Facebook Ads for SMM

Hello Friends, welcome to LearnVern.

In the last topic we saw the reason for the decline in Facebook’s organic reach. We also saw the best practices using which we can improve the organic reach. Also we saw how brands are trying to improve their reach.

In this unit, we will talk about facebook ads. We will get introduced to facebook ads, the types of facebook ads available, how they work. All of these we will cover in this session today.

The first, the oldest and the most prevailing Ad unit on Facebook is “Photo”.

On my screen you can see an example of Photo.

“Audi Ireland” has posted a photo ad.

It is just a simple photo, there isn't any activity or interactive moment in it.

So this is how a photo ad on facebook looks like.

The photo will be at the centre of the ad.

On the top will the logo and the name of the page.

Sponsored will be displayed like this, as is visible on my screen.

Then is the content or we may call it a description.

As you can see Audi has posted “watch Audi live”

You can also post your ad content like this.

Then at the bottom is the headline of the ad, the title.

You can also link it to a “call to action” button as the way Audi has done by linking it to the “Learn More” button.

Right, so this way you can add different “call to action” buttons in your ad too.

So what are “photo ads”?

As you can read the definition from my screen.

It is a simple format to feature your photo. You can convey who you are through high-quality images and through illustrations.

The next popular ad is “Video Ad”

The story of your brand can be showcased in a very engaging way in the form of a Video.

The video has feel, sound, motion and definitely a video ad has a capability to drive more engagement than a photo ad.

Facebook accepts different kinds of video in the form of Ads.

Vertical videos, horizontal videos

You can make use of both types of videos.

You can push these videos in stories on Facebook, and you can also run these videos on different platforms of Facebook. You can run them on Instagram and also publish these video ads on different placements too.

The third most popular ad is “Stories”

Offlately, “Stories” have emerged well over the last 1-2 years.

People are now bored with “Posts” but “Stories” have proved themselves to be one of the engaging formats.

So, what are Stories?

Stories are available for 24 hours on Instagram's news feed or the Facebook Feed.

Then they disappear.

So it is a short content, rather can be called as a short lived content.

So if someone is viewing stories then your ad will appear in between.

And the engagement rate of stories is way better than that of post.

 People view stories a lot as its shelf life is less, only 24 hours.

Thus stories fetch a lot of engagement.

This is also one type of Ad provided by Facebook.

You should definitely explore it.

There is only one thing that I would like to emphasise and that is it will offer you a full screen experience.

If you wish to run a “Story Ad” then you need to take a Vertical Dimension.

I will be sharing a couple of links at the end of the unit that will have all the information on the size.

You can customise your Ads based on the sizes available and thereby you can ensure the best use experience for your audience.

The next is “Messenger”.

“Messenger” is basically a Chat based platform.

The way we have WhatsApp, Telegram - similarly Messenger is also a chat based platform.

As I had discussed in my last unit, a lot of brands these days are making maximum use of Chat Automation by which almost a half of the audience queries can be solved or addressed through chatbot. Thus very few people are required to be hired in the customer service department. This also boosts their profitability.

Thus you can run “Messenger” based Ads too.

As you can see from the example on my screen, automatically it keeps giving you the best answers or recommendations to your questions.

The user here has mentioned 75 to 250 Euros and after selecting 75 to 250 Euros, you get these options like :

“Buy this Item”

“See More Like This”

“Ask a Question”

So “Messenger Ad” is also a very good “Ad unit” which you should explore for sure.

Many brands are making use of Messenger Ads -  Do not forget to check out.

Then comes “Carousel”.

You would have come across many images that you need to “swipe right” to view the next image or the next video.

This entire “element” is called “Carousel”

Carousel will be like - swipe right for images, or swipe right for videos.

One thing that you need to keep in mind or keep a note of and that is you can add a total of 10 elements or 10 cards - may it be a video or a photo.

This is called a Carousel, an “Ad unit”.

And under each Ad unit you can also add a customised or personalised link.

As you can see from this image, this is an example of “Air BNB” that sells accommodation. In this example if you see, every image or every card will have a different link. You can also attach a button for “call to action”. Every card can have a different image and different link by which your ad will become more engaging.

Then the next “Ad unit” we have is “Slideshow”.

What is “Slideshow”?

Slideshow ads are ‘video-like ads”, they are very light video ads. They have motion, sound, and text.

These are lightweight clips.

These lightweight clips are displayed differently at different connection speeds. This gives you the best user experience. Hence this is also treated as one of the best “Ad units”.

This displays your product, or your service beautifully on Facebook and on its various placements.

The next important “Ad unit” is “Collections”.

As you can see on my screen - this is a “Collection Ad” of “Adidas”.

Here you will be able to see a small video and below that, the products will be displayed.

As soon as you click on this product, directly you will be directed to the ecommerce store.

Such “collection ads” are run by a lot of “ecommerce companies” on Facebook. A lot of interactive elements are also a part of this ad.

Definitely you should explore this Ad unit.

If you are an ecommerce brand or an ecommerce website or you are an ecommerce mobile app company, then “collection ad” becomes very important for you.

The last is “Playables”

What are Playables?

They are an interactive preview.

On Facebook, you must have seen an “Ad” of a game, then you can enjoy that game for a few seconds, you can actually play the game for a while.

So what experience does Playables offer you?

It allows you to play the game for a few seconds. You must have heard - “Try and Buy”

Playable works something like this.

For a few seconds it allows you to experience that game and thus will enable you to decide whether you wish to download the game or not.

These Playables are majorly used in Mobile Games. This definitely is a good “Ad unit”.

If you wish to promote a “Mobile App’ or “Mobile Game”, then you should definitely consider this.

Facebook has made a good thing and that is “Facebook instant Experience”.

What does a “Facebook instant experience” do?

Suppose you are running a “Landing page Ad”, now what is a “Landing page Ad”?

Suppose you showed an ad to a particular user and now you wish to capture the information about that user to convert it into a lead for a specific website page. This page is called a “Landing page”.

Let me explain to you how this process works.

You viewed an Ad on Facebook and you found that ad interesting. So you clicked on that Facebook ad, this diverts you to a new website that is the website of that brand, then you read the entire page and fill in the form that is the lead form.

What Facebook has done is that they have launched “Facebook Experiences”, where you don’t have to follow all these processes that we just discussed. You can develop the entire landing page on the ecosystem of Facebook. The biggest advantage of doing this is that the entire process becomes “Instant” and without any lag. Thus the entire exit rate or the dropout rate or the bounce rate goes down.

Thus this Facebook instant experience is very useful where within the Facebook’s ecosystem itself you can design the landing page, create the landing page and can capture the user’s information there itself, without the need to make use of external websites or diverting them to our own website.

Let us now understand the “Architecture of Facebook campaign”.

The first is “campaign”

Then is “Ad sets”

And then lastly is Ads

Let us understand all of these one by one.

The first one is “Campaign”

What is a “campaign”?

You need to understand this according to the perspective of “Foundation”.

“Think of the campaign as the foundation of your Ad”

Whenever you run an Ad you need to define the campaign level first. This is where you start to set up your “Facebook ads”.

The very important thing is to choose the “Advertising objective”, that is why you wish to run this ad.

Is it because you want more visibility for your brand?

Is it because you want more leads?

Is it because you want more views on your videos?

Is it because you want more sales?

What is your objective here?

Or maybe you are planning an offline event where you wish more attendance.

Facebook offers many such business objectives and majorly these objectives are divided in 3 parts:

Awareness

Consideration and

Action

Whichever is your business objective out of these 3, you may select that.

And similarly it guides you through the further steps.

So in nutshell, you can define all these in a campaign.

Then comes the 2 part and that is “Ad sets”

What does an “Ad set” do?

In “Ad set” you define your audience. You have a lot of targeting and segmenting options available. Like you wish to target only the females or only the males.

You wish your ad to be visible in the top 8 metro cities of India, then select all those cities and the entire process falls under Ad sets. You can target based on Gender, location, age group, interest, infact in Facebook you also have the option to target based on relationship status. For example, you wish to target only the married couples or married males or you wish to target married females - all these options are definitely available in Facebook

You wish to target parents to sell baby products, then such segmentations are very much available on Facebook.

So all these you need to define under “Ad Sets”, you will define targeting, you will also define scheduling to plan how long you want to run the Ad.

You will also define a budget, on a daily basis how much you wish to spend.

The most important thing you need to know and understand in Facebook Ads and that is, you need to divide your budget for a daily basis.

For example, you have decided the budget of Rs. 3000 for a month.

So what you will do is divide this amount on a per day basis which comes out to Rs. 100 per day.

So with this Rs. 100, you will receive some specific amount of advertising reach, after that your ad post, the campaign will automatically get paused.

This is all about the Ad set  that you need to know.

Lastly, we have is “Ad”

We saw the entire hierarchy starting with Campaign where we define an objective, then comes Ad sets, where we define demographics and targeting, and the third is Ad where we define what we wish to communicate. Is it a video Ad or a photo ad or is it a link. In this particular section, we define What exactly we wish to present to the user.

Here, you can upload your videos, text images, and you can also display a “call to action” button.

You can also showcase, how you wish to engage your users. All of this communication falls under this segment, “Ad”.

How does Facebook deliver Ads?

Let us understand this entire process closely

The first step is, “Advertiser selects Target audience”.

When you input this detail, facebook understands the audience you wish to target.

Then what happens next is: “Facebook moves these Ads to auction stage”

The ad gets controlled through auction.

Based on your budget and audience your ad gets placed into a particular auction. If your ad wins that auction then the ad is presented to the audience. So this is how Facebook runs this process.

Then the last process here is, “Facebook selects the top ads to show to a person based on which ads have the highest total value score.”

Your ad gets ranked, the ads are also assigned a score termed as total value score and based on this your ad is presented to the audience.

That is all for today’s unit. In case you have any questions related to Facebook Ads, then you may login to forums.learnvern.com and post your queries there. Our expert team will try to address your queries as soon as possible.

 If you have any queries or comments then click the discussion button below the video and post there. This way you will  be able to connect to fellow learners and discuss the course. Also our team will try to solve your queries.

In the next topic, we will understand what Instagram Ads are and how do they work.