Are Facebook ads a surefire path to success for your business? Or a great way to get ripped off and burn your hard-earned money?
Most of the business owners I work with have dabbled with Facebook ads, without really getting the results they wanted.
And when we first talk, they all ask me the same questions.
Chances are, you want to know the answers too, so here they are!
1. How do I know my customers are really on Facebook?
They ARE on Facebook. Because practically everyone is on Facebook. Yes, even with a wobbly reputation and tech glitches that throw things off track.
There are a whopping 53.6 million Facebook users in the UK alone. Globally, it is the most-used social media platform by a very wide margin – with 2.8 billion monthly active users worldwide.
And Facebook is used more than once a day by 45% of UK internet users.
What’s more, 30 million UK residents are on Instagram – and Facebook ads allow you to reach people on both platforms. So if you suspect some of your customers spend more time on Instagram than on Facebook, that’s not a problem as your Facebook ads deliver to Instagram users.
Better still, Facebook’s sophisticated targeting techniques allow you to specify who amongst those many millions are YOUR ideal customers. and hone in on them.
So the short answer is definitely yes. Your customers are there.
(Source: statistica.com)
2. How do I know I’ll make a profit from Facebook ads?
You don’t. There are no guarantees. Particularly when you’re using ads to generate leads that may take months to convert into a customer.
But what are your alternatives in reaching a new audience? If you advertise on local radio, on billboards, in a magazine, you have no guarantee that you’ll make money from those either.
You also get no feedback! You have nothing to tell you how many people your radio/magazine ad was able to reach, so you’ve zero data to work from.
Plus you’ll pay upfront – and it won’t be cheap. It’s a sunk cost – if that radio, billboard or magazine ad doesn’t work for you, your money is long gone.
In comparison, Facebook ads are all about testing. You pay as you go along, increasing and decreasing your budget as necessary.
If an ad is a real winner, you can put more money behind it to reach even more people.
You can also improve the success of your ads over time – trying different images, changing headlines, tweaking your targeting – you can experiment and build on your success.
Plus you can quickly ditch any ads that don’t earn their keep, so your money isn’t wasted.
3. How will I know my ads are working?
This is another brilliant difference about Facebook ads compared with more traditional advertising.
Facebook reports in a huge amount of detail – so you can see how many leads came from a specific ad, what the cost per result was, how many people clicked through to your website from it and much, much more.
It will tell you how many people signed up to your email list as a result of your ads, and for what cost per signup.
Here’s a little example!
For just under £150 in ad spend, this client added 291 subscribers to their email list. That’s a cost of £0.51 per subscription! All with one simple ad, a landing page and their email software.
4. How much budget will I need?
This really is the $60 million dollar question. And there’s no straight answer.
It depends on so many factors such as what your goal is and what the competition for ads is like in your field.
You need to look at your business first and ask a few questions:
- How much is a good quality lead worth to you?
- What’s the lifetime value of a customer to you?
- What capacity do you have in your business to scale up?
It’s perfectly possible to get results on Facebook with a budget starting from £10 per day, but you don’t need me to tell you that realistically this won’t be enough if you are selling a £10,000 exclusive coaching programme.
As a rough rule of thumb, £1k pcm is a good baseline, that allows for a reasonable amount of testing and learning, and is a sensible amount for a new launch.
If you’re promoting something which requires a lot more consideration – a coaching course, for example – you’ll need to educate your target customers with a series of ads (known as an ads funnel). Ads for a funnel begin at £1500 pcm.
The key is to budget an amount that is able to cover the results you want to achieve – and an experienced ads manager will be able to advise you on that.
5. It sounds so complicated! How on earth do I get started?
One step at a time!
Work out how much a new lead is worth to you and how much you are willing to spend on ads.
Make sure your website is performing smoothly and you have Facebook’s Business Manager up and running, and you have your tracking installed.
You’ll also need to have your website verified with Facebook and install a few other bits of code. (I can help you with all of this.)
Then, if you want to run ads yourself, you can begin creating some audiences and some ads in Ads Manager for yourself, practice to get familiar with how it all works. You’ll find lots of information on how to get started at www.facebook.com/business. If you’d prefer to have some expert help, you know who to ask! I offer problem-solving sessions that are great for guided support through your first ad setups.
You can also join the waitlist for my Smarter Ads Support Club membership where we take you from the beginning of setting up ads right through to checking results and scaling up your best ads.
Need more help?
So, did my top five Facebook ads questions tell you what you need to know? Or is there something else you need to ask? For any questions regarding Facebook ads and the services I offer, head here and drop me a message.