10 Tips To Run a Successful Facebook Advertising Campaign

We hear a lot from start-ups and brands wanting to advertise on social networks. When I go around chatting with folks in events, Facebook is usually the platform that most people are willing to spend their media dollars on.

It is important to note that Facebook has gone beyond just pages and applications. The media and ad industries are coming to appreciate how Facebook advertising can help to reach targeted audiences based on demographic and geographic data. Of course, activities and content have to be engaging enough to keep the heart of the fans your brought in.

I recently also got in touch with Advit Sahdev, the CEO of ODigMa, to understand Facebook advertising on a deeper level. ODigMa is an India-based social media marketing company which specializes in Facebook advertising. Advit works closely with folks at Facebook and has also helped numerous brands to achieve their communication goals via social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Advit shared some with me insights and tips on how simple actions could lead to greater results when advertising on Facebook. Here are his tips below:

Advit Sahdev, CEO of ODigMa

1. Colors – Choose your image background colors very carefully. Don’t make them very bright but at the same time don’t keep them dull. Also try to ensure that you don’t leave a white background. You can experiment with colors based on your target audience. For example a teenager may not be attracted by navy blue, but it might be attractive to a 50+ year old.

2. Timing – The initial few thousand impressions are very important for any ad copy. Be sure that you start the ad at a time when you expect maximum clicks and maximum conversions. Doing this will improve the performance of your Ad. It is not easy to understand the best timings for a campaign, but you will get this after you have run campaigns and captured data for multiple weeks and months.

3. Pause and Start – You should never leave ads on a 24-hour, 7-day schedule. Pause or start your ads appropriately in times of low traffic or active conversions. There is no set rule or a fixed time to do this. It’s based on a large number of factors, like the demographics of your audience, the day of the week, the time of the day, the day of the month etc. The key is to experiment and find the best times for your particular campaign.

4. Ads Rotation – Even if your ad performs exceptionally well and you are getting great results out of it, change the ads every two or three days (or even earlier) to get better results. In an ideal scenario you should have at least sets of ad copy per target in a campaign, and rotate them every few hours.

5. Synchronization – Ensure that you speak the same language in your ads and on your Welcome/Landing page. The user (clicker) should not be confused by differing messages or mixed signals. The image, description, and title should be in synchronization. If you are out of sync, then you might get a lot of clicks but very few conversions. Will deteriorate the performance of your ad, resulting in higher cost per click as well.

6. Relevance – This is the most important factor for an ad to perform well. You have to be relevant to your target audience. Only once your audience connects with the ad, you will gain the most from advertising on Facebook. Relevancy can be obtained in a multitude of of ways and there are no set rules on ‘how to be relevant.’ The basic question you need to answer is – “Will majority of my audience click on this ad?” If the answer is “Yes”, then your ad is relevant.

7. Analytics – Facebook Ad reports is a very strong and powerful tool to improve your ad campaigns. You can analyze the data and improve the ads based on that. For example you can find out the exact demographics group that are attracted by your ad and those who are not. You can find out the day of the week when your audience clicks are maximum as compared to minimum. Use all this data to improve your campaigns.

8. Images – Images are one of the most important aspect of a Facebook Ad. However, try to avoid stock photos as far as possible. Focus on images that your audience can relate to.