You don't need to be a professional to manage Facebook ads for your online store—you just
need to sit down, buckle up and follow through the six steps I'm gonna share in this video.
This is your one-stop shop for Facebook advertising.
FACEBOOK ADS FOR BEGINNERS 2019
Hey, it’s Wes from Printful!
In this video we will go over all you need to know about Facebook and Instagram ads in
one sitting—how to find an audience, set up retargeting, create ads and keep it all
up and running.
If you want to jump to a specific part of the video, you can do so by using the timestamps
in the description down below.
Before we begin, make sure you subscribe to our channel and tap on the little bell icon
to get notified about our latest videos and never miss out on new ways to make your store
more successful.
STEP ONE: SET UP FACEBOOK BUSINESS MANAGER
Now, this shouldn't come as a surprise to you—you'll need to create a Facebook page
to create ads both on Facebook and Instagram.
If you haven't done that yet, head to Facebook and create a page now, there's a link in the
description that will guide you through it.
An Instagram account isn't necessary to launch Instagram ads, but, if you're interested in
Instagram marketing, watch our video that'll teach you all about it, link in the description
below.
Once you've set up your Facebook page, move to business.facebook.com, because we're going
to organize all of our work from there.
If you haven't used Facebook Business Manager before, you'll be asked to create an account
for your business.
We recommend using the Business Manager because that's the only way to set up most of the
features that Facebook Ads offer, including the ones we're gonna go through in this video.
Once you've signed up, you'll need to add your Facebook page to the Business Manager
account and create an Ad account.
If you already have an Ad account for your page, you can claim it.
There's a link to a step by step guide of the whole process in the description below.
Note, that you should always choose a trusted partner to also add as a second admin for
your Business Manager, even if you plan to do the work alone - just in case you get locked
out of your account.
STEP TWO: FIND YOUR AUDIENCE
Now, the fun part.
The audience for your Facebook and Instagram ads should be people you're selling to - those
you had in mind when designing your store and products.
If you're not sure about the details yet, don't worry, because that's what we're going
to start with.
One way to start your audience research is the Audience Insights tool.
Facebook has an abundance of valuable information on its users and your potential customers,
and here's where you can play around with it.
There are two ways to use the tool.
First, if your Facebook page already has a following, you can add it here and see specific
details about your existing audience.
If you are an international seller, don't forget to delete the United States variable
in the location tab over here.
If you're just starting and there's not much to go off yet, don't worry.
The second way to use the tool is to create an audience from scratch.
For example, I'm going to see what I can gather about the audience I have in mind - new dads
that are into computer programming.
In the Audience Insights tool, you can select any number of variables, starting from location,
age and gender to interests, education, relationship status and even political affiliations in
the United States.
Which variables you mix together depends on what your target audience is and we recommend
playing around and experimenting with this tool even when your audience is well established.
You can experiment with other audience segments later on, especially when promoting products
that need more specific targeting.
For example, while your audience might be new dads, you could create a product that
is meant specifically for newlywed dads.
Once you've started to flesh out your audience, you're gonna notice that in some categories
there's a very low percentage of potential customers.
I'd recommend removing those age groups altogether, so that you don't waste your time spending
money on an age group which is less likely to be your target audience.
Next, if you switch over to the Page Likes tab you can see pages and categories your
target audience is interested in.
This section will help you in two ways - narrowing down your audience and keeping track of your
competitors.
Here you can see that, while there is some dad stuff here, there's not enough to say
you've narrowed it down to a niche.
Let's add an additional interest - parenting.
Now you can see a lot more dad-oriented Facebook pages here.
You can click around and check those pages out, learn what kind of posts work for them,
what ads they have, and you can also be more certain that this is the audience you should
be aiming for.
The next tab in the Audience Insights tool is locations.
If you have a very local product, you might want to use the top towns and cities tab,
but for this audience I'm gonna switch to top countries.
This chart right here shows that we could have an audience for our niche products not
only in the US, but also UK, Canada and Australia.
Knowing this will help you narrow down your audience even more, and you won't spend too
much money on countries where ads are cheaper, but your audience isn't present.
Next, the activity tab.
Here you can see if your audience often engages with FB content in general - keep this in
mind and be wary of audiences where engagement rates are low, these people are less likely
to like your page or buy your products.
You should also pay attention to what devices your audience is using - you can see here
that most people in this niche audience are mobile-only users, so you have to adapt both
your ads and your website to mobile shoppers.
Now, when you go back to the demographics tab, take a look at the relationship status
graph.
Most people in our audience are married, which means we could also target their partners
as potential customers.
This is especially useful when you market your products as gifts on father’s day,
for example.
Once you're done tweaking your audience, save it by clicking here.
Open all tools and go to Audiences.
Here you will find all the audiences you created and get familiar with the real secret to Facebook
advertising - retargeting.
STEP THREE: SET UP RETARGETING
Note that there are three types of audiences on Facebook.
Saved, Custom and Lookalike.
A Saved audience is like the one we just created - based on specific variables, like demographics,
interests, behaviours and other Facebook user data.
These kinds of audiences will work for you if you are just starting and have to build
a customer base from scratch.
A Custom audience, however, is a more specific group of people who have already engaged with
your content.
Custom audiences are the ones you use for retargeting.
For most online stores, 95% of visitors leave without buying.
These people have stumbled upon your shop, but left without a purchase.
Maybe they got distracted, maybe the timing was bad or maybe they just weren't sure about
the product just yet.
Retargeting means reminding your potential customers that they have “unfinished business”
with your shop.
The average return on investment of retargeting ads is 200%.
That is, for every $10 you spend on your ads, you get at least $20 back.
It works so well because it's easier to convert people who already know and recognize your
brand than those who’ve never heard of you.
The data sources for Custom audiences on Facebook are divided into two groups.
First, there's the data Facebook and Instagram has collected for you, like what percentage
of a video post they have seen, have they interacted with your page in any way, attended
any of your events and so on.
Almost no set-up is needed for this, as the data is collected automatically - the only
thing you'll need to connect is Instagram, if you plan on using the platform for marketing.
The other group is your sources - that means website traffic, existing lists of customers
and other data.
This is the heart and soul of retargeting campaigns.
Using this data, you can find people who have looked at your store, but not bought anything,
people who were interested in specific products that you can advertise to them again and tons
of other options.
For this, you'll need to install the Facebook Pixel.
Facebook Pixel is a smart little code that you can put on your site that connects your
customers with their Facebook profiles, making it possible for you to advertise to them on
Facebook.
To create a new Facebook Pixel, simply click on the Website traffic source.
A new window with a detailed guide on creating the pixel and installing it on your site will
appear, so don't worry about getting lost - for most ecommerce platforms the setup is
as easy as pushing a few buttons.
You can also find a guide on how to install Facebook Pixel in the description below.
Once you've set up Facebook Pixel, you'll be able to target people who have visited
your checkout page, but didn't visit your thank you page.
That way, you're targeting people who have abandoned their cart and urge them to finish
what they started.
For that, you can use the include and exclude buttons over here.
Now that that's done, let's move to the third audience type - the Lookalike audience.
Lookalike audiences are only available for set up on top of already existing Custom audiences.
The idea is simple - Facebook takes the data from the Custom audience you created and,
if it is large enough, shows your ads to similar people who might behave the same way.
When creating a Lookalike audience, first you need to choose the Custom audience to
base this off.
Then you can choose the location of your new target group, for example, if you know that
your current audience is from the UK, based on your Audience Insights, but you want to
find a similar audience in the US, type that in here.
And finally, you need to choose how much do you want your Lookalike audience to differ
from the Custom audience on a scale from 1 to 10%.
1% is the most similar to your base and 10% means a bigger, broader audience.
The percentage you should put here depends on your Custom audience size - for a bigger
audience you should use a smaller percentage, as Facebook will have enough data to work
off and create a decent sized Lookalike audience.
If you're just beginning and have a small Custom audience sample, we recommend to use
a broader audience for best results.
If the Facebook algorithm has enough data, it can be incredibly effective in finding
the right people for your store and you will eventually be able to leave the targeting
to the algorithm.
Generally speaking, it is better to focus on individuals who have already shown interest
in your brand.
So, even if you need to start with Saved audiences because you haven't had enough traffic to
your site or social media profiles, be sure to build those Custom audiences along the way.
STEP FOUR: SET UP YOUR AD CAMPAIGN
Let's go through the process of creating an ad campaign.
For that, you're going to need to use the Ads Manager tool.
This will be the central station for all of your campaigns and ads.
To begin, click on Create ad.
First, you'll need to choose your marketing objective.
Depending on what you choose, the Facebook algorithm will find people within your Saved,
Custom or Lookalike audiences who are the most likely to do the thing you have chosen
as your objective.
Facebook offers a lot of options here, but the ones we're going to focus on are Engagement,
Traffic and Conversions - exactly in that order.
First, engagement.
When you have just started your online store, there isn't much use of trying to get traffic
to your site, if the Facebook page you're launching your ads from has zero followers,
the posts you have posted have no likes, shares or comments.
That's where the engagement objective comes in.
Engagement-oriented ads won't necessarily bring you a lot of revenue, but they are perfect
for giving your brand more credibility.
You can use engagement ads on existing posts on your page and don't be afraid to post content
not directly connected to your products.
Try out memes or engagement oriented giveaways - anything that might push for more interaction.
This is a great way to grow your following.
Once a person has engaged with a post from your page, you can invite them to like the
page directly with the Invite button under your posts.
Next, Traffic.
Once you've got enough people following you and ready to engage with your Facebook content,
you can direct them to your store.
This is a good way to find out where they go once they are in the store, get them familiar
with your products and read more about you.
Traffic-oriented ads may get you your first sales, but don't count on it.
These kinds of ads are much better for gathering data on people that you will be able to use
for retargeting later.
To really get them to buy, you'll need to focus on Conversions.
The Conversion objective will push the Facebook algorithm to find people more likely to actually
do something on your store.
The aim might be purchases, sign ups or subscriptions - whatever suits you best.
For the Conversions to work, you will need to set up Pixel Events that you want your
customers to do.
For example, one event can be making a purchase, another - adding a product to a cart, another
- subscribing to the newsletter.
You can create a new event by going to your Pixels page in the Business Manager.
There will be a guide on how to set up specific Events there, but we'll leave a link to it
in the description as well.
Remember to test your events to verify that they are working correctly - you can do that
in the Pixels control panel.
Once you've chosen your objective, you can give your campaign a name you'll recognize
and decide whether or not you want to A/B test it.
A/B testing is useful when starting up and trying out different audiences.
More on that later.
Next, your audiences.
You can create a new audience from scratch and even save it to your library for later
use here or you can use the ones you've set up in previous steps here.
The audience creation process here is similar to the one in Audience Insights in Step Two
of this video.
As for ad placements, in most cases I'd recommend trusting the algorithm to find the best placement
for your ads with automatic placements.
However, if you have Facebook or Instagram specific ads, that's when you should edit
your placements and select just those that fit your content.
The next thing you should definitely pay attention to is Daily or Lifetime budget.
If you have a lot of money on your hands, you can choose a Daily spending limit and
leave it at that, but I'd recommend setting a lifetime budget and schedule the time period
in which you'll spend it, to avoid accidents like forgetting about a campaign and letting
it run on 50 dollars a day for a month.
That's a lot of money!
And finally, once you've set your budget, it's time to create the actual ad content.
STEP FIVE: CREATE AD CONTENT
When it comes to your ad content, there are a few things to keep in mind.
All parts of your ad can be ranked in order of importance.
Facebook already has created a sort of visual hierarchy for their posts – the bigger the
element, the more importance it has.
Remember this hierarchy when you create your ads - don't put the most valuable information
in the link description, for example, as your audience is very unlikely to read it at all.
So let's start with the biggest element - the photo.
There are three things that are proven to work for product ad visuals on Facebook.
First, a high-quality, zoomed in product photo.
You want your product to be clearly visible on all screens, so a closeup is a must.
Second - colorful images.
Bright colors will help you stand out more and catch the attention of your customers.
And the third - people pointing.
It is proven that pictures of people pointing and making eye contact increases positive
feelings towards the product and encourages consumers to buy it.
In addition to these, you must also remember the 20% text rule - all ads on Facebook must
have less than 20% of text in their images.
That includes photos as well as video and link thumbnails.
If you don't follow this rule, your ad might not get approved, much less hope for decent
results and revenue.
A useful tool for checking whether or not Facebook will accept your ad is the Text Overlay
tool, link in the description.
Here you can upload your images before putting them in your ads and the tool will rate the
amount of text in your image.
It is recommended to always stay with the green OK rating for good ad results.
This tool is also useful for checking images that will go on your feed without paid promotions
- the 20% rule is based on the fact that photos with less text get more engagements and look
better on the feed.
As for the ad copy, I'd suggest three things to keep in mind - first, use social proof
when possible.
Nothing works better than showing that there are people who’ve already bought your product,
trust you and recommend you to others.
Second, good grammar is a must, plus you should also try to use words that your audience will
recognize and relate to.
For example, instead of “male products” you should use words like “men”, “boys”
or “gentlemen”.
Another proven thing to work in product ads is a deal, giveaway or an exclusive offer
- like free shipping or coupons.
Play with your audience's emotions a little - create urgency, raise curiosity, use humor
if you can.
When you're just starting out, definitely use existing posts for your ads - that way
you will have both new ad material to promote and fresh content for your Facebook page.
And last but not least, don't be afraid to keep an eye on your competitors - use the
Audience Insights tool to find out what other Facebook pages your audience follows and learn
from their success.
You can see all of the ads that a page is currently running in the Facebook Page Transparency section.
STEP SIX: KEEP IT GOING
Creating your first ad is just the beginning.
Now you need to test if it works.
As I mentioned before, the Facebook algorithm can be incredibly effective in finding the
right people for your store, but you have to give it something to work with.
For each campaign, you can create an unlimited number of different ads.
For example, you could switch up the audience - use the same ad for Custom and Lookalike
audiences.
Another option is to create different variations of the same ad for the same audience - for
example, use an image in one ad and a carousel in another.
Now, put some 5-15 dollars on each of those ad sets and let them run for a day or two.
After that, see which ones work the best and increase their budget.
Terminate the ads that don't yield results, but don’t judge too fast - run the ads for
at least 24 hours to get reliable results.
The algorithm needs some time to find the audience that works best for you.
Once your sales start rolling in, you can repeat the cycle with new campaigns and ad
variations, and direct your revenue to test more ads.
Don't be afraid to keep running successful ads - let the algorithm find new people to
show your successful ad to.
You don't always have to think of something new.
You can customize your Ad Manager dashboard to show you those metrics that are useful
for deciding which ads work best.
Find the Customise columns option on your dashboard.
How you organize it depends on your goals, but I'd recommend putting up Frequency.
This metric shows how many times one person has seen your ad - if this number goes higher
than 3 or 4, it means that the ad isn't reaching any new people and you should probably shut
it down.
Other metrics to keep an eye on are Quality and Engagement rate rankings, as well as Cost
per result.
You can compare these metrics against each of your ads to determine which ones are doing better.
BONUS: INVEST IN YOUR BRAND
And finally, while the Facebook algorithm is working to find your new customers, you
should pay attention to where you are leading them to.
Make sure your landing pages are finished and look good - remember to test them from
mobile devices and different browsers.
Concentrate on gaining more likes and followers and encourage your customers to post reviews
to get some social proof for your products.
Remember to stay consistent throughout all of your channels - have the same writing and
visual style on your site and FB page.
For more tips on how to take care of your brand image, check out our video on the Top
10 Ecommerce Store Mistakes You're Making.
And that's it!
You can find a checklist of all six steps in the description below, along with all of
the resources I mentioned in the video.
What else do you want to know about marketing your store?
Let me know in the comments below!