What Is The Best Facebook Ad Strategy?

Facebook advertising is changing each year with new algorithm updates and competitors spending more money. It is easy to get lost trying to figure out what Facebook ad strategies work best now.

One thing is clear, Facebook is the most popular among all ad platforms.

Over the past few years organic reach on Facebook has been falling gradually for many accounts. This is because Facebook is rolling out algorithm updates every year pushing companies to spend more money on paid advertising campaigns.

After all, Facebook needs to get paid, right?

Still, whether you like it or not, Facebook is the preferred social media platform among professional marketers and businesses around the world.

Let's not forget that Facebook has the highest number of engaged users.

Through that engagement and social interaction Facebook has gained an unfair advantage over other similar platforms.

What is that you might ask?

It is the endless banks of user data which they have been collecting for years on end.

And it's absolute gold.

But here's the real kicker.

This data is available for any ad campaign you wish to start at the click of a button.

Simply pick a Facebook ad template (lead ad, carousel ad), narrow down your target audience, write captivating ad copy, and voila!

Facebook ad campaigns have never been easier to set up.

The sniper-targeting of Facebook ads allows you to get very scientific and creative at the same while cherry picking the smallest details.

The possibilities are endless with Facebook Ads and that is why all businesses should consider exploring different Facebook Ad strategies.

And for the same reason of the complexity of data it is easy to get lost and make mistakes along the way. But that's ok.

We are here to grow and learn about the best Facebook ad strategies.

6 Best Facebook Ad Strategies

Here is our list of 5 Top Best Facebook Ad Strategies

1. Get To Know Your Target Audience

Before starting anything you must understand who you are talking to. After all, they are real human beings just like you and me. This will be the foundation for your entire Facebook ad strategy.

How to make your target audience whip out their credit cards? Get to know them! Talk to them, learn to speak their language, find out where they like to hang out and drink coffee.

In order to fully take advantage of Facebook targeting you need to know as much as possible about your ideal buyer persona. The key here is to understand your buyer's:

Age
Problems (the more painful the better)
Insecurities
Hobbies
Favorite locations
Phone type

Facebook lets you get to the nitty gritty with your creative ad and specify almost every metric and category imaginable. This is very powerful for anyone looking to create ads that convert into paying customers.

Create An Ideal Buyer Persona

Once you understand your buyer's behaviors you can now begin to create your ideal buyer persona. To do this you will start with creating a custom audience. You can use this technique to create retargeting ads as well.

Create A Custom Audience

Go to Facebook Ads Manager -> Audiences - > Create A Custom Audience.

From here you have multiple options of sources to choose from.

If you took the time to install the Facebook pixel on your website you can choose "website" as Audience Source. With this feature you can set rules for different actions on your website.

When creating a custom audience you can specify the following criteria:

Location - you can target areas that are local to your business. For example, a dentist might target local custom audiences in their city.
Age - if you are targeting facebook users who are fresh university graduates you might want to narrow down your age range to mid 20s.
Interests - say you are running ads for organic coconut shampoo. In this you might choose to target users who like fitness, healthy diet, vegans, vegetarians, etc.
Demographics - if you are recruiting top level talent for a position at your company you will want to target people with higher education or relevant work experience.

Create A Lookalike Audience

If you want to expand your reach, you can use Facebook Lookalike Audiences to target people who have similar interests or are in the same age group as your current customers.

This technique can save you money on ad spend and result in a higher ROI. Since the new leads will look more or less like your existing customers, there is a higher chance of them being interested in your products or offers.

To do this go to Facebook Ads Manager -> Audiences - > Create A Lookalike Audience.

Tips For Using Lookalike Audiences

Use the right source of audience. For example, if you want to build brand awareness you might want to create a Lookalike Audience based on your page fans.
Target people who already interacted with your content. Such as video ads, recent website visitors, or email subscribers.
Experiment with audience size. Smaller audience will better match your ideal buyer persona whereas a larger audience will have a greater reach but less similarity. You can optimize for similarity or reach in this case.
Avoid broad range visitors. A smaller audience will always perform better than a larger one where the bounce rate is usually much higher. Remember, it's always better to have fewer loyal customers than people not interested in what you have to offer.

If you need helping setting up a profitable Facebook ad campaign we recommend Swanny.

Swanny is a true legend in the Facebook advertising space. He can set up any Facebook ad in no time and his service, and guidance are unmatched.

This service works best for general contractors such as:

Landscapers
HVAC
Roofing
Renovations
Carpenters
Tree Service
Concrete and Paving
Painters
Carpet Cleaning
Duct Cleaning

2. Choose The Right Ad Format

Facebook ads have come a long way since their inception. Today, Facebook offers the following ad types:

Image ads

If your goal is to drive visitors to your website, single image ads can prove very effective. This ad type is quite easy to set up and test.

There are less variables in image ads in comparison to video ads so it's relatively easy to test them with different variations of your ad copy.

This Facebook strategy allows you to insert a copy in the ad image in the included spaces. This image goes into the Facebook news feed.

Video ads

One of the strengths of video ads is that video content, if produced correctly, can be very captivating in a matter of seconds. Videos help get a better sense of your product or offer.

A video ad needs to be no shorter than 1 second to 240 minutes. I need an aspect ratio of 9:16 or 16:9. The latest addition to Facebook video ads is the 360 degree camera - an immersive experience that lets you move around the camera by dragging your finger on the screen.

The video ad features help educate your audience about your product features using video.

Not everybody likes or even knows how to create video ads. This can be a daunting task if you don't have the necessary gear and equipment. Here, everything matters: the light, the resolution, the color, the background, the lens zoom. All these variables can cause a major headache.

But don't worry! Not only you don't have to do it by yourself or spend a fortune. You can hire a freelancer to do the job for you.

We recommend DigitalIndiaa for short video ads.

Stories

Facebook's stories lets you create short video clips. They are usually made in portrait mode which, combined with the wide angle lens found in most smart phones these days, make the viewing experience virtually impossible to pass.

This type of video marketing is very powerful due to the fact that people tend to share their private lives to a great extent. This captures the attention of the viewer unlike anything else.

Simply put, stories are addictive. Everybody is watching them these days. Why not take advantage of all those people?

Now not only can you promote your product in video ads, but you can also put your Facebook video ad in Facebook stories. Brilliant! Even more so that big companies realize the potential of this technique and invest more resources into building a loyal following that is ready to pay.

Many major companies and corporations are already on board the stories train. Why not you?

Messenger Ads

Another new feature in Facebook ads are the ads in Facebook Messenger.

You might ask yourself, why would I want to advertise on Messenger?

Well, Messenger is one of the most popular messenger apps in the world. People use it daily for business and leisure. In many ways Facebook Messenger is the modern equivalent to word of mouth marketing. After all, people like to talk. A lot.

And when they do, they exchange opinions and ideas. This all happens directly when users interact with each other. The anticipation of reading that new message is hard to resist and should be taken into consideration in all facebook campaigns.

Ads in Messenger look almost exactly the same as a direct message in your messages list.

When you click the ad message it will start a conversation with a question about the product or service you are interested in. The questions and answers are premade in order to help the users get what they want in as little time as possible.

The more time it takes to program your messenger bot the higher the conversion rates you will get.

Carousel Ads

What better way to tell a story than moving pictures? Carousel ads can tell powerful stories and are up to 50% cheaper than other ads.

A carousel ad can contain up to 10 slides. The story is told using pictures that you can swipe left and right. You can use videos as well.

Collection ads can showcase a fashion line in a beautifully designed spinning carousel.

The fact that you can interact with this type of Facebook ad makes it very engaging. Tests show that carousel ads can be 10 times more effective than regular ads.

These ads can be shown on your main feed, right column, Instant Experience, and Facebook marketplace.

3. Facebook Ads + Instagram Ads

Now you combine Facebook ads with Instagram ads. This can be achieved by using the same ad creatives and displaying them on the mobile feed on both platforms.

Long gone are the days when personal computers dominated the Internet space.

Today, mobile ads make up over 90% of Facebook ad revenue.

The phone is an extension of people and an inseparable device for simple daily tasks, payments, purchases, finding information, and work.

In order to fully take advantage of this you might want to look into creating a mobile-friendly ad for Facebook and Instagram.

Your landing page should be optimized for mobile. Make sure the font is easy to read on mobile and is correctly spaced out. Don't drive mobile traffic to a desktop web page as it is often very difficult to read on a small screen.

Once you set up your Facebook mobile ad you can now choose to display it on Instagram as well.

This is both convenient and can potentially save costs. We've had our costs go down by 10% to 20% while running Facebook and Instagram ads simultaneously.

Keep in mind that ads for desktop and mobile are quite different, mainly due to screen size available real estate.

Desktop ads have much more leg room so you have to be even more detailed and picky with your Facebook mobile ads.

Mobile ads put an emphasis on the text underneath the headline which is smaller compared to the desktop version. Focus on the body text of your ad copy in your mobile ads.

4. Upsell Ads

Converting cold traffic in most cases is much more difficult and will cost way more.

Why not take advantage of retargeting ads? You already spent your hard earned money to generate leads so let's find out how to use this data.

Many companies report that the majority of their revenues come from returning customers.

You will need to create a Custom Audience and select "People who visited specific web pages".

Your landing page visitors might not have made a purchase the first time they came across your website but that doesn't mean they never will.

They might just need a little extra push. They already know who you are, what your brand stands for. Upselling strategies are one of the most powerful tools you can utilize in Facebook ads.

To go even further, you can target past customers who made a purchase a few months ago.

You can run retargeting ads offering those customers a product that would complement something they already bought.

Offering discounts in retargeting ads is another effective way of increasing revenue without breaking the bank.

This works exceptionally well in B2C settings.

5. Dynamic Facebook Ads

Dynamic Facebook ads have proven to bring one of the highest ROIs for online shops and e-commerce stores.

The beauty of a dynamic Facebook ad is that it pushes highly-tailored ads to Facebook users based on their actions. We believe every successful marketing funnel should incorporate the magic of dynamic ads.

It's probably your best bet if you have a shop with a lot of products to choose from. Users often have second thoughts about certain product types so why not help them out and give them some useful suggestions? That's how you can truly take care of your target audience and provide real world value.

You can combine dynamic ads with carousel ads that display multiple products.

The magic in here is that this dynamic product ad will show products that the user saw previously. Brilliant for those who have a hard time making buying decisions.

In order to properly run dynamic Facebook ads you will have to configure the Facebook pixel.

If you are not sure how to do it or have an error (pixel not firing, verification problems, or setting up events) you can hire a specialist.

We recommend Exprotarek.

Exprotarek will not only set up a dynamic product ad but he will also make sure your Facebook pixel is running smoothly.

6. Combine Ads With Content

One factor that many companies tend to neglect after they turn a cold lead into a warm lead is the content.

Your content should complement your Facebook ad.

Why?

Because return customers are the best customers. And it's cheaper to keep them rather than getting new ones.

There is often a gap between cold and warm leads. This gap can be filled with content marketing.

Today, Google values good content more than anything. The more helpful content you can put out the more Google will like you. This is because you are trying to help the user in as many ways as possible.

Just think about it.

If you make great content and it helps someone with a problem, isn't that worth something?

Of course it is. And this is how you can maximize your ROI by supplementing your Facebook ads.

On top of that, publishing relevant content helps your business rank higher in Google and improve SEO.

What Type Of Content Is Best?

Try to identify the biggest pain points of your customers - the bigger the better.

We've learned that the more painful the problem the more likely people are to take out their credit cards and pay.

But bland content just won't cut it.

You have to spice it up a little bit.

Valuable content should:

Be straight to the point
Clear and easy to understand
Carry emotions
Provide free help
Give solutions

Make the content so good and interesting to read that people want to share it.

Do try to be a salesman right off the bat. Try to offer help. With help comes gratitude and with that comes compensation. After all, if you are solving real world problems, you should get compensated for that. It's a fair game.

Successful lead nurturing campaigns must take into account the entire content plan. The marketing plan should include clear campaign objectives approved by the marketing team.

Best Practices For Promoting Content

The Content Marketing Institute published an article on the best tactics to promote content on Facebook. We use the same practices for all our marketing campaigns.

Here are the steps:

Share your post on Facebook.
Ask your friends, family, and team members to share the post.
Boost your Facebook post.
Write captivating headlines.
Use well-designed images.
Write copy that immediately captures attention.

There is no question that content marketing is king. Make content so good that people instantly want to share it.

Social proof is your digital currency.

You can earn it in multiple ways while getting very creative replicating a Facebook page post across multiple ad campaigns.

Best Facebook Ad Examples

1. Slack

This ad from Slack shows a woman riding a unicorn with a rainbow background.

Next we read “What it feels like to sit in 25% fewer meetings.” We love this ad because it immediately targets big pain points for all business owners - wasted time during meetings.

It is further reinforced by the headline: "Make Work Better" with the description explaining that it channels all communications into one place.

This is great copywriting because it is clear that no one likes meetings and Slack is the best solution to this problem.

The image itself evokes positive feelings and happy emotions. It makes you think of work to be more fun than it actually is.

2. Sephora

This Sephora ad is a great example of a video ad. And Facebook loves it.

In essence, video is more enticing than still images.

This campaign generated a 41% higher click through rate than previous ad creatives.

facebook ad example - sephora

What makes this ad work is the high contrast in black and white colors. After the flashing hair we have exploding colors right into your face. This effect is sure to draw attention.

3. Pura Vida

This Pura Vida ad is a great example of a carousel ad.

No more boring still ads. Here we have an interactive collection of products that you can easily swipe.

This campaign brought in 20 times more unique products sold.

facebook ad example - pura via

What we loved about this ad is the superb selection of eye-catching colors and images. The user generated content is also a big sell point here and ultimately closes the sale due to its personal nature.

With each slide you go deeper into the funnel.