You don't have to rely on friends and followers to spread the word on social media. Advertising helps you reach the right audience and find new customers. Creating a Facebook Lead Ad, for example, targets new leads based on location, interests, or similarities to your existing contacts. Ads on Facebook and Instagram drive traffic to your website by targeting specific audiences.
If you're looking to reach a younger audience (ages 18 - 29), Instagram will probably be your best bet. Create image-focused content that is fit to inspire! Depending on your business, you can target:
- Travel
- Health
- Beauty
- Fitness
- Fashion
- Art, or Photography lovers
Instagram users love to be influenced!
If you want to reach an older audience (ages 25 - 64) or are trying to reach an international audience, use Facebook to create entertaining content that you want to be discussed. Facebook users are looking for informative and compelling content, such as:
- News updates
- Informative articles
- Personal stories
- Motivational messages
- Thought-provoking questions
Facebook might not be as visual content-focused, but it doesn’t hurt to include eye-catching images to draw attention.
Create a Facebook & Instagram Ad
Facebook and Instagram ads are fully customizable for your intended audience, and you can target your ad to the demographics that make the most sense for your organization, or to an audience that looks like your current contact list.
Keep in mind, activating your ad doesn't make it go live on Facebook and Instagram right away—it first goes through Facebook's ad review process to make sure it meets their content policy. If you're using a Lookalike Audience, you don't have to wait for your audience to finish processing to click the Activate button. Your ad won't be seen until Facebook has finished compiling your Lookalike Audience. Your ad is then automatically activated for you.
You can check the status of a scheduled ad with a Facebook Lookalike Audience through the Details page for your ad. After your ad goes live, give it a little time and then check your reporting. Your reporting shows you how many times Facebook users have been presented with your ad, how many have clicked on it, and the cost of each click based on the budget and time frame for your ad.
Create a Lead Ad for Facebook and Instagram
When Facebook or Instagram users click on your ad, they're presented with a sign-up form that's pre-filled with contact information that they've publicly shared on Facebook and Instagram. New sign-ups are added to your "Facebook Lead Ads" list, and you can further engage them with targeted content.
View results from Lead Ads
Once you've published a Facebook or Instagram ad, it's time to see how your ad is doing. Your results can help you understand if you're targeting the right audience for your organization, and if you're spending the right amount to attract new visitors to your webpage.
Make sure to check back often over the course of your active ad to see how it's performing and make edits to your ad content, budget, audience, or schedule as necessary. When you find a successful combination that works well for you, use the information to create a new ad.
The general Reporting statistics for your ad show you how many times your ad has been displayed to Facebook and Instagram users, how many times people in that group clicked on your ad, and how much it cost you to get those clicks.
Click Reporting to see a breakdown of your results calculated by Facebook. The Performance section shows you:
- Impressions - The number of times an ad is viewed by Facebook and Instagram users through their desktop or mobile feeds.
- Clicks - The total number of clicks the ad receives, including multiple clicks on your ad from the same Facebook or Instagram user.
- Click-through Rate - The total number of clicks from unique Facebook and Instagram users. If a single user clicks on an ad more than once, he is only counted once.
- Cost Per Click - The total is based on the dollar amount you've spent so far divided by your total number of clicks. The amount can change over time as more of your budget is spent and as your clicks increase.
- Daily Activity - Shows you how the impressions, clicks, and cost per click, how much you spend, and ad activity change over the course of the ad's life. Activity is marked on the date that you make any changes to your ad's content, budget, schedule, or audience while the ad is running, so that you can see how the changes impact your ad's performance.
- Audience Statistics - Gives you information about how your ad is performing based on the gender, age, location, and interests of the people who are viewing and then interacting with your ad.
- Interest - Shows you how many leads you generated from people based on the interests you chose when you created the ad. You can edit your interests to add new interests or remove those that aren't performing as well. You can also download your stats. This section doesn't appear for every ad - if the people who are clicking your ad don't share their interests publicly on Facebook, the data won't be available from Facebook to share.
Ultimately, utilizing advertising on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram can greatly enhance your reach and help you find new customers.
Have you run ads on social media? What has worked for you? Let us know in the comments!
