So let’s face it; in a world that is so dynamic and rapidly evolving, traditional marketing methods simply don’t yield the results that they used to. The modern consumer is a complex individual, with a multitude of different values, behaviours and needs. This makes it increasingly difficult to effectively market your product or service to your target audience, however, through the use of modern online marketing methods - specifically Facebook Advertising - marketers and business owners are able to take this challenge head-on. Facebook advertising was even used to great effect to persuade voters in both Brexit and the United States Presidential campaign, which actually resulted in President Donald J. Trump being elected into power; and business owners have these tools at their disposal. Read more about the Cambridge Analytica Facebook advertising scandal, here.
Here are some of the main reasons as to why you and your business/es should embrace the power of Facebook Advertising today:
1. Extreme Targeting Capability
No more hit and miss advertising. Facebook offers an extensive range of targeting options, allowing you to precisely target consumers with pinpoint accuracy based on a number of targeting options. These options focus on individual demographics, psychographics and behaviours in order to showcase your offering ONLY to those individuals who best suit your target criteria.
Facebook’s Ads Manager is also an extremely user-friendly feature that allows you to create and run ad campaigns across multiple platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger) in just a few clicks! With the installation of a “tracking pixel” into pages of your website, you are also able to monitor consumer’s behaviour when they visit your website - and retarget them thereafter with offers best suited to their needs.
Facebook also allows you to create custom audiences based on your database; locating past or potential customers through email addresses, phone numbers, etc. You can also create audiences out of all the people who visit your website, as well as people who engage with your social media accounts. This allows you to send retargeting advertisements to customers who are actively interested or who don't take action on your website, which often results in a +30% conversion rate.
Facebook’s most powerful feature by far is their lookalike audiences feature. The Facebook algorithm is able to essentially duplicate an audience with brand new potential customers who have similar behaviours, demographics and/or interests to that audience. Did we mention that these audiences are also often way cheaper to target than targeted & custom audiences?
2. Extensive Analytics
Not only are Facebook Ads extremely targeted, but they also provide you with an extensive range of analytics and reporting - allowing you to gauge the performance of your campaign and make any necessary changes along the way, instead of assessing challenges after the campaign is over and your money is already spent. All the important analytics and statistics - such as conversion rate, cost per result, cost per landing page view, demographic breakdown and other important social metrics - laid out for you in a way that is simple and easy to interpret, so that you can tweak and optimise campaigns in real-time.
When managing a page through Facebook Ads Manager, by simply clicking on the “Insights” tab you can see metrics such as reach, page likes, post engagement as well as your best performing post/s. Better yet - these results are generated for any time frame of your choice, allowing for you to view weekly, monthly or quarterly statistics.
3. Vast Mobile Audience
Mobile Traffic is an extremely important element of any modern marketing campaign as the impact of smartphones and 4G networks continue to expand across the world. Most consumers own smartphones and are constantly engaging with social media every day. With over 2.5 Billion monthly users worldwide (and over 1.5 Billion of these users accessing the platform via mobile, every month), Facebook is undeniably the King of Social Media platforms & Mobile applications.
On average people access social media for 38 minutes a day. This means scheduling your ads & providing them on devices they regularly use is extremely crucial to the success & effectiveness of almost every campaign.
Gone are the days of opportunistic ad placement like mass marketing billboards - with Facebook Ads you can tap into an extremely large audience with precision, and ensure that they encounter your ads or offerings whenever they decide to take a break from the day's activities and have a scroll through their Facebook feed.
4. Improved Brand Awareness
As mentioned above, Facebook users repeatedly check their news field multiple times every day, giving them (your chosen audience) repeated exposure to your ads. According to recent statistics, over 1 Billion users log on to Facebook within a single day. Even if they aren’t initially clicking on your ads or converting, the continued visibility of your ads can help build trust and credibility, as well as improve brand awareness.
5. Organic Facebook Reach is Dead
If you have a business page on Facebook, what you may not be aware of is the fact that only 4% of your page likers & Instagram followers will actually see your posts and updates. While this might come as a bit of a shock to you it is, unfortunately, true. Facebook is a business & needs to monetise their platform, so for the last few years, Facebook has been reducing the visibility of business pages within their user’s feeds, which is extremely frustrating for business owners everywhere.
The truth is, in order to utilise Facebook as a successful and effective marketing tool, you need to make use of Facebook Ads if you want to reach new consumers and entice sales for your brand. For more information on this, read our blog “Organic Social Media is Dead - What Now?!”
So whether you are an already established enterprise or a new small business owner, Facebook Ads is undoubtedly the most powerful and effective marketing campaign tool in your arsenal. The first step is to simply sign yourself up and get started. No more hit and miss advertising - start promoting your brand today with campaigns that are aimed solely at your chosen target audience.