A Facebook Ad campaign can attract new customers, boost sales, and increase brand awareness.

Wondering how to create an ad campaign?

You’re in the right place.

This post will walk you through 7 steps to create a Facebook Ad campaign. You’ll leave this post with a set of tools to create your own campaign and meet your marketing goals.

Sound good?

Before getting started, I’ll go over what a Facebook Ad campaign is and why they can help your business.

If you already know what Facebook Ad campaigns are, you can jump ahead to our 7 step checklist.

 

What is a Facebook Ad Campaign?

A Facebook Ad campaign is a type of paid per click (PPC) advertising. It helps your business drive sales and reach out to your audience on their Facebook feed.

Facebook Ads are quite popular. In fact, it’s the number 1 type of social media PPC, with 72% of marketers using Facebook Ads.

So… are they worth it?

Absolutely. Facebook Ads stand out from other PPC because of its data acquisition. To put it simply, Facebook is good at using data to attract new users to your business. There are a ton of ways to choose who you want to target and when.

Before you set up a Facebook Ad campaign, you should answer the following 3 questions:

 

1 – What is your end goal?

In other words, what is your objective?

You can use the marketing funnel to help you decide the end goal of your campaign. For example, if your goal is to increase email subscribers, then your objective might be lead generation.

2 – Who is your target audience?

Consider your audience’s demographics, interests, and behaviors. What type of ad will attract their attention and why?

3 – What is your budget?

Your budget helps determine when your Facebook Ads run and to whom. These factors contribute to your marketing objective and goals.

Thus, your budget is important (but you probably already know that).

On another note, PPC ads have a negative stereotype about expenses. Many businesses stay away from PPC because they’re afraid of costs.

PPC ads can be expensive… if you don’t customize your budget.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say you own a local business with open hours from 6am – 2pm. You can allocate your budget to run your ads during these hours—this strategy saves money and optimizes your ads.

So, once you’ve answered the questions above, you’ll be ready to build a Facebook Ad campaign.

 

 

How to Set Up a Facebook Ad Campaign in 7 Steps

Before you set up a Facebook Ad campaign, you’ll need access to your Facebook Ads manager—this can be found here.

Facebook Ads Manager is the hub to create and track your ads. Once your account is set up, click on the create button at the top left to get started.

 

Read each step, or jump to a step below:

1. Choose an Objective
2. Create a Name
3. Target Your Audience
4. Place Your Ads
5. Set Your Budget
6. Create Your Ads
7. Track Your Ads

 

1. Choose an Objective

Facebook divides marketing objectives into three stages—awareness, consideration, and conversion.

Your marketing objective will customize your Facebook Ads. If you choose brand awareness, Facebook will offer more options tailored to your brand than if you chose engagement.

You can always create another Facebook Ad campaign using a different objective. On that note, make sure you’re clear about your ad goals.

 

2. Create a Name

You don’t have to spend a lot of time creating a campaign name. A good practice is to choose a name along the lines of your marketing objective. You can also use the name of your business.

Notice the two options following your campaign name…What do they mean?

Create A/B Test

A/B testing splits your ads into two different campaigns. Each campaign uses different ad features to determine what your users like best. Examples of ad features are ad placement, audience variables, or ad creation.

I suggest only testing one feature at a time. This way, you’ll get more accurate results than if you test a bunch of features at once.
Overall, A/B testing is a data-driven strategy to optimize your campaign. It can be especially useful if you don’t have much data about your users yet.

Campaign Budget Optimization

If you click yes to this option, Facebook will automatically distribute your campaign budget to your most click-worthy ads.
This is a good option if you’re new to Facebook Ads and aren’t sure what works best.

 

3. Target Your Audience

Your audience is one of the most important, if not, the most important part of your campaign.

Always keep your audience in mind throughout this process—they determine how well you’ll meet your goals.

First, choose where you want to drive traffic.

If you’re not sure, analyze your website data. Take note of how visitors find your website and whether they use a desktop or phone.

In general, 94% of Facebook Ad revenue is through a mobile device.

You can be as specific or general as you want with demographics. For example, if you’re a local business, you can choose a certain city or region to target.

Detailed targeting is a notable feature of Facebook Ad campaigns.

Does your business sell running shoes? You can target users who have an interest in running or hiking. Or, maybe you own a podcast. In that case, you can target users who commute to work under behaviors.

This feature is beneficial for small businesses who sell a small range of products—you can target niche-specific users.

 

Another great feature about Facebook Ads is its Lookalike Audience option. When you create a lookalike audience, Facebook will build a list of users similar to your customers. This reaches out to new people who will most likely interact with your ads and increase your engagement.

On another note, you’ve probably noticed these metrics on the right-side toolbar. As you create your audience, Facebook predicts your potential reach and link clicks.

Notice how I said potential. This data isn’t set in stone, but an estimate. Although it isn’t exact, it’s still worth checking on as you build your audience.

4. Place Your Ads

Your ad placement is like reading a magazine. Some ads in a magazine catch your eye, and others completely miss your attention. Creating your ads is one part of the process—to make sure they’re seen is the other.

Where on Facebook will your ads catch a user’s eye?

There are two options regarding ad placement.

Automatic placements

This option lets you sit back and relax while Facebook distributes your budget to your most optimized placements. This is a good option for first-time Facebook Ad users.

Manual placements

You can also choose where your ads are placed. They offer a variety of placement options, like Facebook’s newsfeed, stories, and articles. I recommend this option if you have useful data about your ads, or if you have the budget to test different placements.

5. Set Your Budget

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, your ad budget isn’t set in stone. There are many ways to optimize your spending.
If you’re concerned about your budget, take a look at my other post about other small businesses who’ve successfully used PPC ads.

These options might be overwhelming at first, so I’ll go over each one.

Optimization for Ad delivery

This option is asking where you’d like to deliver your ads. Link clicks, for example, would deliver your ads to users who are most likely to click on your link.

Cost control

Cost control keeps your cost per action (CPA) in line. You pay for a CPA when a user engages with your Facebook Ad. This way, you’re only spending money on results.
On that note, Facebook can automate your cost control or you can do it yourself. Unless you’re an experienced advertiser, I’d suggest allowing Facebook to do this process for you.

Daily budget

A daily budget puts a cap on your daily spending. This ensures you only spend a certain amount of money per day.

On the other hand, Facebook will aim to spend your max budget every day, no matter what your performance is. This option also runs your ads continuously—there’s no start and end date.

Daily budgets are beneficial if…

• Your ads are continuous
• You plan to change your daily budget regularly
• You want to maximize your ads on a daily basis

Lifetime budget

This option allows you to set a start and end date, so your ads will only run during a set time period. Your spending will also scale alongside your ad schedule.

For example, you can set your ads to run from October 3rd-December 3rd. You can also pick a time of day to run your ads, like 12pm-6pm.

Lifetime budgets are beneficial if…

• You want a set schedule
• You have a set budget

Your data can help you choose the best budget options for your business.

For example, if you achieve your highest sales during October, a lifetime budget might be best to run ads during October.

Or, if you own a 24/7 eCommerce site, a daily budget can help you run continuous ads and regulate daily spending.

6. Create Your Ads

So you’ve targeted your audience, placed your ads, and set your budget… but will your ads convert?

Your Facebook Ad images and copy should get your reader’s attention. What makes you different? Why should they buy from you?

Before you create your ad, connect your campaign to your Facebook page, Instagram, or both.

Next, choose your ad format. How many photos and/or videos do you want to advertise?

A carousel ad displays multiple photos. Users can scroll through your ad to look through each photo and/or video.

This is a good way to show off multiple products. Plus, Facebook will test what photos perform the best and then place them in order from highest to lowest.

A single image ad is a good choice if your Facebook Ad campaign is targeted toward a specific service or product.

You can also use single image ads to tailor your ad copy with your image, like my example above. Notice how their ad copy is talking about their photo—they work together.

The Collections format is a mix of both the carousel and single image ad. This ad format is made for mobile device users—they can easily scroll through a bunch of items.

This option is more product-focused than the other two formats and looks similar to a shopping catalog. It’s a good choice if you sell multiple products and/or want to target mobile device users.

On another note, I suggest using lifestyle images for your Facebook Ads. I talk about this more here.

Now that your format is settled, you can write your Facebook Ad copy. Your copy should represent your business and be personable to your audience.

Notice the list of ad placements in the middle of the photo?

You can customize your ad copy for each of your ad placements. I recommend analyzing who interacts with your ad placements. Then, customize your copy based on those users.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you offer financial coaching. If your desktop Facebook ads get traction from users who are 40 and older, you can change your copy to fit the vocabulary of a 40-year-old.

7. Track Your Ads

Facebook Ads can better target your audience and meet your objective if it collects the right data.

Facebook offers a few ways to track user data.

1 – Facebook Pixel

You can add this analytics tool to your website and collect data about your visitors. Facebook Pixel can analyze demographics, behavior, and interests.
Whoever visits your site will most likely be interested in your Facebook ads and product, thus driving more sales.

2 – App events

This option can track a user’s actions from your ad, like a purchase.

3 – URL parameters

If your Facebook Ad contains a link outside of Facebook (i.e your website), or to an existing Facebook post, you can use a url parameter.
A url parameter tracks your ad conversions and where your ad traffic comes from. This is beneficial information for future Facebook Ad campaigns.

To Sum Up

Setting up your Facebook Ad campaign takes time, but the results are worth it. You can streamline this process by keeping these 3 questions in mind:

1. What are your Facebook Ad goals?
2. Who’s your targeted audience?
3. What’s your budget?

Analyze your Facebook Ads before, during, and after you create your campaign. If you have any questions, send me a message or leave a comment below.