The Benefits of Hiring an Expert to Run Your Business Facebook Ads

Businesses shouldn’t leave this important task to chance. It’s much easier to waste money than many think. Knowing how to measure ROI and reducing costs are reason enough to put your Facebook ads management in the best hands.

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I’ve seen it many times…

A small business owner attends the latest-and-greatest seminar and learns that Facebook is an important piece of their digital marketing advertising strategy. Who knew?

Surely, managing Facebook advertising for a business isn’t that hard, he or she thinks. So, they head back to the office with their newfound knowledge and look at their small staff. Who can absorb this duty? The speaker at the seminar stressed the importance of finding someone with pay-per-click knowledge and expertise in advertising strategy and measuring ROI. But, that’s nobody on this team. Surely someone can figure it out…

What about Carl in sales? But he’s on the road a lot… Jenny in fulfillment? But she doesn’t even use social media personally. 

So, it’s decided via process of elimination. Facebook management will now become the duty of the office manager. But, poor Sheryl! She already runs the phones and email, processes payroll and keeps up with everybody’s schedules. 

What Sheryl and her boss don’t fully understand is that correctly managing Facebook ads campaigns requires an in-depth understanding of digital marketing and ad management. To give the ad campaigns the attention they deserve, Sheryl is going to have to neglect some of her other duties. But, emails need answered, and employees expect their paychecks! Nevermind the huge learning curve she’s up against.

Sheryl trepidatiously experiments with boosting random posts and occasionally puts $20 here, $50 there toward an ad campaign, unsure if the goal she set up was logical let alone successful. Is she fostering any lead generation? Are the phones ringing with eager customer inquiries? Nope. What happens when the boss asks if these efforts are working? And when the boss finds out she’s wasted money…?

Clearly, Sheryl is in over her head. Is it time to bring in the experts and stop throwing money away?

Should I Advertise on Facebook?

Most of us know that it’s “pay to play” out there, but here’s how Facebook states it:

“While creating and posting regularly to your Page is a good way to reach new people and your current customers, you may want to consider advertising to expand your reach and grow your online presence more quickly. Today, more and more content is being generated on Facebook, and that means it may be harder to get your content in front of the people you care about most. To keep your audience engaged, reach new people, and share your newest products or services, you can advertise on Facebook.”

Facebook has two billion monthly active users. Believe us, your target audience IS out there. What makes Facebook advertising a powerful platform is its ability to target users by what they are interested in and what they “like.” This is incredibly powerful data for businesses to harness. But, it’s not that simple. 

It’s important to play in this sandbox to grow your Facebook audience and improve your ability to generate quality leads. Facebook advertising can help businesses reach audiences that will love their products and services. . 

Why Experience Matters When It Comes To Facebook Ads Management

Facebook advertising isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes time, diligence and courage, and there are a lot of details to a good Facebook advertising strategy. The foundation is built upon knowledge of pay-per-click advertising. 

Yes, the ability to target specific audiences is astounding, from geographic location and interests to education level and family dynamics. But, understanding how PPC platforms function is critical when it comes to managing costs per click. Smart Facebook advertisers don’t waste their money on audiences that don’t fit their target, nor do they allow Facebook to determine the cost per engagement. They drill deep to spend those advertising dollars only on the Facebook users who are actually likely to respond favorably and how the bidding process works. They understand how competition drives costs. They understand the effect that engagement has on an ad’s ability to be shown in the News Feed. They understand target markets, audience segments, A/B testing and much more

There are dozens of strategic decisions to make when diving into any Facebook advertising campaign. For instance:

Before You Start a Facebook Advertising Campaign, Consider These Questions: 

• What are your business goals? Facebook is going to provide you with a ton of metrics. But, do those metrics mean anything for your business? You can go bankrupt with likes, if you want. What will actually make your business money? And how does that conversion connect to Facebook ads? How do you measure Facebook insights in the context of your real-life goals? 
• What will your monthly budget be? How do you determine it?
• There are many audience demographics to choose from. How do you know you’re making smart choices? 
• What size photos/graphics do I need to choose for optimum performance? Have you factored the additional cost of content creation as well as cost per conversion?
• How often do you need to check on your ads? Hint: It takes daily management, especially for beginners. You’ll want to optimize regularly.
• How do you know if your ads aren’t performing strongly? What methods will you use to understand ads? Will you be trusting Facebook insights alone or using your own metrics? Hint: Facebook makes money off of un-optimized ads campaigns. Their suggestions are by default biased toward you losing money. 
• Should you boost a post? Or run it through Facebook Ads Manager (in which case, should you display it in the news feed or the right column, or both?)?
• Should you use Facebook Business Manager instead? What’s the difference between the different Facebook platforms when it comes to my ads?
• How do you make sure your ad will be approved by Facebook? (Yeah, there are lots of rules.)
• How do you determine with confidence what your advertising dollars got you? i.e. How do you understand your results?

Fundamentals of a Great Facebook Ad

Here’s a great Facebook ad we did for a client that achieved positive results.

The ad performed well because it had many important fundamentals that are key to a successful campaign, including:

• Appeals to the target audience (In this case, 25-55 year old women in West and North Texas)
• Features value proposition of a low price point and delivery
• Provides a compelling offer
• Provides incentive, i.e. promo code
• Clean and well-designed

But, there’s so much more to Facebook ads than creating a good-looking piece of content that appeals to a specific audience. It’s the overarching ability to track campaign success and goals for your business as well as understanding how to responsibly and effectively manage the pay-to-play aspects of digital ads on the Facebook platform. 

Conclusion

Poor Sheryl doesn’t have time to invest the proper attention to Facebook advertising. If she tries and does a bad job, she will waste money. She also puts her company’s good reputation in jeopardy. As this blog addresses, there is much to learn about Facebook advertising, and it doesn’t make sense to force this important skill set onto an employee who’s already wearing many hats.

Expio Digital Marketing helps numerous clients with social media management, including Facebook advertising. We do all of the heavy lifting, all of the strategizing and all of the monitoring, so our clients can focus on their own tasks and rest assured that their Facebook advertising dollars are being wisely spent toward great results. Ask us about helping your business. We’d be delighted to assess your social media needs at no charge.