Running Facebook ads is an excellent tactic to help you get followers, boost your brand visibility, and generate sales. There is no doubt that it is effective to grow your business.

However, it’s not just about throwing in words and images, and slapping a bunch of links, hoping you’ll get more clicks. Those links won’t help you generate customers.

Just like any marketing campaign, how well will those ads perform is entirely dependent whether you have a winning strategy or not. 

The strategy that you will use can make or break your conversions.

If you don’t have the right strategy in place, the hard-earned money that you will spend on advertising will be going down the drain.

So, in this post, we’ll walk you through the seven secrets on crafting the perfect Facebook ads that convert.

1. Target soft conversions on the News Feed

Unlike how you target users through AdWords, most people on Facebook aren’t specifically looking for products. Instead, they’re browsing through their feed, liking their friend’s latest holiday snaps or watching cat videos.

That means that their buying intent is close to zero. So, don’t immediately go for the product sale with your ads. Instead, start by targeting soft conversions such as email subscriptions, website traffic on the news feed.

By doing so, you can nurture the buying process through remarketing, email marketing, and other strategies.

Choose extensive targeting options and broad audiences. Then, go for visually compelling ads (with very little text) relevant to your prospective customers’ utmost desires ‒ such as saving money, making money, escapism, and so on.

Although they’re quite generic, they can act as powerful tools that will instantly send your brand message across. This strategy couldn’t be more important especially if users are quickly scrolling through their feeds.

2. Layer targeting options to pinpoint buying intent

The targeting options Facebook ads is extensive, letting you identify very specific users that are more likely to purchase something from you.

Unlike what we’ve previously discussed, layering your targeting options isn’t like generating massive amounts of soft conversions. When you layer your targeting options, you’re going right in for the sale.

For this to be possible, you need to layer the targeting options in a way that you can reach highly specific audiences. As a result, you’ll come up with ads that are tailored to them individually.

3. Make the most of Facebook advertising objectives

The platform optimizes its ads for different campaign objectives. Therefore, you’ll be asked what’s your advertising goal is as soon as you come up with an ad. It includes a conversion objective the lets you target new and existing customers depending on the actions that they take on your site. It’s quite similar to AdWords remarketing.

The advantage of conversion objective is that it lets you track the different actions that users take on your site. Then, you can use this on the current stage they are on your sales funnel.

With it, you can come up with ads designed to nudge the customer along the entire buyer’s journey.

4. Optimize your site for conversions

Whenever someone clicks on your ad, it’s traffic that you paid for. So, every lead that you lose in the process comes directly out of your pocket.

That’s precisely why you need to have your site optimized for conversions. Otherwise, you’ll be spending money on nothing.

A great way to start is on your landing pages where you would often compel people to take action. Moreover, don’t forget that most of your leads on Facebook will be coming from mobile devices.

Having a fast loading site that’s optimized for mobile is essential. Aside from that, focus your attention on web forms. See to it that these are not getting in the way of your conversions.

5. Maximize conversions with Facebook Pixel

Facebook Pixel is basically a tracking code that lets you track web users. Then, it lets you specifically target them with your remarketing ads. It’s how you will follow the actions of your users through your conversion objectives.

Through Facebook Pixel, you can do the following:

• Track conversions: View your most successful ads by tracking the actions of users after they click through your website. ‘
• Optimize bids for maximum conversions: Adjust your bids automatically. That way, the ads that you create are more likely to show to people who will convert.
• Remarketing: Allows you to target those who didn’t convert after coming across your ad for the first time.
• Reach out to a broader audience: The Lookalike Audiences feature allows you to reach users that have the same interests with your current leads and customers.

What you can do on Facebook Pixel is that you can target past visitors with your remarketing ads. Either those who visited a specific page on your site or all of your site visitors.

Moreover, you can target users based on the actions that they took on your site. For instance, they added something on their cart, completed a form, signed up on your email list, looked for something on your website, or bought a product.

6. Create segmented Custom Audiences

For you to able to run a successful Facebook campaign, you need to target the right people. The thing is, while you’ll put your ad there in front of a lot of people, your Facebook ad audience can be broad ‒ in every sense.

So if you’re not targeting the right audience, chances are, your ads wouldn’t convert.

For you to target your ads correctly, you need to come up with a custom audience that’s big enough, but highly specific.

To create segmented target audiences, upload your email lists, and then Facebook finds the accounts of those people, letting your target them with ads.

Moreover, you can utilize Custom Audiences to come up with more relevant lookalike audiences.

7. Use targeted ads to nudge people along the buying process

All the points we have tackled so far in creating Facebook ads is building you up for the finale. 

The reason you need to target soft conversions, create custom audiences, and everything else previously? Well, it’s for you to have the right resources that will nudge people along the buying process.

By crafting ads in every stage of the sales funnel, you can effectively target prospective customers with various ads as they progress in the sales process. 

The great thing about it is that you can automate the process so that Facebook itself takes care of the lead nurturing.

Once a user finishes a specific action, they will move on to the next list that’s specifically targeted with your ads.

Over to You

Currently, Facebook has over 2.38 billion monthly active users. Because the platform’s targeting features are in-depth, it’s one of the best places to find qualified leads. So, if you want to get high-quality fans and leads on the platform, then you have to start running Facebook ads.

Maybe three or five years ago, you could become “viral” and get fans and leads for free. But times have changed, and if you want to stay on top of your game, then you need to use Facebook ads.

Author Bio

Kevin Urrutia is the founder of Voy Media, a Facebook Advertising Company based in New York. He is dedicated to helping businesses triumph over the everchanging marketing landscape through the effective use of one of today’s most effective marketing platforms – Facebook. He crafts results-oriented solutions that are tailor-fit for each client his team works with.