are an excellent way to scale your business. They are also a great way to lose a lot of money if you don't know what you are doing.

Before starting your first Facebook ad campaign there are 3 deciding factors to look at before launching your first ad campaign.

• Revenue

• New Vs Returning

• MER

Revenue - Cash On Hand Is Important

Revenue is driven by 3 metrics.

Traffic X CR X AOV = Revenue

Is your funnel driving enough traffic to hit your revenue goals?

If you are looking to scale be sure to know the revenue number you need to hit.

From there you should be able to work backward and find the additional traffic you need to get to your scaled revenue number.

Don't Confuse Returning Traffic For New Traffic

Returning visitors are more familiar with your brand. They may have looked at a product or two. They may also know your mission statement.

New visitors on the other hand will not behave in the same way as your returning visitors.

You should expect your returning customers to convert at a higher rate and have a different AOV number.

Don't confuse the two types of traffic. Before launching your Facebook ad campaign be sure that the revenue you are tracking is coming from your new visitors.

MER - Marketing Efficiency Rating

This metric gained popularity after the change in Facebook ad tracking in June of 2021 and has gained in popularity over time.

Total Revenue / Working Spend = MER

Total revenue is the total revenue across the entire business for that day, week, or month.

Working spend is the total marketing ad budget that is variable.

Examples of working spend are, Facebook, AdWords, Tik Tok, and Snapchat ad spend. Also, direct mail, Influencer, PR, and SEO ad budget can and should be included.

What should not be included is software, employee, and contractor costs to set up and run those channels.

Knowing your MER number is important to understanding your efficiency with your spend.

If you have a good MER 2.5-4, then start Facebook ads and see a decline in efficiency this could be a sign that your Facebook ads are not performing.

On the other hand, if you see an increase in efficiency but don't see that tied to any particular funnel you know that indirectly the spend on your Facebook ads is driving performance.

If you are already running Facebook ads or are about to start, keep an eye on this number.

If it increases with ad spend you may have an undiscovered funnel on your hands that you need to discover.

Great Show Me An Example Of A Funnel I Can Test Right Now!

Looking for a funnel you can start creating today? Here are 3 evergreen funnel ideas to help you get started.

The funnels below are not guarantees of success, but rather should serve as a launching board for your own funnel-building efforts.

• Collection based funnel

• The landing page or product launch funnel

• The Influencer Funnel

Scale Your Collection Funnel

If you are an eCommerce business you most likely already have a collection page.

This funnel is for you if you have a significant amount of traffic that is already hitting your collection page.

If you aren't currently running Facebook ads. This traffic probably is coming from your organic traffic sources or PR hits.

Traffic source - As discussed make sure that your traffic source is based on new traffic.

Collection page - If you are using Shopify this is just your normal collection page with your best sellers.

Retargeting - For those who have viewed your Facebook ads. You can retarget these users. Do this with a view content custom audience.

Don't know how to create a custom audience we cover that in this blog post.

For ad creative, you can use a carousel ad to show a collection of your products or another ad format to convey the width of your selection.

View content emails/SMS can be a high ROI campaign to run.

Product page - Your product page should have all the details necessary to convert your customers. Ratings, reviews, product specs, price, etc.

Retargeting ad abandon cart - For those who abandon their cart you can create a dynamic Facebook ads campaign that shares the product the potential visitor abandoned.

In the same way, you should also send abandon cart emails/SMS's.

Thank you page - A very important page. Your customer is on a high after purchasing from you and excited to receive their purchase.

Share a tracking ID, but also offer a discount off a complimentary or upsell item to increase AOV.

Email list for follow-up - One of the most opened emails is the confirmation email. Add in a discount or collection of upsell products in addition to your order confirmation details.

Then add these new customers to your welcome flow.

Roadblock - Properly Tracking Conversion Rate Between Steps

When looking to measure traffic to your collection page it can be very difficult to determine the success of your funnel.

This is because the traffic to your product page may never have hit your collection page.

This could be because the product is included in multiple collections, the visitor got to your product page via Instagram or PR hit.

This can throw off your conversion rate calculation as not every conversion from your product page came from your collection page.

The first solution to this problem is to look at your MER and determine how efficient you are.

The second solution is to look at Shopify reports (Or whatever reporting platform you are using.)

If you are using Shopify look at the online store conversion over time report.

This will give you a high-level overview of your conversion rate. Watch the conversion rate over time as you ramp up future Facebook advertising campaigns to your collection page.

Scale Your Revenue With A Unique Landing Page

Do you have a product that you are releasing soon? A dedicated landing page for this effort can help scale the results you see from this effort.

Traffic sources - These include organic sources, Facebook ads, as well as your email and SMS list.

Landing Page - This page should be different than your product description page for this product.

Retargeting Ad - For new visitors who don't go to the product page, retarget these visitors with video ads or carousel ad with shots of your product.

Follow-Up Emails/SMS - If subscribers to your email/SMS list don't purchase you can create a segment of users who opened/clicked your email/SMS but did not purchase.

Once you have this segment you can send a follow-up with additional facts or details about the product.

PDP page - This is your product description page. If you have pre-sold or given your product to influencers, be sure to add some reviews and UGC to this page.

Checkout page - Provide symbols of credibility like Visa, Mastercard, if you are a part of an organization show that logo.

Most importantly, make sure the process is smooth with zero pop-ups and distractions.

View Content & Abandon Cart - Every step along the way if the potential customer does not purchase and leaves be sure you are following up.

Just be sure that someone who receives an abandoned cart is not also receiving a view content email.

Follow Up - Don't forget to add all new purchasers to your general email list or welcome flow.

Lookalikes - Depending on how long your product launch is and your volume of customers you can create lookalikes of your purchasers to drive traffic to your landing page.

If you have never created a lookalike on Facebook you can read our Facebook ads guide on how to create lookalikes.

Roadblock - Product To Customer Disconnect

If you've launched a product before you know the importance of getting the product market fit right.

One way to solve this problem is to survey existing buyers. Find out why they bought from you and their expectation for your products.

Create Your Own Army Of Marketers With An Influencer Focused Funnel

Storytelling and authenticity are becoming driving factors in making your Facebook ads work.

Influencers can help you tell your story and connect authentically with your target audience.

Traffic source - Try posting organically as well as sending out email/SMS to see if there is interest.

Landing page - Explain the benefits and mission of your company and why they should join your program.

Thank you page - A nice touch here is to add a personalized video from you or the community manager.

This should welcome your new members to your community and instruct them on how to sign the T&C and how to track their sales.

Facebook retargeting ad - Have your existing influencers record video ads that you can compile into a big testimonial and use to retarget potential influencers.

Email/SMS follow-up / T&C - Once an influencer joins don't forget to add them to your influencer list and provide them with your Terms and Conditions.

Roadblocks - Gifting or paid influencers

The debate with influencers is whether you should pay or gift them.

A common solution is to have different requirements for your influencers.

Your top-tier influencers are paid, have x followers, and have content requirements.

These influencers typically have access to promotions ahead of time, so they can prepare content and can form the backbone of your community.

All other influencers can be gifted and receive your standard commission for a sale.

Get Started With Facebook Advertising

Once you have your funnel determined the first step in creating your Facebook ads is to create your Facebook Ads Manager account.

You can do this by going to www.facebook.com/ads/manage.

The Facebook ads manager is a free tool provided within the Facebook business manager... also free.

As a rule of thumb, most of the tools Facebook provides you are free. The Facebook ads themselves unfortunately are not free.

Once you've set up your Facebook business manager you will see a page like the one below.

Now that you have your Ads Manager account set up, it's time to create a new Facebook ad campaign.

Setting Up Your The Rest Of Your Facebook Ad Account

Before you can run your first ad you will need to set up the 4 key pieces of the Facebook ads manager.

• Create a new ad account, if you don't have one.

• Create your Facebook pixel and install it.

• Connect your Facebook Business Page (Not your personal Facebook page) & Instagram account.

• Add in billing info, this connects your CC to your ad account spend.

To do this you can go to the business settings within the Facebook ads manager. You can also read our post on getting started with a new Facebook ads manager.

Facebook Ad: Create Your First Facebook Ad

Now that your Facebook ad account has been set up. The next step is to run and create Facebook ads.

Choose Your Facebook Campaign Objective

Our Facebook advertising strategy will be focused on the evergreen Facebook ad campaign to our collection page.

To get started, click on the "Campaigns" tab in the Ads Manager and then click on the green "Create" button.

On the next screen, you will see 6 ad objectives. Select the sales campaign objective.

We will start with the sales objective and may change campaign objectives in the future to traffic if we don't see success.

Why?

Facebook requires that ad sets see 50 conversions a week. If we don't see 50 conversions, we may need to move higher up the funnel and target a different campaign objective, like traffic. This should help Facebook optimize our traffic. More on this later.

If you would like an overview of the campaign objectives that are available to you. You can read our blog post on the 6 ad objectives that Facebook provides you.

Select your Target Audience Within Your Facebook Ad Set

Once you have selected from the list of campaign objectives, you will then be taken to the "Ad Set" level where you will need to set up your Facebook target audience.

Determining your target audience is an important part of showing your Facebook ads to the right Facebook user.

Choose your conversion event, you can start with purchase.

Above we discussed the importance of getting to 50 conversions for Facebook to optimize your ad set.

The events manager can be found within the Facebook ads manager or with the link above.

If you are seeing less than 50 conversion events in a week consider first changing your conversion event to higher up the funnel to something like add to cart, before changing your ad campaign's objective.

On a side note having multiple ad sets can make scaling harder, according to Facebook, as each of these ad sets will need to hit 50 conversions.

Next, select the daily budget that will get you to your 50 conversions.

Choose your target audience.

Finally, select your ad placement.

If you want more control you can choose manual and select your ad platform. Maybe you don't want to run messenger ads or on the audience network.

You can even choose specific ad placements.

Setting up your ad set is important, if you get the target audience wrong you may see the conversion rates in your funnel decrease.

Create Facebook Ads At the Ad Level

The final step in creating your Facebook ads is to add in the actual ad creative that will be displayed.

First, ensure that you have the correct Facebook page and Instagram account connected.

If you have more than one Facebook page or Instagram account that you manage, Facebook may show that Facebook page or account by default instead of the one you want.

There are many different types of ad formats you can choose from

• Carousel Ads

• Facebook Video Ads

• Single Image Ad

• Collection ads

• Dynamic Ad

• Slideshow ads

If you are looking for ad specs on a particular ad format you can visit the Facebook ads guide. This page has all the ad formats that Facebook offers along with the Facebook ad specs for each ad format.

An easy way to get started, if you are new to Facebook ads, is to use an existing post.

Creating Facebook ads can be challenging especially if you are just getting started and don't know how to message your audience.

Choosing an existing post for your first Facebook ads is a great shortcut to get around this challenge.

If you are following our steps on choosing a successful funnel to run Facebook ads to, then you may have discovered that your traffic is coming from organic posts, influencer posts, PR hits, or SEO.

If it's yours, "Use existing post".

If it's an influencer get access to their Instagram or Facebook account and use that post.

If it's a PR hit or SEO, experiment with an organic post that uses similar headlines before running Facebook ads.

You can of course create ads from scratch in ads manager. Just know that this may cost you more, as you discover the appropriate messaging.

If you create your own ad you will need to add in ad creative and destination URL.

Finally, don't forget to select your Facebook pixel to track your results.

Once you have everything set up hit publish. The next step is to track the results of your Facebook advertising campaign.

Track Everything In The Facebook Ads Manager

Your Facebook ads are live, you can now use the Facebook ads manager to track the results of your Facebook ad campaigns.

As a reminder, you can get to the Facebook ads manager by visiting this page: https://business.facebook.com/adsmanager/manage

Below are two helpful tips for tracking the results of your Facebook ads campaign in the ads manager.

First, on the right side of your ads manager, you will find Performance, Breakdown, and Report drop-downs.

The performance drop-down allows you to see different columns related to your ad campaign metrics. One could show your video engagement metrics the other your conversion metrics.

The breakdown drop-down allows you to sort your columns. Want to see a breakdown of your video engagement by device, placement, Facebook vs Instagram?

The breakdown drop-down helps you see this data.

Reports, this drop-down allows you to take the current metrics being displayed in your Facebook ads manager and export them to CSV. For those more skilled at pivot tables than I am. Have at it.

Secondly, there are 4 factors to any Facebook ad.

• Copy - Are you using the right messaging for your target customer?

• Ad creative - Is the image attention-grabbing?

• Product - Is your product something people want and at this price?

• Targeting - Are you targeting the correct audiences?

When should you change your ad?

Act on these metrics if your Facebook ad campaign is hitting 50 conversions a week, but you are not hitting your revenue goal and are seeing a drop-off in MER.

Analyzing the data found in the Facebook ads manager is important to your Facebook ads success. So don't be afraid to experiment with the columns and breakdown drop-down to find the right traffic for your funnel.

Get Started With Facebook Ads Today

The best way to learn how Facebook Ads can help you is to simply jump in and start testing. Experiment with different ad types and targeting options, and see what works best for your business.

If you're not sure where to start, check out our guide to launching your first Facebook ads. And if you need some help determining if you should start running Facebook ads, feel free to reach out.

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