How to advertise for your business on Facebook

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FILE PHOTO: Stickers bearing the Facebook logo are pictured at Facebook Inc's F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, U.S., April 30, 2019. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File PhotoReuters

  • Advertising on Facebook can be a useful tool for small business owners, allowing you to target your audience on a platform that they already use.
  • Facebook advertisers have access to a wide range of metrics, which can help them tailor the ad to the audience and increase the chance of conversion. 
  • Facebook advertisements also depend on an Ad Auction model – each time there’s an opportunity to show an ad to users, Facebook runs an auction and picks a winning ad through a combination of factors.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Facebook ads provide a way for small businesses to reach a targeted audience in a place that their customers already frequent (including Newsfeed, Messenger, and Instagram) with photos and text, as well as a video or slideshow. 

Facebook also gives you access to metrics so you can figure out how your ad is performing, and  make changes to better suit your audience in the future. That’s a great way to turn the casual fan into a customer.

For those with a new business, or who haven’t used Facebook ads before, here’s what you need to know to get yours up and running:

How to advertise for your business on Facebook

Advertising on Facebook is relatively straightforward, provided you already know what you want your ad to look like: 

1. Go to the Facebook Ads Helpcenter and click "Create an Ad" (the blue button in the top-right section of the screen).

1 HOW ADVERTISE FACEBOOKDevon Delfino/Business Insider

2. If necessary, choose the correct account using the dropdown box in the top-left corner of the Ads Manager. Then follow the prompts on the left-side bar to create an ad. 

3. To start, choose a marketing objective for your ad.

There are several options to choose from, including brand awareness, app installations, traffic, messages, video views, and engagement. 

The questions you’ll need to be able to answer here are "What do you want your ad to deliver for you?" and "What do you want the customer to do with the ad?"

2 HOW ADVERTISE FACEBOOKDevon Delfino/Business Insider

You’ll be able to name the campaign and opt-in to A/B testing and budget optimization once you select an objective. You may have to click "set up Ad account" to continue, in which case you’ll have to provide your account country, currency, and time zone.

4. Select an audience.

Who do you want to see this particular advertisement? You can narrow this down by location, age, gender, education, relationship status, previous purchase behavior, and even those with specific interests. 

The more specific you get, the more targeted your ad will be. But the more general you are here, the more potential eyes you could get on your ad. So it’s a bit of a balancing act.

3 HOW ADVERTISE FACEBOOKDevon Delfino/Business Insider

5. Pick where to place your ad.

As noted above, you’ll be able to pick which platforms and methods to use for ad placement (including Messenger and Instagram, and you can narrow it down by specific types of mobile phones within this section). 

You’ll also have the option to set these to auto-placements, meaning Facebook would select where they believe the best places to run your ad would be.

4 HOW ADVERTISE FACEBOOKDevon Delfino/Business Insider

6. Create a budget.

This is pretty straightforward — you’ll be able to choose between a daily budget and a lifetime one. Within this section, you’ll also be able to decide on the ad schedule (for example, establishing a start date).

5 HOW ADVERTISE FACEBOOKDevon Delfino/Business Insider

7. Choose an ad format.

There are eight formats you can choose from:

  • Photo
  • Video
  • Stories
  • Messenger
  • Carousel
  • Slideshow
  • Collection
  • Playables

8. Place your order for the ad.

After you place the order, your ad will go to the Ad Auction — this happens each time there’s an opportunity to show a user an ad, and is used by Facebook to ensure relevance of ads for the user. Since many advertisers may be competing for the same eyes, the winning ad (which the user ends up seeing) is selected based on the following, according to Facebook:

  • The bid amount placed by the advertiser.
  • The estimated action rate (meaning how likely the ad is to be acted upon by the user).
  • The quality of the ad itself.

9. Measure your results.

You can use Facebook’s Ads Manager tool to access the metrics and figure out how the campaign is going.

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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Devon Delfino)

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