THE FOLLOWING IS AN "EXCERPT" from the Marlon Sanders "Traffic Dashboard".
This is a free preview of the "Facebook Ads" icon and covers step by step, how to advertise on Facebook!
To access the complete Traffic Dashboard, go to this web page:
http://www.thetrafficdashboard.com/preview.html
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I wasn't a big fan of Facebook advertising at first.
But now I am.
1. They're easier to deal with than Google by tons.
2. Facebook has surpassed Google in terms of traffic.
3. It's about 1000X easier to target your potential prospects on Facebook.
4. You get approved really fast.
Let's get into it.
Step 1.1 - Read the rules
The first thing you need to do is read the rules for what you can and can't do on Facebook.
Step 1.2 - Go to the advertising area
http://www.Facebook.com/advertising
That will take you to where you can place your ad.
Step 1.3 - Enter your URL & click "Suggest an Ad"
Now, you can upload your own photo. But you might be interested to see what Facebook's automated system comes up with. Actually, I created an ad using it and it did quite well!
This is the ad generated mostly by Facebook when I clicked suggest an ad. I modified the copy some:
Facebook loved that ad and gave it more impressions than other ads. I have this theory that Facebook trusts the ad more if it creates it. Anyway, this borught me .66 cost per click and .96% ctr rate...very close to the .1% you're shooting for.
Step 1.4 - Make your title a question
When you're just starting, make your title a question. Later, you can experiment with other types of titles. You have 25 characters for your title.
For my Push Button Letters software above, I could try:
-- Need a Sales Letter?
Here's a successful ad I ran:
Nothing is carved in stone. Any headline that works and gets clicks that are targeted is good enough. Your GOAL is to have over .10 CTR rate. That's all you need. I have above .2 on one of my ads. That's awesome.
Another way to look at it, of course, is what it costs you per click, per opt in and per sale. But a reasonable expectation is to get .1% ctr and nix ads that are less than that.
I do know people who upload 100+ ads and they go for much higher ctr rates. For most people, that's too much work for not enough benefit.
The guy I respect the most on this topic because he is so darned practical is Zach Booker. I can't recommend his ebook too highly if you want to do Facebook Advertising. It's called Facebook Ads Theorem.
Step 1.5 - Find a photo because the photos are almost everything
Earlier I showed you that Facebook will create an ad for you.
You can try that and see how it works.
Probably, you'll need to create your own ad. Here's why: The photo is the most important part. At first, I was frustrated because the Facebook ads are so small. But here's what's really cool about them. You upload your photo and Facebook re-sizes it for you automatically. It's really neat how they do it!
This makes creating your ads a piece of cake.
Your best pictures are paid. But since you can buy the small or extra small size (depending on the site), you'll probably only pay a buck or two.
http://www.bigstockphoto.com -- I pay $3 for the small pictures there. And they have a great selection.
http://www.istockphoto.com -- A little more expensive but not bad at all and great pictures.
Here are a few sites that have free photos. Read the terms before you use them. In general, you'll do a lot better with the paid photo sites.
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
http://www.sxc.hu/
http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp
http://www.morguefile.com/archive/
You typically want to use a picture of a woman looking straight at you, making eye contact. Eye contact is extremely important. Pictures of women tend to work both in ads targeting men and women.
This ad got .175% ctr and .46 a click average:
Notice that she looks friendly and not that much like a professional model. Normally, you'd want to zoom in more on the face like the ad I showed you earlier. You do NOT want pictures that look like professional models. At the same time, it's pretty much hardwired into the human brain in all countries and nationalities of the world to pay attention to attractive people.
It's not necessarily right. But it IS how the human brain functions for whatever reason. Of course, feel free to test whatever pictures you want.
But you can also try pictures of men. Here's a picture with a man that got a .223% ctr (click through rate) and .37 per click.
I ran this ad targeting people who listed all variations of blogging in their profiles. Telling bloggers to NOT do Wordpress is like waving a red flag at a bull! Fun stuff.
Step 1.6 - Buy and download your photo
First you purchase credits on most sites. Then you select the size you want and click download. For Facebook ads, choose the smallest size.
Step 1.7 - Choose your file and select your photo
All you do is select the file and hang out a minute or two while Facebook crunches it down for you.
Some people will run one ad targeting one set of interests or demographics as a campaign an test 10-15 different photos within that campaign.
Others will split the campaign with 1/2 the ads targeting men and 1/2 targeting women and test 10-15 images each, making a total of 30 ads.
Fortunately, you can clone Facebook ads in one click, so this isn't hard to do.
Step 1.8 - Write your text
You can try short and sweet vs. long text. The theory is that the picture and the title are 90% of the response on Facebook ads, so you want short text with a benefit and a call to action.
ALWAYS include a call to action:
-- Click here to see an example
-- See the video now
-- Discover how to right now
You can refer to my ads above for examples of what I used for text and calls to action.
The "Green Knight" method is also something you could test. (ACCESS TO THE GREEN KNIGHT METHOD IS AVAILABLE IN THE FULL TRAFFIC DASHBOARD PRODUCT)
I noticed one person running ugly green ads possibly inspired by this method. Here's a little ad inspired by Bryan:
I've not tested the obnoxious little green ad yet vs. an ad with a person. I may leave that up to you. I suspect people will work better. But who really knows? I guess if Green Knight style ads start popping up alll over Facebook, you'll know you weren't the only one who bought Traffic Dashboard.
Whatever you promise in your ad has to be delivered without a squeeze required. This is why you'll see most ads promise only benefits and nothing too specific. If you do promise something specific, make it easy to deliver in a video quickly before asking for a "like" or an "opt in."
One other thing -- when you write your text use complete and proper grammar. No abbreviations, slang terms or unusual grammar.
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Step Two: Choose Your Targeting |
Here's what is so awesome about Facebook ads. It's easy to target. It's not like Google where you have to spend all this money for keyword tools and then have Google try to sabotage the tool you're using to try to run ads on them!
Step 2.1: Select your country
Unless you're deliberately reaching other demographics, start with UK, United States, Australia, Canada. Or if you're wanting to test more slowly, try just one or two of 'em.
Step 2.2: Choose age and sex
You'll want to target different age ranges that make sense to you. You'll want to run separate ads to male vs. female.
I tested my ads with age 21 to 35 or 40. That's one pretty clear group for my products. Then I test age 40-64.
If the campaign breaks even or is successful, you can go back later and drill down into more specific age categories.
Step 2.3: Choose likes and interests
The trick here is to go through the whole alphabet of possibilities.
The problem for some categories is that even with all the words above, this only gives me a potential audience of 21,420 people who listed ANY of those terms in their profile!
You'd like to see that number at 100,000 or above. I worked at it on another campaign and got a total of 60,000 people. That ended up working pretty good.
The good news here is you can target people by interest very specifically.
Step 2.4: Choose your advanced demographics
If you want to target singles with an offer, you can do that. If you want to target married people, you can do that. If you want
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Step Three: Set your campaigns, pricing & scheduling |
Step 3.1 - Create your campaign name
See the blue link at the bottom? Just click that to create a new campaign.
Some people put a lot of ads in one campaign. Others make them very focused kind of like Google adwords ad groups. At minimum, you probably have 2 headlines x 4 pictures x male x female.
That is 16 ads. With the clone button in Facebook ads, you can bang those out in 10 minutes. If you're really ambitious, you can test more pictures and more headlines.
Step 3.2 - Set your schedule and budget
If you knew that your customers bought in the daytime while at work or the night while at home, or overnight while surfing the Net, you could alter the campaign schedule to match.
I DO know that in my business customers who buy in the daytime respond to different appeals than the ones who buy at night.
For your campaign budget, it's awesome. You can literally start with whatever is comfortable to you. It isn't like Google Adwords where you have to throw up this big budget to try to get impressions.
Step 3.3 - Set your pricing
First, click Advanced Model.
You're going to bid on a CPC -- Cost Per Click -- basis until you have a lot more experience. Some people say that if your ad has a really great CTR rate, you should switch to CPM. But certainly, as a beginner, stick with CPC.
Even though I set my prices towards the low end of the suggested bid, my clicks came in far cheaper. When I bid 2 bucks like this, I still only paid .50-.60 for my clicks. I can't guarantee this will happen to you because the higher your ctr rate, the lower the cost of your clicks.
So set a low daily budget until you get comfortable with the price of your clicks. If you aren't getting impressions, you have to raise your bid.
Some experts suggest checking the suggested bid hourly and lowering your bid as your high ctr rate causes the bid price to go down. Others say you should just let Facebook lower your bid price.
Of course, this assumes you'll get a good ctr rate.
You'll also need to monitor your CTR rate. Depending on how large a group you're advertising to, your ctr rate will start to go down. When this happens, test some nex pictures to boost it back up.
What I noticed is that at first my CTR is really high but after a day, it goes down to around .1%. You're looking for some ads that stabilize around there for awhile.
Step 3.4 - Place your order
Fire it off and see what happens!
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Step Four: Set Up Your Fan Page (optional) |
What's working for some people is sending people FROM their Facebook ad TO their Facebook Fan Page where they have the person either "Like" them or opt into their list. The thinking is that since the person stays within the Facebook environment, it's less threatening and they're more likely to respond. If they "Like" you then your status updates appear on their page. This could practially become the new email. People may not check their email daily but it's a fact that the average user logs into Facebook daily.
Step 4.1 - Click on "ads and pages", the on create page
Here's the button you're looking for.
Step 4.2 - Select "brand or product"
On the next screen, select a category and give your product a name.
Step 4.3 -Upload a tall, vertical image
You have about 200 x 526 pixels to work with.
Here's the one I uploaded to my Facebook and also used on my Squidoo. Now, I did this one myself in Microsoft Power Point. You could go on Fiverr.com and hire someone to do a nice looking one for 5 bucks.
What that does is shoves the advertising on down the page. And it makes anice impression. Some people REALLY pimp out their Facebook Fan Pages. I'd like to see a comparison of numbers. On the surface it seems like that when the page is too commercial, you lose the Facebook feel to it.
TO ACCESS THE COMPLETE TRAFFIC DASHBOARD PRODUCT (INCLUDING THE REST OF THIS ICON) GO TO:
http://www.thetrafficdashboard.com/preview.html
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