PB129: How to Create Your Facebook Advertising – 3 Types of Ads to Consider

Darren: Hi there, it’s Darren from ProBlogger here. Welcome to Episode 129 of the ProBlogger Podcast. Today, we’re going to talk about Facebook Advertising.

I know some of you are probably about to hit the stop button because you’re not interested in Facebook in terms of advertising because you’re all about organic, that’s great, that’s totally fine. We’ve actually got an episode on organic Facebook reach coming up soon.

But as most bloggers are aware, Facebook has been putting more and more emphasis into advertising as a way to reach your followers. So, it is something that I know many of you are grappling with. One of the great things about Facebook advertising is that it isn’t something you need to invest a whole heap of money into. It can be something that you can get into for just a few dollars and it can have immediate results on your side.

I don’t do a lot of Facebook advertising, but we over the last year have put more emphasis into it particularly when we’ve been launching products or when I have a key blog post that I need to get out there, or a podcast episode for that matter. Some of you will have seen some of the advertising that we have done for the ProBlogger Facebook page.

I’m not an expert in Facebook Advertising, so I brought in today one of our Facebook advertising subject matter experts from the blog, Angela Ponsford who you’ll be hearing more from on the blog in the coming months. Angela is also speaking at the ProBlogger event in September. She works at Dotti Media where you can find out more about her as well, dottimedia.com is the address for that.

Today, what I’ve asked Angela to do is to just share with us for seven or eight minutes some tips on how to create our first Facebook ad. Facebook advertising can get very overwhelming and very complicated. You can waste a whole heap of money on this, so you do want to do it the right way. But in this particular episode, Angela explains three types of ads to consider for that first Facebook ad and talks about the differences between them.

She talks about boosted posts which is the one that most of us are most familiar with because we see it every time we go to Facebook. On our page, we see the option to boost our post. There are times and places where boosted posts can work and Angela talks about what the boosted post is and when you should use it.

She also shares two other types of ads which may be more appropriate for your first ad and may get you better results. Firstly, click to website ads and secondly, website conversion ads. These are two different types of ads which are not too hard to set up but may have much better results for you depending upon your goals. She gives you some examples of when you should potentially be thinking about using these.

I’m going to leave it at that and hand over to Angela who’s prepared about seven minutes of content on this particular topic first, and then I’ll wrap it up at the end. Here’s Angela.

Angela: Hey, it’s Angela from Dotti Media here. You can find me online at dottimedia.com. Today, I want to talk to you about some Facebook ads and just give you an explanation of some of the types of ads that you might be running as a blogger.

The first one I want to talk to you about is boosted posts. One of the most common things that I hear from people that are running Facebook ads is, “I boosted my post but it didn’t work because nobody came to my website and bought my stuff.” Before we can answer that question and realize that it may not actually be a problem with your Facebook ad, you have to understand how Facebook ads work and how Facebook determines who to show those ads to.

When you’re using Facebook, Facebook is tracking everything that you do. It’s tracking what photos, what videos you’re liking. It’s tracking if you’re commenting on things, it’s tracking if you’re sharing things. It’s using that information to build a database of your interests and your likes.

The other thing that’s happening with Facebook is it’s also measuring what you’re doing off of Facebook. It’s measuring if you’re clicking on links and going to someone’s website. And then once you get to that website, it’s measuring how long you’re spending on that website and if you’re taking any actions on that website such as buying a product, signing up for somebody’s newsletter.

Facebook really is the most amazing database of information on consumers that really exists in the world. As a business owner and a marketer, you have that information available to you to target your ads to.

Let’s come back to the boosted post. Facebook determines objectives for each type of post. The objective of a boosted post within Facebook is to get engagement on that post within the Facebook platform. Therefore, it’s someone liking, commenting, or sharing that post within the platform. If you wanted to get people to see and read your blog post on your website, a boosted post is not the best way to do that.

When would you use a boosted post? Well, if I gave you an example of when I’ve used one for Dotti Media, we wanted some feedback from the fans of our page. We asked a question on the page. I wanted as many people as possible to see that post so I boosted it. I boosted it to the fans of the page so that I could get engagement on that post. That’s an example of when you might want to use a boosted post as well.

I know it’s really, really tempting to hit that boost post button because it’s right there in front of you on Facebook, but the one thing I really need to challenge you to do before you hit it and before you run any ads is to be completely clear on what action you want people to take once they see your ad.

If you do want somebody to click through to your website, then you should run clicks to website ad. Let’s talk about click to website ads and how you set them up. Well, as I said, the aim of that from Facebook’s perspective is to get people to click out to your website. They are going to show that ad to people that have historically indicated within their actions on Facebook that they like to click on links to websites.

I’ll give you an example from my own personal experience. My mom uses Facebook to connect with me and see my photos and my kids, but she never ever clicks through to our website. Facebook is not going to show her an ad or my new blog post because she’s not going to click on it. As I’ve said, it’s a super database for individuals and for marketers to tap into, although it does seem a bit creepy sometimes.

When you set up a clicks to website ad, it’s essentially just you clicking a link in your Facebook status update. Often times I’m sure if you have your Facebook page, you’ll copy the URL of your latest blog post and you’ll just paste it onto the status update box. That essentially becomes the clicks to website ad. And then, you’d have to go into the ads manager to set it up as your clicks to website.

The next one on from a clicks to website, and one that people often get confused about and they mix it up with the clicks to website ad is a website conversion ad. I like to look at these ads and instead you start with the boost post, and then the clicks to website, and then the website conversion ad.

The difference between the website conversion ad and the clicks to website ad is that the conversion ad is when you want someone to take an action on your website. For example, you want them to give you their email address in exchange maybe for your free opt-in or just to get on your newsletter, or the conversion could be that someone buys your product. It’s an action that somebody takes on your website.

As I said, Facebook is measuring and monitoring these things all the time so it knows the people that like to buy things online, that like to sign up for newsletters. If you run a website conversion ad, then it’s going to show your ad to those people that are most likely to take that action.

Obviously, there is a little bit more of setup on your website because you have to be able to track that conversion. I haven’t mentioned the Facebook pixel. It’s basically a little piece of code, sits on your website, and it allows Facebook to track visitors from Facebook. That’s how it gets all this information.

When you’re running the website conversion ad, there is a little bit more code that you have to add to your website. It’s a little bit more advanced, but I can talk about that in another session. But then, it really is a powerful ad and it can give you lots of insight into your audience and it can really help you narrow down who you wanna target with future ads.

That’s a quick say into three of the most common ads that you might want to run as a blogger.

Darren: I hope you found that useful. Thank you, Angela, it’s nice to have another accent on the show as well. I look forward to introducing you to her again in the future. She’s going to be writing some blog posts over on the blog.

Also, I’d love to get her back on the podcast as well to take some of your questions. If you’ve got any questions about what she’s just said or the next steps, I would highly recommend that you head over to the show notes of this particular podcast at problogger.com/podcast/129. There’s an option there to leave questions in two ways. Firstly, you can leave a comment and ask your question there. Angela may be so kind as to answer that question live, but we’ll also take some of those questions in the next podcast episode that I do with Angela and do more of an interview style podcast.

You can also leave a question via audio over on the show notes as well. You see a big green button which invites you to leave me an audio message. You’ve got a couple of minutes to share your message although briefer is better, and we’ll play that on that particular show as well if it’s one that we think is appropriate.

Again, go to problogger.com/podcast/129 and let us know what your Facebook advertising questions are. We also will have an episode in the coming months on organic Facebook reach, we’ve got a social media subject matter expert on that particular topic coming up for you as well. I look forward to that one. Make sure you’re subscribed and you’ll get notified when that one goes live.

Thanks for listening today and we’ll chat with you in a couple of days time with Episode 130.