Facebook advertising offers a vast array of possibilities for marketers looking to reach their target audience and drive results. Don’t be put off when we describe these strategies as advanced. They are not complicated to initiate and many of these strategies are covered in our Digital Marketing Essentials course. Take a look at these 5 strategies and see how you fare against them. Is there an opportunity you’re missing?
- Leveraging Custom and Lookalike Audiences
One of the most powerful features of Facebook advertising is the ability to create custom and lookalike audiences. Custom audiences allow you to target users who have already interacted with your brand, such as website visitors, email subscribers, or app users. To create a custom audience, simply upload your customer data, for example your email database. Facebook will try and match individuals from your list so you can advertise to existing customers but using the Facebook or Instagram platform rather than email.
Once you've built a custom audience, you can take it a step further by creating lookalike audiences. Facebook analyzes the characteristics of your custom audience and generates a new audience of users who share similar traits. This helps you reach new, highly qualified prospects who are more likely to engage with your brand.
To maximize the effectiveness of custom and lookalike audiences, be sure to update your data regularly and segment your audiences based on specific behaviors or attributes, such as recent website visitors or high-value customers.
- Harnessing Retargeting and Sequential Advertising
Retargeting is a powerful strategy that allows you to show ads to users who have previously engaged with your brand, helping you stay top of mind and increasing the likelihood of conversions. By using Facebook's pixel or other data sources, you can create retargeting campaigns that show tailored ads to users based on their past interactions.
Sequential advertising takes retargeting a step further by presenting a series of ads in a specific order to guide users along the customer journey. For example, you might first show an awareness-focused ad, followed by a consideration-focused ad, and finally a conversion-focused ad. By crafting a cohesive narrative across your ad sequence, you can build a stronger connection with your audience and lead them towards taking action.
- Utilizing Automated Rules and Bidding Strategies
Facebook offers a variety of automated rules and bidding strategies to help you optimize your ad campaigns. Automated rules enable you to set specific conditions under which your ads will be shown or paused, such as when your cost per conversion exceeds a certain threshold or when your ad frequency becomes too high.
Bidding strategies, on the other hand, determine how much you're willing to pay for your ads to be shown. There are several options available, including cost per action (CPA), lowest cost, and target cost bidding. Each strategy has its merits and is suitable for different campaign objectives:
CPA bidding is ideal when you want to optimize for a specific action, like a purchase or lead submission.
Lowest cost bidding helps you get the most results for your budget, but may lead to fluctuations in costs.
Target cost bidding allows you to maintain a more consistent cost per result, making it suitable for campaigns with a specific ROI goal.
Experiment with different bidding strategies to determine which one works best for your campaigns and objectives. The table below is provided by WordStream and gives a great overview of the different bidding strategies.
- Integrating Messenger and Chatbot Marketing
Facebook Messenger and chatbots open up new opportunities for engaging with your audience, nurturing leads, and driving conversions. Messenger ads can be used to initiate conversations with users, while chatbots can provide personalized, interactive experiences that help guide users towards a specific goal.
To effectively use Messenger and chatbot marketing, start by developing a clear objective for your chatbot, such as providing customer support, answering frequently asked questions, or guiding users through the purchase process. Then, create a conversational flow that feels natural and engaging, and be sure to personalize the experience based on user data and preferences. Integrate your chatbot with your advertising strategy by using click-to-Messenger ads to drive users directly into a conversation with your bot, or by retargeting users who have previously interacted with your chatbot.
Remember to monitor your chatbot's performance and make updates as needed to ensure it continues to provide value to users and support your marketing objectives.
- Exploring Advanced Ad Formats and Placements
Facebook offers a variety of advanced ad formats and placements that can help you stand out from the competition and create a more immersive experience for users. Some of these options include:
Carousel Ads: These ads allow you to showcase multiple images or videos within a single ad unit, making them ideal for showcasing a range of products, telling a story, or highlighting different features of your offering.
Collection Ads: Collection ads feature a primary video or image, followed by a series of smaller images that users can click on to explore more. These ads are perfect for showcasing a product collection or driving users to specific sections of your website.
Instant Experiences: Previously known as Canvas ads, Instant Experiences are full-screen, interactive ads that load quickly on mobile devices. They can include a combination of images, videos, text, and links, and are great for creating immersive, engaging experiences that drive conversions.
While mastering the basics of Facebook advertising is crucial, incorporating some of these more advanced strategies can give you a competitive edge and drive better results for your campaigns. Remember these are not highly technical strategies, several of them are covered on our Digital Marketing Essentials course. If you are still struggling with social media advertising we highly recommend Miranda Bond’s Fast Growth Ecommerce Course: Digital Marketing Essentials to Supercharge Revenues. Learn more here.