For many small businesses the concept of spending money on Facebook advertising is a scary one. The good news is that you don’t have to spend a huge amount of money to see results. The minimum budget you can set for an ad set is €1 per day and even this will have an impact.
In this post I’m going to look at two ways you can spend your Facebook advertising budget for the best results on €1 a day. And two audiences you can create that will give you better value for your money.
Adverts to Create
1. Carousel ads
Carousel ads are a reasonably new feature on Facebook. You have probably seen them. They display multiple images and links within one ad unit. Look at this example:
If you sell multiple products or offer more than one service they are a great way to maximise your budget.
Why?
Before you can understand the full benefit of carousel ads you need to understand Facebook ad sets.
When you set up ads on Facebook they fit into a three-tier system:
- Your overall campaign, this defines the purpose of the ads, for example, you may want to get click-throughs to your website.
- Ad Sets. Within that campaign, you can have multiple ad sets. If you are selling a product you will have an ad set of each product, if you are selling to different audiences you will have an ad set of each audience.
- Ads, the individual ad units within the ad sets.
When you set up an ad for a product you should give it its own ad set. The minimum budget per ad set is €1, you can include multiple versions of an ad within that set.
Facebook will split test the ads within the ad set and prioritise the ones that get the best results. This is great for getting the most of your advertising budget for a single product but it means that if you put more than one product in one ad set some of those products will get limited reach.
A carousel ad displays multiple products or services within one ad. All your products will be there within the same ad unit for your audience to scroll through. You can set up multiple versions of your carousel ad within a single ad set so you can still split test. The difference is that you are guaranteed to get all your products in front of your target market for €1 per day.
Carousel ads aren’t just for products, you can use them in place of any website clicks ad. Maybe you want to showcase your latest blog posts or services you use.
I particularly liked this one from Visit Scotland that used the carousel to display a widescreen image.
Expected Results
You shouldn’t be paying more than 25c per click, it can take a few days to know if you are hitting your target.
2. Facebook like ads
Facebook Like ads are by far the best way to get people to Like your page. Yes it may cost but you are guaranteed to get exactly the right people to like your page.
When you set up a Likes ad:
Make sure you target very specifically
The minimum amount of people you can target with a Like ad is 1,000. If you are on a low budget I’d recommend keeping the number of people you are targeting low. Try not to go over 5,000 people.
Include something related to the people you are targeting in the ad
This could be a picture of your town if you are a local business or a strong photo relating to an interest you are targeting.
Here’s a perfect example targeting me, a cat lover.
Use eye-catching images
Having a good image is essential. This is what will grab the attention of your audience. Don’t get hung up on one image, I recommend testing a few images within an ad set. I’m often surprised by the image that gets the best results.
Avoid adding too much text to the image itself, Facebook only allows you to have 20% of your image devoted to text so keep in minimal and use the caption section of your ad to tell the story.
Don’t be too spammy, tell people what is in it for them.
People don’t like seeing ads on Facebook. If you really want to succeed stay away from the hard sell. Instead tell people what is in it for them. What do they get in exchange for liking your page. Is it information? Humour? Tips? If people see you are offering value they are far more likely to click.
Here’s an example of a strong call to action, telling me the value of liking the page:
Expected Results
You shouldn’t be spending more than 25c per like but let your ads run for a few days before measuring the results.
Audiences
1. Retargeting Audience
You may not have a big advertising budget but do you get a lot of visits to your website? If so creating a remarketing ad, targeting people who have visited your website in the past could prove to be an effective use of your budget.
You are probably familiar with this style of ad. Perhaps you have looked at a product on Amazon and decided either not to buy or to think about it before you buy. Suddenly you notice this same product appears in a Facebook ad.
Here’s two I got in my feed recently after searching for accommodation in Boston on Booking.com
It’s not just big businesses that can benefit from this. If you are a blogger you can direct previous website visitors to your latest blog post. If you are a retailer why not tell previous visitors about a new product?
You should see a good click through rate when you are targeting visitors who have previously shown an interest in what you do.
To set up a retargeting ad you will need to create a pixel and add it to your website. Here’s how.
2. Lookalike Audience
Lookalike audiences are particularly good for getting Page Likes at a low cost. If you have already built a good, targeted audience for your Facebook page you can target people who are similar to those who already like your page with your ads.
To create a lookalike audience visit your ads manager. Click ‘Audiences’ under tools.
Click ‘Create audience’ and select ‘Lookalike’
Once you have created a lookalike audience you can advertise to that audience. Because they are similar to the people who already like your page you should see a better cost per like than you do from standard Like ads.
What’s next?
I recommend that instead of spending €1 per day that you aggregate your budget over a month and split it between several campaigns. For example you may choose to run page like ads for a week and carousel ads for a week assigning a €15 budget to each.
Have you any Facebook ad tips to share? Have you failed when you have tried these methods? I’d love to hear about your experiences.
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